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Trooper - Regene
Rogue
Trooper - Regene
by Gerry
Finley-Day, Cam Kennedy, Trevor Goring, Steve Dillon
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What to Expect:
Back in action! The trooper with a chip on his shoulder… and his head…
and his gun!
Review by Adam
Crabtree
9th April 06
Rogue Trooper:
Re-Gene marks my first real exposure to classic Rogue Trooper action. Prior to
this, only experience of isolated strips (such as the very first, available online)
and the recent Legends of the Rogue Trooper strand (as well as numerous offshoots)
formed my ideas of the last Genetic Infantryman.
For any who are
unfamiliar with the Blue One (unlikely given the typical patrons of this site,
but we live in hope) it details the struggles of a genetically engineered super
soldier who, along with the electronically formatted souls of his dead comrades
which reside in his equipment, goes rogue. A lot.
ReGene finds our
hero at the end of his most defining storyline; the three year hunt across the
surface of war torn Nu-Earth for the General who betrayed Rogue’s GI kin.
This search played out against the backdrop of a colossal galactic war between
the vaguely defined “Southers” and “Norts”; one wonders
about the allegorical potential in a story where the isolated warrior is caught
between two simple, polarized forces, but you needn’t worry about any of
that… this collection comes from the days when 2000AD was a boy’s
adventure comic, and as such it’s hotfooted fun all the way.
The title storyline
takes us back to Milli-Com where Rogue finds himself pardoned for desertion and
his “biochipped” comrades restored to their old selves. Rogue displays
a lot more personality than in today’s rehashes; the portrait of a veteran
struggling to adjust outside of a warzone is played neatly against his buddies’
newfound drive for life with full mobility (when your former headgear announces
he’s getting married, it’s bound to bring you down).
Naturally if it
were to continue in this fashion, well, it wouldn’t be Rouge Trooper! The
central conceits would be gone, one and all! It’s Fantastic Four syndrome;
Ben Grimm will constantly revert to his human form but we all know it won’t
last because then there’d be no more Four. Similarly, we’re not surprised
when Helm, Gunnar and Bagman fall victim to a virus contracted on Nu-Earth and
a rare antigen must be sought on the equally war torn planet Horst if they are
to be permanently restored. To combat the bureaucratic fears of his superiors
Rogue must go it alone (again), stealing a ship and heading for Horst with the
ill will of both Norts and Southers at his heels.
Cam Kennedy’s
art in this first story is interesting to see in light of his more recent Dredd
work; I’d say it’s the cleanest looking art in the book, with Jose
Oritz’s more scratchily intricate work taking over for the rest of the book.
Kennedy and Oritz both manage the mean feat of not making the muscular, mohawked
GI’s look dorky (duuude), and while Kennedy’s fully decked out Rogue
looks very cool, Oritz gets to play with all manner of heathen creatures in the
following stories…
Return of Rogue Trooper
and Antigen of Horst follow a more or less continuous storyline, with the search
for the miracle cure and subsequent violence. The former deals more with the setup
of the infinitely weirder world of Horst, host to all manner of alien beasts that
have been allied to either Norts or Southers- while the Norts have deemed to ally
themselves with rhino men, draconian winged creatures and massive gun toting crustaceans,
the Southers have of course trained up a bunch of ant people.
The ebullience and enthusiasm
at the start of this story is infectious; you can tell everyone involved is delighted
as Rogue grits his teeth and shouts out (I bet he’s a shouter) “We’re
back in action!” and “This time we’re fighting aliens!”,
or maybe they’re just relieved to have thought of a continuation for their
killer app…
The stakes have been raised,
and the definite highlight of Return is a pitched gun battle on a seabound crag
between Rogue and a platoon of the aforementioned crustaceans. In a remarkably
exciting sequence, the GI sets up his equipment at four “fronts”,
which they cover to a fault; Bagman dropping grenades down the crag’s sides,
Gunnar using Helm as a ricochet target.
Antigen sees Rogue
happening upon a number of promising leads; a horse-faced Nort prisoner points
the way to a Nort collaborator who knows the location of the antigen. Meanwhile
the enemies he has been gathering among the menagerie of Horst’s ranks conspire
to get there before him; not only do they wish to revenge themselves upon the
GI, but it turns out the antigen has other useful properties…
Return to Milli-Com,
the final story in the collection, details Rogue’s second cap-in-hand visit
to his makers. He is let off the hook again (disgraceful, really) on account of
his work on Horst leading to a proposed peace between Norts and Southers! This
state of affairs is thrown into chaos when a third quarter start taking a hand
in events.
This is where the action
stops; and I’ve gotta tell you, it’s infuriating, when we’re
so close to the future war dynamic shifting somewhat, and also because I’ve
gotten attached to the characters. The gleeful gung-ho attitude of the chips,
the fact that Rogue displays some attitude as opposed to being the righteously
indignant blue eyed boy (or the nearest equivalent!) of latter day… the
surprisingly well rendered central players do their best to make up for a world
that, while painting with a broad canvas creatively is often all too simple, with
the Norts being the interminable aggressor, the evil empire if you will, with
the Southers being a pack of old farts, but a more or less noble pack of old farts.
The story shows it’s
age with the plague of Convenience; the way the antigen is some kind of cure all,
the way the Souther high command’s behaviour is conductive to Rogue’s
mission regardless of how pissed off they are at Rogue, Helm’s universal
translator, the way the plot driving antigen dances flirtatiously out of reach
at every turn, and a number of James Bond villain moments (as depicted on the
cover).
They are easy to forgive
though; their retro charm is quite irresistible and the tale are narrated zestily,
speedily and with great relish; the art is stylish, and bursts with a classic
comic book “brudda-brudda-budda” style (that’s a reference to
the stock machine gun sound effect by the way, not a dig at familial relationships
in the Missisippi).
For the first
time, I’m not wondering just what the stak makes this strip so special…
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