Preview — The Blues Are Still Blue In The Collected ‘Rogue Trooper: Blighty Valley’

by Richard Bruton

Garth Ennis and Patrick Goddard brought back the classic big blue GI in Rogue Trooper: Blighty Valley last year, now it’s heading for a collection in July…

With the announcement of the Rogue Trooper animated film headed by Duncan Jones, it’s hardly a surprise that 2000 AD have brought their big blue genetic infantryman out for new stories, all kicked off with this rather good tale by Ennis, joined in glorious black and white by Goddard.

Instead of just another Rogue Trooper war story, Ennis has gone down a more philosophical path, something reminiscent of the classic Charley’s War by Pat Mills and Joe Colquhoun, rightly described by 2000 AD as ‘a brilliant meditation on pathos, loss, and the futility of war.’

Instead of giving us some new version of Rogue or taking his story somewhere else, Ennis did the sensible thing and took everything right back to Nu-Earth, right in the midst of his hunt for the Traitor General, and gave us an interlude tale of strange occurrences bringing together soldiers in two very different wars, but soldiers who find quickly that all wars have the same horrors.

The 13-part Blighty Valley is set at Night’s Horizon, a once-a-year bit of strange physics going on where Nu Earth’s orbit carries it closest to a nearby black hole. Things have a reputation for going a little… screwy around this time. Now, Rogue and his bio-chip buddies are about to experience the strangeness first-hand…

Rogues back into a war – it just might not be the war he’s expecting.

And from there, we have something that’s very Rogue, very Ennis, beautifully drawn, but brings that Charley’s War bleakness into things as well, with Rogue and the displaced English Tommies finding they’ve far too much in common as they try to escape Night’s Horizon alive.

Whether it’s Rogue who’s been transported to the mud and the horrors of WWI or whether this group of Tommies have appeared on Nu Earth, or whether it’s something else entirely might be the big question at first, but it’s surviving the experience that becomes far more important as the story moves on.

Rogue Trooper was created back in 1981 by writer Gerry Finley-Day and artist Dave Gibbons. A sci-fi war tale, Rogue is the last of the G.I.s – Genetically-engineered Infantry who are made to measure to survive the toxic war-torn environment of the strategically important planet of Nu Earth. The war between his side, the Southers, and the opposition, the Norts, has been waging war for far too long.

The GIs were the element that could have broken the stalemate, only to have one of their own turn on them, leaving Rogue the lone survivor on his own mission of revenge, hunting down the Traitor General. His only company through all this are three bio-chips encoded with the personalities of three of his dead comrades, inserted into his equipment as Helm, Gunnar, and Bagman.

Yet as brilliant as Rogue was, the future war concept and particularly the driving reason for Rogue’s personal war also limited what could be done with the character somewhat. Once the Traitor General tale was done, there didn’t seem to be the impetus to the strip that had been there and various continuations and revamps over the years have all failed to replicate the sheer driving force and the excitement of the original. Indeed, more recent years have seen the world of Rogue Trooper explored far more successfully without Rogue in strips such as Jaegir, telling the story from the Nort side of things.

But if anyone could make a sci-fi war story like Rogue work once more, it’s surely Garth Ennis, who’s love of war comics really is legend. Here’s what he had to say about the storyline…

“For me Rogue Trooper is as vital a part of classic 2000 AD as Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog, Robo-Hunter, Nemesis the Warlock, or Sláine, and I well remember wandering the wastes of Nu Earth with Rogue and the bio-chips on their hunt for the Traitor General. The stories that instantly come to mind are ‘All Hell on the Dix-I Front’, ‘Fort Neuro’, ‘Eye of the Traitor’, ‘You Only Die Twice’ and ‘To The Ends Of Nu Earth’ – I hope ‘Blighty Valley’ will prove a worthy successor to such unadulterated gems.” – Garth Ennis

The setting of Blighty Valley during the classic era of Rogue, an interlude during the hunt for the Traitor General, works perfectly. The art of Goddard has a wonderfully classical look, reminiscent of the finest Rogue looks of Gibbons and Steve Dillon.

But it’s the more thoughtful tone of this that really elevates it above just another Rogue tale. Make no mistake, it’s still packed full of action, but it’s the themes of the horrors of war and the camaraderie of the soldiers on the ground that really gives this its appeal.

Here’s what 2000 AD’s PR says about Blighty Valley…

“Nu Earth: a whole planet sacrificed to war. A chemical and nuclear nightmare, fit only for the endless battle between Nort and Souther forces – and for the Rogue Trooper, sole survivor of the Genetic Infantry, hunting the traitor who sold out his regiment. Together with the bio-chipped “ghosts” of his dead comrades, Rogue walks the wasted lands in search of their killer, determined to see justice done.

But a war world on the edge of an unstable black hole holds terrors beyond the bounds of sanity, and now the last GI finds himself wrenched away from his bloody quest. Hurled across reality to another world – another war – Rogue is marooned in an ancient conflict no less terrible than his own. With no way home and unknown dangers at every turn, the lone warrior must do what he was bred to do: and fight like hell for his very survival.

Garth Ennis (Preacher, The Boys) and Patrick Goddard (Judge Dredd, Nina Petrova and the Angels of Death) present a brand new tale featuring the classic 2000 AD character, blending sci-fi action and historical adventure in unforgettable, action-packed drama.”