Comic Book / Lawless

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Lawless is a series of comic strips originally published in 2000 AD's Judge Dredd Megazine. The Space Western series stars Marshal Metta Lawson, the new Colonial Marshal of Badrock, a mining town on the planet 43 Rega run by the Munce Corporation. There she handles work gang rivalries, a psychotic Psi-Judge, the town's corporate owner, and an impending alien invasion.

Her allies include Nerys Pettifer, Kill-A-Man Jaroo, Rondo, and Sawbones.

Not related to the 2012 film of the same name.

Stealth Sequel to Insurrection.

Tropes associated with this work:

• Action Politician: Metta Lawson is a skilled fighter who led the resistance against Munce to save Badrock. Afterwards, she runs for mayor.
• Back-Alley Doctor: Sawbones replaces Rondo's heart with a pump. It saves his life but causes him chronic pain and addicts him to painkillers. Smith convinces Rondo to work for him by offering better health care.
• Badass Bureaucrat: Pettifer knows the paperwork side of being a Judge inside and out.
• The Baroness: Texana Pincher, a cold-hearted Munce agent in charge of Unviable Asset Disposal who wears black Victorian-era-inspired clothes.
• Bartender Confidant: Bethany to Lawson.
• BFG: Lawson never uses her Lawgiver because she has to fill out paperwork to account for every shot and also because it's not actually hers. She prefers a large plasma rifle.
• Big Beautiful Woman: Pettifer. Mr. Brotherly mocks her for it once food and water rationing start.
• Big Damn Heroes: During the Munce attack on Badrock Roy shows up with an army of Zhin'Hal warriors.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: Pettifer drops Judge Dredd's "I am the law" twice. Once it's Played for Laughs when she says it to her teddy bear. The other time it's Played Straight when she confronts an armed criminal attacking the Mek Church.
• Bouncer: Lawson's job after she loses the mayoral election and isn't allowed back into law enforcement.
• Bounty Hunter: Rondo
• Braids of Action: Lawson has a very long one.
• Category Traitor: How the Uplifts see Jaroo after he becomes a full-time deputy.
• The Cavalry: The Zhin'Hal, and later the Special Judicial Squad, when they show up to save Badrock from Munce.
• Church of Happyology: The Church of Zhindalla. They believe in a "cosmic savior" who will rescue his followers in a flying saucer. They parade around in the street singing hymns and clapping.
• Clean Up the Town: The reason Lawson is sent there.
• Clueless Deputy: Nerys Pettifer, before Lawson's disappearance in the Badlands forces her to take a level in badass.
• Construction Vehicle Rampage: After Badrock repels Munce's initial attack, they decide to use a supermassive earth-mover mech (basically a giant bulldozer) to flatten the town.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Hetch name-checks Joe Dredd as an example of the kind of Judge Pettifer doesn't want to be like.
  • There's a flashback to the events of Insurrection showing how Zia Freely became Metta Lawson.
  • Lawson sings about both Judge Dredd and Judge Anderson in the "Badrock Melody" in Book 4.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Mr. Brotherly, the main face of Munce Corporation in Badrock.
• Creepy Child: Archibald Ames, who serves as Lawson's main informant after she becomes a vigilante. He's unusually perceptive and hints he knows her true identity. Turns out he's a boy possessed by Hetch.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: After being injured in the Munce War, Rondo had his heart replaced with an artificial pump. It saved his life but caused him pain so he started selling more and more of his organs to the Mek Church in hopes that a more artificial body wouldn't feel pain. But it also left him a constant cold feeling and an urge to kill.
• Dangerous Deserter: Roy Allen Katzer, a disillusioned SJS member who was believed KIA but lived outside Badrock as a hermit. He trains the Zhin'Hal warriors and helps Badrock against Munce.
• Deadly Euphemism: Munce can conduct "Unviable Asset Disposal", which means the complete destruction of entire cities.
• Desk Jockey: Nerys Pettifer, at least in the beginning.
• Dissonant Serenity: Rondo as he effortlessly slaughters Pincher's goons in Book 4.
• Doesn't Like Guns: Nerys is a Judge, but a Desk Jockey. When asked to grab her gun, she can't even remember where she put it.
• Domestic Abuse: Why Audie Hankers kills her husband.
• The End Is Nigh: The story takes place after the invasion of an alien race called the Zhind. Hetch, the crazy Psi-Judge, keeps predicting that the Zhind will return. Lawson and the others just write him off as crazy. At first.
• Enemy Mine:
  • The humans, mutants, aliens, robots, and uplifts all have a tense relationship but they all unite once Munce decides to wipe Badrock off the face of the planet.
  • Also in the flashback to the events of Insurrection. The SJS and the insurrectionists united to fight the Zhind. Then the SJS betrayed the insurrectionists and killed both their enemies.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Hetch might be a Psi-Judge driven to homicidal madness but when he falls into a coma and possesses the mind of a young boy, he feels guilty about running away and taking the boy away from his parents. He eventually decides to work with Lawson and save Badrock from a impending disaster before he leaves.
• The Faceless: Mr. Fugly, a crime lord who tries and fails to rig the election in Book 5, is always off-panel when he speaks.
• Fair Cop: Lawson herself is noticeably attractive and is even depicted naked on a couple of occasions.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • There are rivalries between different work gangs, which are the humans, the meks (robots), muties (mutants), and uplifts (sentient apes).
  • There is also the native alien species, which is split into the "abs" (short for aboriginals) and the Proud Warrior Race Zhin'Hal. The abs dislike the colonists because their thoughts cause them pain, which forces them to resort to drinking. The Zhin'Hal also hate the colonists but also look down on the abs for their weakness. And they both hate the Zhind, the aliens who invaded the world shortly before the events of the story, even though they are distantly related to them.
• Feed It a Bomb: How Lawson defeats Brotherly's monster. She overloads her weapon's power cell and crams it down the monster's throat.
• Fiery Redhead: Pettifer, after she Took a Level in Badass. The comic is black-and-white but the colored artwork shows her hair as red.
• Frame-Up: Pettifer exposes electoral fraud and embezzlement from the marshal's office. However, since she's the main administrative clerk, it's easy for the SJS to frame her for it.
• Good Shepherd: Reverend Sawbones. He serves as both medic and confidante to the town regardless of whether or not they are church members. Zigzagged when the main characters realize he's selling organs out of his church but, Lawson reluctantly lets it slide because they were from dead bodies or consensual surgeries and because the town needs a doctor. He later donates his own centrifuge pump to replace Rondo's lost heart.
• Identity Impersonator: Metta Lawson is actually Marshal Zia Freely from Insurrection living under an assumed identity. This is teased when Lawson refuses to use her Lawgiver, which self-destructs if used by an unauthorized user.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Pettifer is an absolutely horrible shot, at least at first anyway.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Lawson's reaction after losing the mayoral election to Royal Wilty, a mentally challenged mutie.
• Inter-Service Rivalry: Between the SJS and Lawson's original marshals.
• Journey to the Center of the Mind: Hetch goes on one with Pettifer to figure out why she's lashing out at everyone. Turns out it's the stress of covering up the murder of an abusive husband.
• Meaningful Name:
  • A law enforcement officer named "Lawson."
  • A Pinkerton Detective named "Pinkerton."
• The Medic: Sawbones, the reverend of the Mek Church, is also a surgical robot.
• MegaCorp: Munce Corporation has its own private army of Pinkerton Detectives as well as an airforce that can completely level Badrock.
• Mind Virus: The psychoactive crystals mined in Badrock can cause psychic mutants, including their previous Marshal and a visiting carnival worker, to go insane.
• Musical Episode: The whole cast of Badrock bursts into song due to psychic influence from the comatose Hetch.
• Musical Number Annoyance:
  • Subverted during the "Badrock Melody" scene. Lawson steps out of the station, sees the whole town singing, and says "What. The. Actual. Fuck?" Then she says "Just kidding" and joins in.
  • Played straight with Drury, the Token Good Teammate of the SJS. He joins the musical number and says "What's happening?" He's also not pleased when Lawson gives "DJ" Drury his own rap verse.
• Organ Theft: The Mek Church, which admits humans willing to become cyborgs, is accused of being a scam to do this. Turns out it's partially true. The reverend does sell organs, but only those who are already dead or who died during the consensual surgery.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Lawson dresses up in a Badass Longcoat and Domino Mask when working as a vigilante but, the moment she saves Jaroo from a monster, Drury says it's obviously her.
• Pinkerton Detective: Fargone Private Security, hired by Munce Corporation. Their leader is even named Pinkerton.
• Poisonous Captive: Hetch, Lawson's predecessor, is a Psi-Judge who went crazy and spends his days in a Psi-dampened cell in the Marshal's office warning about an impending alien invasion.
• Politically Incorrect Villain:
  • Brotherly makes misogynistic and fat-shaming comments to Pettifer.
  • The comatose psychic Hetch gives Drury, a black character, a stereotypical rap verse during the Musical Episode. Drury isn't happy about it.
• Protection Racket: With Munce defeated and Badrock finding newfound prosperity, more sophisticated organized crime is taking root.
• Puppet King: Mayoral candidate Colleen Hagenhaur was being groomed as this for Aldis Brotherly before being eaten by an escaped genetically engineered monster. He later targets Royal Wilty, a mentally disabled mutant.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Lawson, a Marshal who's also willing to bend rules and compromise in the name of justice. Drury, a member of the SJS, is also a bit more reasonable than his colleagues.
• The Remnant: After losing the war, Texana Pincher and several of her mercs became wasteland bandits addicted to radtus sap.
• Rhyming with Itself: Lawson's verse about SJS Judge McClure in the Badrock Melody.
  "That bitch McClure is a cast-iron bitch. She'd like to see me dead in a ditch. I should find another rhyme but she's a total bitch. Says Marshal Metta Lawson!
• Robot Religion: The Mek Church, a church of robots that preaches freedom from the weakness of the flesh. Their reverend is Sawbones, a surgical droid who doubles as the town doctor. The church also admits humans who are willing to become cyborgs.
• Self-Destructing Security: People familiar with the Judge Dredd universe know that Lawgiver pistols self-destruct if used by the wrong person. Lawson prefers a rifle she confiscated from a civilian over her Lawgiver, which she never uses. She says this is because every shot is tracked by the Justice Department and she hates paperwork but it's heavily implied this is because she's lying about her identity and the Lawgiver isn't actually hers. Subverted. While she is lying about her identity, the Lawgiver actually does work for her.
• Ship Tease: One Judge Dredd Megazine has Lawson and Dredd at a bar together while Lawson has mistletoe wrapped around her head.
• Space Jews: The native alien species is frequently seen at saloons, mirroring the drunk Native American stereotype. However, they're given a sympathetic reason for succumbing to alcoholism as their psychic powers make human thoughts painful to them. This is amplified by the psychoactive crystals that Munce Corporation mines.
• Space Western: A new Marshal comes to a desert mining town, complete with a saloon, outlaws, mistreated laborers, drunk and displaced natives, and a robber baron boss.
• Stealth Sequel: The Zhind from Insurrection start turning up. Lawson is eventually revealed to be Zia Freely.
• Time Skip: The war between Munce and Badrock is interrupted when the Zhind return. The next issue takes place when Lawson is an old woman, living alone on the planet and watching over the graves of all the other characters. It's later revealed that it's a psychic vision from the Zhind, convincing her to avoid war.
• Title Drop: While Judge McClure gives Lawson a "The Reason You Suck" Speech after she loses the election and tries to get her job back while drunk.
  McClure: You're not the law. Not deep inside where it really counts. You're lawless.
• To Be Lawful or Good: Pettifer has to wrestle with this when she finds out a woman murdered her abusive husband and covers it up.
• Token Evil Teammate: Brotherly once he gets fired from Munce and starts working with Lawson.
• Token Good Teammate: Drury to the SJS, who are mostly antagonists.
• Took a Level in Badass: Pettifer after she has to take over for Lawson.
• Uplifted Animal: There's a large population of "Uplifts" in the town. Kill-a-Man Jaroo is one of them.
• Vigilante Man: What Lawson becomes after losing the mayoral race and being rejected when she tries to return to the marshal's office.
• Villainous Breakdown: Texana Pincher has one after Badrock defeats her initial invasion, cursing more and getting more openly emotional.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Bethany Bitoni, a male-impersonator with the stage name Tony Dancer, takes over Ted Madderson's saloon after he dies in the Munce attack. She later becomes Lawson's best friend, campaign manager, and confidante.
• A Wild Rapper Appears!: During the "Badrock Melody", "DJ" Drury gets his own rap break. He's not happy about it.