Judge Dredd: The Apocalypse War

The hinge of the whole saga. In the prelude, Block Mania, the assassin Orlok poisons the water supply and the blocks go to war with each other; then East-Meg One's nuclear strikes kill about 400 million citizens. By the end East-Meg One is destroyed, Griffin is dead and McGruder is Chief Judge. Cold War paranoia played absolutely straight by Wagner, Grant and Carlos Ezquerra. Both parts sit in Case Files 05, and nothing afterward reads the same without them.