Judge Bachmann

Judge Carolyn Bachmann was a major villain in the 2000 AD comic strip Judge Dredd. She was the main antagonist of the stories "The Cold Deck" and "Trifecta".

Al Ewing told SFX "Originally, Bachmann was just someone for Dredd to bounce off, so the second half of that story could take place in real time, a month after the first half. And then it turned out that she was very popular, so I felt that I needed to finish her story quickly, so she wasn’t just another Dredd villain simmering in the background for years and years, which was why I pushed for her to be the Big Bad of ‘Trifecta’. It was literally me saying, ‘I have a villain going spare, can we use her?".

Biography
In 2114, Chief Judge McGruder place Bachmann in charge of the Black Ops Division and was deliberately kept out of sight, she had been involved in protecting the city during the various disasters since then. When Hershey became Chief Judge, Bachmann was waiting and made herself indispensable.

Bachmann secretly programmed her Black Ops agents to refer to Mega-City One as "God City" and refer to Bachmann as "Your Holiness". Chief Judge Hershey thought of her as "vicious, underhand - power-mad even", but she was careful and clever enough to remove all traces of her illegal actions. Unknown to Hershey, since 2128, Bachmann had ben an alliance with the firm Overdrive Incorporated by using her black budget, and they building a secret Luna-Two mega-city on the moon.

When Dredd first encountered Bachmann, she claimed that she was just an administration staff (she did it as a hobby) but Dredd knew she was Black Ops. He suspected her of planning a series of murders, from Judges to mutant deputies in Township Three in the Cursed Earth. Bachmann then practically admitted to her actions and arranged for a Judge who hates mutants to take control of the town, and she advised Dredd to stay out of it.

In 2134, after most of Mega-City One was destroyed after "Day of Chaos", Chief Judge Hershey announced that Bachmann was going to be a member the Council of Five as the head of a new Undercover Operations Division, which would also include the Special Judicial Squad (internal affairs), which outrages Dredd, stating that it was like putting "a cockroach in charge of the exterminators", but unfortunately, he had no proof that she was corrupt. The Chief of the SJS, Judge Arthur Buell, who now answered to her, was worried that Bachmann will become Chief Judge in a few years time and she was reorganising Undercover to get more power. Neither Buell or Dredd knew that Hershey appointed her there so Bachmann would be forces into a public position where she won't be able to hide. Hershey herself though was not aware that Bachmann was actually spying on her and other opponents with a secret Psi-Judge.

In "Trifecta", after Bachmann's promotion, she proceeded to brainwash Chief of Wally Squad Judge Folger into downloading a file of every undercover Judge and Mega-City spy and was going to pass it to the corrupt Overdrive Incorporated. Folger was accidently killed during the attempt and Judge Buell finds his body, and found out that the file had disappeared, but had no idea what the file contained nor did he know that Bachmann was involved. Afraid that she would use that as an excuse to start her "reorganisation", Buell instead asked Dredd to find the file so Bachmann wouldn't find out, unfortunately Bachmann had expected it. Bachmann had successfully sent the file to Overdrive Incorporated while Bachmann began to order all Black Ops agents to kill everyone who was on the file so she could "restock" them with her own men. Meanwhile, she was brainwashing rich citizens with the "Church of Simpology" so she had both a secondary army and also indoctrinated an owner of a company that made sleep machines, so Bachmann would be able to brainwash Judges as well. Her true goal was to gain power, bring Luna-2 down from the moon, and create a theocratic regime where the people would ascend to "heaven" (Luna-2) and any troublesome elements would be condemned to "hell" (Mega-City One). From her point of view, the Justice Department was no longer working.

Fortunately, Bachmann didn't know that the list was actually swapped for another list by Judge Smiley, Bachmann's predecessor as leader of Black Ops and Smiley was investigating Bachmann and Overdrive Incorporated. Smiley also recruited Dredd and other Judges to expose and destroy Bachmann. When Bachmann found out her plans were discovered, she ordered her men to start killing everyone in the Grand Hall of Justice an take the Chief Judge hostage so she can gain control. However, her men were defeated by Dredd, Hershey, Jack Point, "Dirty Frank" and Galen DeMarco. However, Bachmann managed to physically overpower them and was about to kill Dredd before Smiley appeared and killed her.