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Detective-Judge Armitage is a fictional Judge in the Judge Dredd setting. He was created by Dave Stone and Sean Phillips for the Judge Dredd Megazine, and is from Brit Cit, rather than Dredd's Mega-City One. He is one of the main British characters in the comic.

Armitage is a tall, white haired man with a goatee, usually wearing a trenchcoat. His real name is unknown. He despises the system of privilege that got his superiors where they are and, by extension, his superiors themselves. Because he refuses to "play the game", he is very unpopular with the upper ranks, despite being very good at his job. Another character trait is that he never carries a gun. Yet Armitage's knowledge of weapons is extensive, mainly due to his activities during the Brit-Cit Civil War of 2092-99, when he fought on the losing side. After the war Armitage joined up as a Judge, but became cynical and morose when his lover Liora was killed by the crime lord Efil Drago San, in revenge for the Detective Judge crippling him. Although this means he has gained a reputation for being impossible to work with, Armitage has done outstanding work in the Brit-Cit Justice Department's plainclothes Homicide Division.

In the same way that Dredd was based partly on Dirty Harry, Armitage owes something to the cynical but unbending police detectives seen in dramas such as Inspector Morse and Taggart. As with most such characters, he has a junior partner: Rookie Judge Treasure Steel. Although both harbour a grudging respect for each other, Steel has become Armitage's closest friend and ally.

He has appeared in his own eponymous comic series as well as a Judge Dredd novel and audio play. In the audio, he was played by Trevor Littledale.

• Armitage (all written by Dave Stone):
  • "Armitage" (with Sean Phillips, in Judge Dredd Megazine #1.09-14, 1991)
  • "The Case of the Detonating Dowager" (with Sean Phillips, in Judge Dredd Yearbook 1993, 1992)
  • "Influential Circles" (with Charlie Adlard, in Judge Dredd Megazine #2 10-2.18, 1992)
  • "Flashback" (with Charlie Adlard, in Judge Dredd Megazine #2 19-2.21, 1993)
  • "Flashback II" (with Charlie Adlard, in Judge Dredd Megazine #2.31-2.33, 1993)
  • "City of the Dead Prologue" (with Peter Doherty, in Judge Dredd Megazine #2.63, 1994)
  • "City of the Dead" (with Charles Gillespie, in Judge Dredd Megazine #2.64-2.71, 1994-1995)
  • "Little Assassins" (with Adrian Salmon, in Judge Dredd Mega Special 1996)
  • "Bodies of Evidence" (with Steve Yeowell, in Judge Dredd Megazine #3.64-67, 2000)
  • "Apostasy in the UK" (with John Ridgway, in Judge Dredd Megazine #212-213, 2003)

• Judge Dredd:
  • Deathmasques (by Dave Stone, Virgin Books, August 1993, ISBN 0-352-32873-8)
  • Get Karter! (script by David Bishop, Big Finish Productions, 2002)

• 20000 AD profile

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