Preview: ‘Rogue Trooper: The Complete Collection’ Vol. 1 — All Rogue Trooper, From The Start

by Richard Bruton

Doing for the big blue GI what The Complete Case Files does for Judge Dredd, The Complete Rogue Trooper tells the whole saga of the lone Genetic Infantryman, right back to the start…

There’s an awful lot of Rogue Trooper about these days, thanks to the Duncan Jones-helmed animated movie due for release this year. So, it’s no wonder that 2000 AD are really going all-out on pushing everything Rogue these days, whether that’s plenty of new stories of both Rogue himself or the Rogue universe. But whilst all that new material is more than welcome, especially when it’s of the quality of the recent Garth Ennis and Patrick Goddard tales, including the affecting and brilliantly done ”Blighty Valley‘, there’s a load of classic Rogue out there that you really need to be picking up to find out just why the character’s one of 2000 AD’s all-time greats.

We’ve already had two volumes of The Essential Rogue Trooper (preview of Vol 1, preview of Vol 2), cherry-picking the big stories and reprinting the later colourised versions of early Rogue but, as I keep telling you whenever there’s a new Judge Dredd Complete Case Files out, there’s a real joy of reading everything in order, letting you build up the whole picture. And that’s just the thing you’ll get from this Complete Rogue Trooper, back to glorious, as it was originally published black and white.

Now, if you’re not up to speed with all things happening here, a quick summary for you… Rogue Trooper is a genetically engineered soldier designed to fight on the poisonous war planet of Nu Earth, a staging post crucial in the never-ending war between the Norts and the Southers. All his comrades were killed by the betrayal of the Traitor General, and he fights alone save for personalities of three of his dead comrades – Helm, Gunnar and Bagman – embedded into bio-chips in his rifle, helmet, and backpack.

It was just such a perfectly done thing, a classic set-up to a story or war and revenge created in 1981 by writer Gerry Finley-Day and artist Dave Gibbons, with just the most iconic first cover and such a good opening page…

The classic cover of Prog 228, welcome to the most feared man on Nu Earth – art by Dave Gibbons

And straight into the opening chapter, it doesn’t get more iconic than this – art by Dave Gibbons

In fact, it’s so perfect a set-up, so wonderfully self-contained in its driving mission with such a definite end to things that, once Rogue does deal with the Traitor General, it left anything that came afterwards as somewhat directionless.

Hence why most of the more recent Rogue tales that have worked either position themselves as a tale taking place during the hunt for the Traitor General – such as the Ennis/Goddard stories – or just dispense with Rogue altogether and concentrate instead on the genuinely fascinating and rich vein of stories to come from the events of the Nort-Souther War – such as Rennie and Coleby’s Jaegir strip or the new Nu Earth War Tales that have just started in the Prog.

But that’s for the future, right now we’re back in the earliest of Rogue Trooper, those stories when it was just this absolute beast of a story, never letting up, just pure sci-fi war stories as Rogue went after the Traitor General, each diversion along the war meaning more bloodshed and another step closer.

The Complete Rogue Trooper will collect the whole story, right from the beginning, with those tales by Finley-Day and Gibbons, as well as work from Alan Moore, Cam Kennedy, Brett Ewins, and Colin Wilson, including, from volume 2, previously uncollected material, meaning this really is the whole story, right from the beginning

So, there’s no cherry-picking of stories, this is everything, all the stories, big and small, all of them playing into the ever-present defining goal for Rogue. Tellingly, ever single tale here, bar one Annual short written by Moore in typically brilliant fashion, is written by Rogue’s creator Finley-Day, meaning it’s all kept so tight, absolutely every moment here part of his plan for Rogue’s tale.

Artistically, you’re just spoilt for choice with the talent on display here. Co-creator Gibbons gives you some incredible work, later storylines have the wonders of Brett Ewins’ art, there’s chapters from Mike Dorey, Eric Bradbury, and Cam Kennedy that add their own touches to things, but if I was forced to pick my own favourite amongst them all it had to be Colin Wilson, bringing his cultured, euro-styled line to things and a mastery of both storytelling and composition, not to mention some gorgeous art of the machinery of war to bear in here.

All in all, this is just the perfect Rogue Trooper volume, a piece of classic 2000 AD history, a perfectly tight, self-contained sci-fi war tale done by so many who just deliver the goods.