W W W. S C I FI N OW.CO.U KIT’S BEEN ALMOST 40 YEARS SINCE ROGUE
TROOPER EXPLODED FROM THE PAGES
OF 2000AD, HIS EYE FIRMLY ON THE UK
COMIC BOOK THRONE. The azure-skinned,
mohawk-wearing, genetically-enhanced lone
survivor of a race of super soldiers was the
sort of character who could only have come
from the pages of Britiain’s leading sci-fi
comic. Bred to survive, fi ght, and die in an
apocalyptic wasteland, his only allies were
doomed to exist as disembodied computer
chips encased within his spartan equipment.
By 1981, 2000AD was just four years old.
Having already established characters such
as Judge Dredd as fi rm fan favourites, editor
Steve MacManus was looking to fandom
to inform the comic’s next generation of
hard-boiled heroes, via reader surveys.
“These questionnaires were enthusiastically
completed and gave a great picture of the
042 |
SCIFINOW OPENS THE SECRET DOSSIER ON THE CREATION OF 2000AD’S ROGUE TROOPER, ONE OF THE UK’S GREATEST
COMIC BOOK HEROES, AND SPEAK TO DIRECTOR DUNCAN JONES ABOUT HIS MOOTED MOVIE ADAPTATION
WORDS RUSS SHEATH
(^042) WWW.SCIFINOW.CO.UKWWW.SCIFINOW.CO.UK
THE ROGUE
readership, which at the time seemed to
include students as well as the traditional
8-12 age range,” MacManus recalls.
Comic book legend and Rogue Trooper
co-creator Dave Gibbons picks up the story,
telling us that “readers had said in the survey
that they wanted to see a ‘future war’ story
and MacManus saw this as an opportunity to
get me back drawing for 2000AD”.
Gibbons was still a few years away from
co-creating Watchmen, but he was already
a fan-favourite artist, drawing for titles
including Doctor Who and Dan Dare as
well as 2000AD. MacManus had his eye on
pairing Gibbons with veteran scribe Gerry
Finley-Day, to create a top-tier team to
meet his readers demands. “Gerry had an
impressive track record as a writer of off-beat
war stories and would indulge my love of
war strips,” MacManus says, “while Davewas a natural fi rst choice, where passion
and creativity shines through in every page
he drew.” With a clear mandate, Gibbons
and Finley-Day set about thrashing out their
ideas for their new hero. The fi rst challenge
was to come up with a name.
“I think it was Steve who came up with the
name Rogue Trooper,” Gibbons says. “I didn’t
like [it], but it’s like naming anything... once
you use it for a while it seems like it couldn’t
be called anything else.”
One key aspect to Rogue Trooper was
MacManus’ mandate that the character be
a ‘loner’, but in contrast to their editor’s
instructions, the trio hit upon one of the
most identifi able components of the Rogue
Trooper mythos, the ‘bio-chips’ which would
contain the personalities of Rogue’s fallen
comrades: Gunnar, Bagman and Helm.
Gibbons tells us that they thought that “thisAll Rogue Trooper artwork © Rebellion/2000AD