Mutants (Judge Dredd storyline)  Mutants are the subject of a number of stories in the "Judge Dredd" science fiction series published in British comics "2000 AD" and the "Judge Dredd Megazine". Mutants are genetically-flawed, physically deformed people who are the subject of prejudice and apartheid in the 22nd century. Although they have appeared in "Judge Dredd" since the strip's earliest stories in 1977, a major story arc beginning with "Mutants in Mega-City One" in June 2007 and ending with "Tour of Duty" in July 2010 dealt specifically with their struggle against apartheid in Dredd's city, Mega-City One. Mutants are "de novo" mutations created by radiation or radioactive contamination following the Atomic Wars in 2070. Their genetic mutations (which are inherited by their children) cause them to exhibit bizarre physical deformities. They first appeared in "2000 AD" #4 (1977), described as raiders from outside the city, in the "wilderness from the Atomic Wars." Another early issue revealed that mutants have been banned from the city, on grounds that "[they] hate ordinary people because they themselves are warped". However "The Cursed Earth" (1978) explained that mutants were actually the victims of irrational prejudice by those fortunate enough to be unaffected by the disaster — normal people, or "norms." As a result, all mutants were deprived of citizenship and expelled from Mega-City One, Judge Dredd's city on the east coast of America, and forced to live in the radioactive wasteland outside the city, the inhospitable and lawless Cursed Earth. There they remained for sixty years. Due to the ban on citizenship, mutants were prohibited from entering the city, and those who attempted to enter by scaling the city walls would be arrested and expelled, or killed resisting arrest. They would usually feature in stories simply as hostile criminals for Dredd to fight, but some stories set in the Cursed Earth would also show them in a more sympathetic light, as victims of unjust oppression by future society (or sometimes more directly as victims of crime). Initially mutants were mainly used in fight sequences in action stories, but as the years went by, and the tone of "Judge Dredd" stories matured to appeal to a wider audience, stories featuring mutants increasingly emphasized the injustice of their plight, and the harsh, uncompromising enforcement of the anti-mutant laws by Judge Dredd and the Mega-City Justice Department (for example "The Gipper's Big Night," (1991)).