Advance Preview: ‘Essential Rogue Trooper’ Takes You Right Back To The Beginning…

by Richard Bruton

The latest in 2000 AD‘s ‘Essential‘ series, following Judge Dredd and Judge Anderson is out in March 2024 – the tale of the blue-skinned GI on a mission of revenge – Rogue Trooper!

Yes, it’s off to Nu-Earth and the future war in Essential Rogue Trooper: Genetic Infantryman, taking us right back to the very start of Rogue’s mission with writer Gerry Finley-Day and artists Dave Gibbons, Colin Wilson, and Cam Kennedy.

Going back to the beginning takes us back to the original brilliance of Rogue Trooper, a strip with a killer set-up and fabulous action co-created by Finley-Day and Gibbons.

In the first volume, you’ll get your introduction to Rogue Trooper, the last of the GI (genetically-engineered) infantrymen created by the Southers in their never-ending war with the Norts, a war that’s destroyed the world of Nu-Earth, leaving it with an atmosphere so toxic that only the GIs can withstand it.

But Rogue’s on a mission, after the Quartz Massacre wiped out all his comrades. Now, accompanied only by the bio-chips of his fallen clone brothers in his helmet, backpack, and gun, he’s searching for the Traitor General, the man responsible for their deaths.

And it was that killer (and simple) premise that launched the character and quickly made him one of 2000 AD’s early favourite characters.

The Essential Rogue Trooper gives us all a chance to rediscover just how good these early tales were, how effective Finley-Day and Gibbons were at taking a basic war story of revenge and redemption and spinning it out with a sci-fi twist.