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War Machine: reused character and reboots - spun off from forthcoming thrills

Started by Robin Low, 20 February, 2011, 05:52:12 PM

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Robin Low

Robin said:
QuoteWar Machine was a great attempt at a reboot, but it was the failure to nail the character to a coherent setting and focus that let later series down, not a problem with the continuing with the character.

IndigoPrime said:

QuoteMm, and it's also a good argument for Mills-style consistency. To my mind, War Machine reads as well in a single sitting as Horned God. Imagine if Rogue Trooper (Fr1day version) had continued with the Gibbons/Simpson pairing, rather than getting crapped on from a great height by Fleisher. It could have been one of those series still talked about at hushed volumes, rather than one people were desperate to see finished off.

The one problem War Machine has as a collection is that every six pages you get "I'm coming for you High Side." In reality, it's probably nothing like that frequent, but I do remember when reading it collected in 2000Ad monthly that phrase cropped up far too often.

But it was a great reboot, and given what had happened to the original it was probably necessary. How would it have faired long term if Gibbons had kept writing? Well, I'm not sure it would have survived without adding the BioChips, or at least a travelling companion - comic strips are better with dialogue, I think, than internal monologue. I've not read anything by Gibbons for many, many years, but I remember really liking War Machine and his Batman/Predator series (at least back in my early 20s, anyway).

As for Mills-style consistency, you might be right as long as there is real consistency, and that all-important respect and liking for the characters - after all the ABC Warriors were seriously messed up by Mills after The Black Hole Mission, and they've never quite recovered.

Regards

Robin

Leigh S


Personally, I dislike it almost as much as the Fleischer stuff (well, not that much, but..!).

It takes all the things that are uniquely 2000ADish about the strip and replaces them with dull and over worthy attempts to not be a comic strip and avoid "silliness".

I'm not too sure what Gibbons could have actually done with the reboot anyway - having killed his traitor general at the end of the first story he had less direction than Rogue had during the depths of "The Hit".   

TordelBack

Yeah, I'd agree with Leigh's final point, if not the rest.  I loved War Machine at the time, and while I felt it maybe hadn't aged as well as I'd expected when it resurfaced in the Meg's Floppy GN I still think it's a really good example of a successful revisting of an old story.  

However, it really was less a rebooted origin and more a done-in-one Graphic Novel (ugh).  Just like Rogue, Friday's story was basically over once Clavel was offed.    That isn't to excuse the Fleischer abominations that subsequently wasted Ron Smith's valuable time, but it certainly wasn't a promising starting point for an ongoing tale, any more than Watchmen would have been.  The Gaia character hints at Friday's future role in reclaiming and rebuilding Earth for the survivors, but gives no hint as to how that would work as a story.

Kingdom shows how a Rogue Trooper reboot could have progressed, with the last-of-his-pack lead slowly finding out (or maybe just exposing to the reader) how his ravaged world operates, caught between the enemy he was destined to fight, and the distrust and machinations of his own side, with occasional third-party wild cards like the Ticks, and a procession of temporary companions to provide dialogue.  War Machine revealed and resolved far too much (well, all) of the world's background, so I suspect that direction was ruled out for Friday.  

SmallBlueThing

Quote from: Leigh Shepherd on 20 February, 2011, 06:33:06 PM

Personally, I dislike it almost as much as the Fleischer stuff (well, not that much, but..!).

It takes all the things that are uniquely 2000ADish about the strip and replaces them with dull and over worthy attempts to not be a comic strip and avoid "silliness".

I'm not too sure what Gibbons could have actually done with the reboot anyway - having killed his traitor general at the end of the first story he had less direction than Rogue had during the depths of "The Hit".   

YES! YESSS!!! (gets down on knees and raises arms to the sky)

Finally, someone says what I've been thinking about The War Machine all these years- and thought once again when I reread it in the meg floppies last year. It's bloody dreadful! Horrible, murky, splattery art, dull things happening, dull story, dull dialogue. For me this was always the absolute antithesis of The Horned God- and the very worst of 2000ADs mid-period fixation with fully-painted strips. Just utter yuck.

SBT
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Bluecube

I've got to defend The War Machine as this was the strip (along with Song of the Surfer) that, for me as a new reader, truly defined 2000AD as something truly different from what I had read before. The internal dialogue was something I've never seen before and it worked really well. This was one man on a mission with no sidekicks required. Will Simpsons art is something to behold even in the murky pages of the comic. With hindsight it reminds me of The Road - a journey with limited dialogue and long shots of dreary post apocalypse landscapes.

As a one off, The War Machine really works for me. I'm not sure how it could have been taken forward but I remember thinking that The Golden Fox Rebellion was absolutely pitiful and absolutely not the way to do it. As a character, Friday was destroyed for me until the more traditional sci fi war exploits written by Dan Abnett (I think) and brilliantly drawn by Henry Flint (once again I think - it was a long time ago now!) The problem with a reboot like The War Machine is that there's only so much internal monologuing that can be done. You need to have interaction with other characters to maintain interest and I don't think that would've worked. What do I know though?  :D
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radiator

I actually liked a lot of the later-period Fr1day Rogue material. Once Abnett and White took over (and the whole mess of trying to tie it to the original RT was cleared up) the series actually felt like it was finally going somewhere - the Norts and Southers forging an alliance to fight the Karvanu Jihadists (who were actually the first wave of a insectoid alien invasion force). I also liked that the future war element became much more prominent, and Steve Tappin's artwork was superb throughout. Shame it got wrapped up so quickly at that point.

I felt the same about Strontium Dogs - that was another series that, while admittedly it had been patchy - like Rogue I felt could have turned into something interesting had it been given another series or two, and besides, Rogue and Dogs were far from the weakest things running in the prog at the time imo.

I would love to see Rogue Trooper be rebooted again and return as an ongoing series, perhaps with a rotating writing/art team - give a few people a crack at the whip and see what sticks.

Bolt-01

For me, that would be a great solution to one of the current titles (IMO) problems- there is nothing to try new artists on. We have the odd FS every now and then, but for a new, or reasonably new artist to be given five pages of Rogue Trooper every week for 3 months, would be great fun. Have a round robin of writers too, Let Tharg decide what he wants the seraies to be about thematically and then let them get on with it. At best it could be a springboard to more work for a droid- at worst it will go down as an experiment. The most recent attempt at this was Damnation Station, but I'd go one step further and let untried artists have a go.

Grant Goggans

I'd take Simon Davis off Damnation Station and alternate him between Sin Dex (where he's missed), Ampney Crucis and the long-overdue return of Black Siddha, and give his slot on Damnation Station over to new artists.  I'm more curious to see what could come from more of that than from more Rogue Trooper.

SmallBlueThing

That's a pretty good idea Grant. Though personally, I'd be happiest to see the back of Damnation Station (Can't remember a Damnation Stathing about it after reading two series) and Tharg to stick him on SiniDex for a while, first taking away his blue paint. I'd like a new series, either a new recurring character or a 'series of serials' like Tales of Telguuth, with a whole bunch of rotating writers and new artists.

SBT
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Ignatzmonster

Quote from: Grant Goggans on 21 February, 2011, 04:41:35 PM
I'd take Simon Davis off Damnation Station and alternate him between Sin Dex (where he's missed), Ampney Crucis and the long-overdue return of Black Siddha, and give his slot on Damnation Station over to new artists.  I'm more curious to see what could come from more of that than from more Rogue Trooper.


Yeah, love Davis, but it was Boo Cook that made Damnation Station work for me (when it did.) I'd like to see it continue under different artists. I keep thinking Ewing is on to something and I'm willing to be patient to see if he gets there. Least I can do for a guy that gave me Zombo and some of the best non-Wagner Dredds of all time.