Angel Gang

The Angel Gang (who occasionally have their own strip in the Judge Dredd Megazine) were a family of desperadoes from the Cursed Earth first introduced to readers of 2000 AD during the Judge Dredd epic The Judge Child Quest. Denizens of the radioactive badlands beyond Mega-City One, they were a quartet of sadistic killers, the head of the family being Pa Angel and the others his sons Link Angel, Mean Angel and Junior Angel. (Ma Angel, described by Mean as having killed 134 men with her bare hands, is presumably dead or incarcerated.) The family clashed with Judge Dredd when they kidnapped Owen Krysler, the mutant boy known as the Judge Child, and all four were seemingly killed by the lawman. A fourth brother, Fink Angel, later turned up looking for revenge on Dredd and his associates Judge Hershey and Judge Larter (Larter was killed, but the other two survived).

Later still, Mean Machine Angel was resurrected by Krysler and teamed up with his brother Fink in another attempt on Dredd's life. On that occasion, Fink died too, but Mean survived and returned to bedevil Dredd on several occasions before apparently being cured of his homicidal tendencies, which were the result of unnecessary cybernetic surgery carried out on him as a child on Pa's instructions (he felt that the peaceful, gentle Mean was letting the side down). Years later, it was revealed that Pa and Junior had also survived their initial clash with Dredd, but they were subsequently jailed and haven't been seen since (writer John Wagner later admitted that resurrecting them was a mistake).

The Angel Gang also appeared in the 1995 Judge Dredd movie, in which they were depicted as cannibal religious fantatics (see individual members pages for actor details).