Cursed Earth

Type	Radioactive desert
First appearance	2000 AD #4 (first named in #61)
Publisher	Rebellion Developments

The Cursed Earth is a part of the fictional universe from the Judge Dredd series that appears in the UK comic book 2000 AD. It is a radioactive desert which is considered unfit for habitation but is populated by mutants, who are not allowed to live in the cities.

Following the Atomic Wars of 2070 most of the United States became a radioactive wasteland. With only the three Mega-Cities surviving (on the East Coast, California, and Texas), the remainder of the country became known as the "Cursed Earth". Although considered unfit for human habitation, the Cursed Earth is populated by all manner of creatures, scraping a living in a tough environment. Since the Atomic Wars, genetic mutations appeared, but mutants are banned from living in the cities, so they are forced to make their homes in the Cursed Earth. The communities are mostly poor, rural groupings with no industry, often dominated by quasi-religious movements. In more extreme cases, these communities become cults organised well enough to threaten Mega-City One as a revenge for the way the city has treated these outcasts.

In the immediate aftermath of the war, the Cursed Earth was best described as Hell on Earth. Little grew and radiation pits were everywhere. Much of it was lawless with tribes of mutants and renegades. As such, from the war until about 2100, no one crossed the Cursed Earth by land.

After Dredd's mission to MC2, the Cursed Earth seems to have been opened up somewhat with settlement by MC1 colonists and some ground based shipping (at least between Mega-City 1 and Texas City).

In the North there are still areas of forest and woods (the hunting party) and, as of Origins, the Cursed Earth is greener than it was in the past. Given the extended period of time since the war, the Cursed Earth is presumably in the midst of a (very) slow environmental recovery with a desert-like environment.

The Atomic War was described as the worst disaster since the death of the dinosaurs, and therefore it is likely that any proper recovery will take centuries and the return of bio-diversity, millennia if not millions of years.

In 2100, it possessed a "Death Belt" - a vast field of floating rocks and debris, inhabited by vicious flying rats. At some unknown point, the Death Belt was ended by transporting its central lodestone to Deadworld (Megazine #286). (This story was partly to explain why the Death Belt had ceased to be seen after the early Dredds, even the narrator said "What? You don't remember the Death Belt?")

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