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General Chat => Help! => Topic started by: Al_Ewing on 30 June, 2004, 11:28:42 PM

Title: How old is Chopper? How about Rogue?
Post by: Al_Ewing on 30 June, 2004, 11:28:42 PM
Trying to break into a 'pulp-style' novel imprint not a million miles from here, and need questions answered to aid me in small ways... anyway, how old would you say Chopper was? He's got to be in his late thirties if not past forty... and Rogue, having been grown in a tank and barely making it through his first battle before going AWOL, I'd place at early twenties - maybe even twenty, or dare I say it, n-n-n-n-n-nineteen. Nineteen. N-n-nineteen.

What does anyone else think of these thorny age questions?

(To all the people I owe prizes to - they are on their way and I haven't forgotten. Apologies for the already-criminal delay.)
Title: Re: How old is Chopper? How about ...
Post by: Dan Kelly on 01 July, 2004, 12:06:09 AM
I'd put rogue at more like the 4/5 year old stage, especially being vat-grown.  And his hunt for the TG is just one big Hissy fit.  The whole timefram was rather loose, so the hunt may have been years, or months...

I always thought of Marlon as being a young teen in the first issues, which was 1981.  MC time is roughly 1 year per real-year, so he should be 35+

Dan
Title: Re: How old is Chopper? How about ...
Post by: Smiley on 01 July, 2004, 12:10:13 AM
Fuzzy memory. There was that Mill-Com Memories story, R20 on the chest etc. Can't remember how long the Traitor hunt went on for, though it was mentioned several times (two years?). So maybe early twenties. And he does have nads, just some people don't believe the evidence, and the pubes make a pair of tiny mohicans.

Chopper's the Eternal Spirit Of Rebellious Youth, and will grow old with those freckles. So that don't matter.
Title: Re: How old is Chopper? How about ...
Post by: Generally Contrary on 01 July, 2004, 12:43:10 AM
Chopper's only a year or so from fat TV punditry.  He's closing in on forty, anyhow.  

Rogue, on the other hand, is definately only a few years old.  A few months training, the Quartz Zone Massacre, then a few years hunting down the Traitor General and a few zapping here and there in The Hit(s).  Rogue Trooper - Boy Soldier.
Title: Re: How old is Chopper? How about ...
Post by: The Amstor Computer on 01 July, 2004, 01:04:39 AM
I'd have to drag my back progs out to get the precise quote, but the hunt for the Traitor General is mentioned as having taken two years in either "To The Ends of Nu-Earth" or "Re-Gene".

Can't remember how old he was supposed to have been when he was first sent to Nu-Earth, but I'm sure I could find out in one of the "flashback" episodes. I'll have a hunt after tea.

I certainly don't think he could be much older than 20-something, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was - chronologically - quite a bit younger.
Title: Re: How old is Chopper? How about ...
Post by: Queen Firey-Bou on 01 July, 2004, 02:14:57 AM
nah, forget chronology & time vats, Rogues a stodgy old git, whos bitter n past his prime, he's 42 in personality.

Chopper is gorgeous & chilled & hunk-tastically in his prime, just scrum-tasticly the right age, which is 38.
Title: Re: How old is Chopper? How about ...
Post by: Al_Ewing on 01 July, 2004, 05:01:54 AM
Hmmm... so Chop's physically 'old' - not that 38-40 is old exactly - but mentally still a wild youth, whereas Rogue is physically young and virile but mentally trapped in old-think?

There's something in there. I was thinking that there's a case for Rogue being torn between the Milli-com training and his own feelings - going AWOL when he should've gone back to base etc, that balance between disobedience and strict training... plus all that vacillating he's always doing over women while his chips shout 'WOMEN AND GIS DON'T MIX ROGUE!!'...
Title: Re: How old is Chopper? How about ...
Post by: Slippery PD on 01 July, 2004, 05:09:37 AM
Ive come to thinking that Chopper represents us, the long term readers.  Roughly the same age, same outlook (living somewhat in the past in a good way).  Or at least thats my thinking.

Rogue is just an odd idea for a character the more I think about him, the more he shouldnt work.  But with GFD he did...

Slips
Title: Re: How old is Chopper? How about ...
Post by: Queen Firey-Bou on 01 July, 2004, 05:17:54 AM
"did" being the operative word.

chopper is a honey, hybridize him with Slaine... and you may not have your average 2000ad long term reader, but you sure would be pleasing this long term girlie reader in the idealised bloke stakes.
Title: Re: How old is Chopper? How about ...
Post by: Smiley on 01 July, 2004, 01:00:46 PM
Rogue is physically young and virile but mentally trapped in old-think?

balance between disobedience and strict training


The way I've always seen Rogue's character is pretty much from what's established in the first few stories. Essentially he's Batman with a bit of the Tin Man's innocence thrown in.

It's a simple formula that doesn't bear messing with. (The best Rogue Trooper stories can be summed up as "War is hell, and often downright weird.")
Title: Re: How old is Chopper? How about ...
Post by: JMSwallow on 01 July, 2004, 04:20:54 PM
>What does anyone else think of these thorny age >questions?

As Smiley notes, it's established in "Milli-com Memories" that Rogue and his GI mates were 20 years old at the time of the Quartz Zone drop.
Title: Re: How old is Chopper? How about ...
Post by: Tweak72 on 01 July, 2004, 04:26:28 PM
three years it took 3 years
Title: Re: How old is Chopper? How about ...
Post by: Matt Timson on 01 July, 2004, 04:41:59 PM
Millicom Memories (which was brilliant) did indeed establish that all the GIs were 20 when they went into combat for the first time.

Rogue Trooper was one of my favourite strips for ages- especially the Cam Kennedy run- and I used to really look forward to reading it.  In fact the more I think about it, the less I think that Rogue should be revisited in the future.  I didn't dislike Gordon's latest stuff, it just didn't do anything for me.

The less said about 'Horst' and that whole stint as a hitman, the better...
Title: Re: How old is Chopper? How about ...
Post by: Rio De Fideldo on 01 July, 2004, 05:58:54 PM
I still reckon all you need is a story with Rogue hooked up to a dream machine operated by the Traitor General and you'd be able to write off Horst, The Hit and Fr1day (unloved stories all) as a figment of Rogue's imagination.

Plus the Traitor General would still be on the run.

Easy!
Title: Re: How old is Chopper? How about ...
Post by: Matt Timson on 01 July, 2004, 06:16:37 PM
Heh- I guess so.  I really enjoyed the final showdown though.

Tell a lie, I can't actually remember it!  I'm thinking of the one where Rogue and the TG duked it out courtesy of Bland and Brass.

F*ck me- how did it end?!?  Why can't I remember?  I know that they used a cover that should've been used in the BB fight and something about Rogue saying they were going home...

Bah!  Help me out, somebody!
Title: Re: How old is Chopper? How about ...
Post by: paulvonscott on 01 July, 2004, 06:22:18 PM
All of you who mock Rogue, you're all going to hell.
Title: Re: How old is Chopper? How about ...
Post by: Rio De Fideldo on 01 July, 2004, 06:44:55 PM
I'm not mocking him I'm deadly serious.

Rogue can be brought back to be great again.

You could bring back Bland and Brass too. The injuries they had, could have been feigned to get Rogue to trust them enough so he would go to the Ends of Nu Earth to fall into the Traitor General's trap. Hooked up to the Dream Machine, Rogue is helpless until his subconcious begins to tell him the increasingly unlikely stories (Fr1day in particular) are "just a dream".

He awakens to find the Traitor General has escaped once again.

In case you hadn't noticed this is something of an unhealthy obsession for me.
Title: Re: How old is Chopper? How about ...
Post by: Smiley on 01 July, 2004, 06:48:13 PM
how did it end?!?

Rogue followed him to Nu-Earth's equivalent of the north pole, where the traitor sicced a load a robots on him (having nicked a chip that could control them off some alien delegates).
Title: Re: How old is Chopper? How about ...
Post by: paulvonscott on 01 July, 2004, 06:50:09 PM
"He awakens to find the Traitor General has escaped once again."

No, let that traitor die....
Title: Re: How old is Chopper? How about ...
Post by: Matt on 01 July, 2004, 06:53:36 PM
...and Rogue for that matter.
Title: Re: How old is Chopper? How about ...
Post by: paulvonscott on 01 July, 2004, 06:57:16 PM
Why should Rogue die?  What's he done wrong?
Title: Re: How old is Chopper? How about ...
Post by: Matt on 01 July, 2004, 07:01:47 PM
Hows about slipping into the realms of turgid continuity. That and the fact that he's the most one dimensional, cardboard cutout of a character ever to grace the pages of 2K. Even Ratty had more personality than Rogue. And he's just a rat for fecks sake. It's not I don't like Rogue, I do, but after the TG storyline was concluded the series had nowhere left to go and should have finished there. Even Gordon couldn't generate much more mileage from the character.
Title: Re: How old is Chopper? How about ...
Post by: paulvonscott on 01 July, 2004, 07:07:51 PM
I agree it went nowhere after traitor general, just saying he doesn't deserve death for the dodging writing of others!
Title: Re: How old is Chopper? How about ...
Post by: JayzusB.Christ on 01 July, 2004, 07:09:44 PM
Geekily enough, I've just checked Chopper's exact age. I'm almost sure his age was given as 27 in that Supersurf 13 thingy by Alan McKenzie, which was in 1995. Given Dredd's world moves in 'real-time', that makes him about 36. I am a spa and should get out more, but there you go.
Title: Re: How old is Chopper? How about ...
Post by: Thread Zero on 01 July, 2004, 07:36:43 PM
Chopper - aproximately 13 on his first appearance in 1981 (2101 Dredd-time), so he's about 36.

Rogue - dropped onto Nu Earth age 20, takes three years to find the Traitor - probably not yet in his mid-20's.
Title: Re: How old is Chopper? How about ...
Post by: Generally Contrary on 01 July, 2004, 09:46:35 PM
20, that's rubbish Souther technology for you.  How old were those baby-things on robot legs that Norty had?  I mean, if I were in charge of military genetics I'd want to produce soldiers a bit quicker than that.  

I mean, the even the British Army recruits at 16, and send 'em into battle at 18.  And soldiers around the world are often younger than that.