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Warren Ellis is a Genius Writer.
Look up either his Planetary books,
or Transmetropolitan.

Planetary has great art too (the comic is quarterly or something).
Transmets art is quite quirky, but it grows on you.

 

Whoops!

So why did Moore never continue the Ballad of Halo Jones, especially since hes been back in 2000AD in recent times writing pretty generic fantasy scripts?

One of the good things about Mr Diggle & Mr Bishop was how they always took an interest and responded to readers queries/concerns. They still make the odd contribution.

Anyone know If Matt Smith & Alan Barnes contribute here?

I don't think I've ever Implied that I don't want more Rogue and Alpha stories cos purely cos I know how they Died.

My main point has always been what Matt has summed up so well.

I liked the Kreeler conspiracy too. It brought something different to the mix. Roadhouse however, to me, was a bit boring. It was so exact in style to the recent Megazine reprints that I wouldn't be surprised if it was an old script dug out of the bottom of wagners desk somewhere.
Don't get me wrong - if John's brief was to produce a retro-style story he succeded admirably. Having grown up some since the first time around, Im just not gripped by that style anymore.

If either Rogue & Alpha were to be presented in a way that was original and exiting I'd be quite interested. But it would be difficult to achieve, and strikes me as a lot of hard work when there are existing characters, who in their time were actually popular enough, waiting in the wings.

The adventures of both Feral & Friday lost steam towards the end of their runs. But so too did the Original Rogue after he topped the Traitor General.

Like the recent Rogue Trooper stories, the old style Strontium Dog has left me cold.  Alpha's dead and there's no getting around that. Tales in which nothing significant can ever happen to the main characters, or the status quo of the universe they inhabit, seem a bit pointless. Look at Dante – he's changed a lot throughout the series run, as has the world around him. There's no scope for that kind of development in these retrospective tales. We certainly won't ever see anything as inspired as the 'final solution' in the current revival.

As to bringing back new characters, its already been done in Strontium Dogs. I won't argue about the quality of these tales. Though I quite liked them, they were ultimately dropped like a hot potato, so can't have been that popular. The problem seems to have been that they were too character orientated, with not enough action to suit the weekly 7 page format. But by the last episode all the hanging storylines were resolved, and at the end we were left with a line up of characters including Middenface Mcnulty, Feral, The Gronk and Bullmoose. The doghouse had been rebuilt and the SD's were back in operation.  The series had been given a clean slate.

Surely there's scope to start afresh. McNulty and the Gronk are old hands. A reborn Feral has the potential to be a cool character – maybe even stepping into Alphas shoes. There's no reason why they can be picked up by a new creative team, given a dust off and reinvigorated in brand new adventures, more in line with the old style bounty hunting.

Inspired by my own rantings I dug out some old comics to re-read Fridays adventures, minus Fleischers misfires of course - once was enough.

I found they held together pretty well.
I particularly liked Friday and CO always had some kind of real agenda in their wanderings, even though these aims were often superceded by some external crisis.

Thats an aside though. Forgetting continuity haggles (whats done is done) Friday and co could easily return with very little baggage. A new writer would surely have his own take on it, and the current editors could ensure it was more populist and to their liking.  

All the introduction we would really need is -
Heres Friday. Here's his biochips.  Bad guys - The Karvanu Zeolots. Good guys - Nort-Souther Coalition. Take it from there.

Thats about all the info we got with the revisited Rogue Trooper.  At least with Friday there would be plenty of room for development.

Heres a thought - with the bioweapon producing Aliens manipulating their Karvana puppents on one side of the warzone, there'd be a lot of scope for all kinds of weird and wonderful ET tech.  
Certainly weirder than Frogmen or battle suits.  

Lets not forget Friday was popular in his time. He had semi-permanent status in 2000AD, Annuals and dedicated specials. I suppose we will be reading about why the plug was actually pulled in the next couple of megazines. I'll be interested to find out what happened?

New storylines at least - but I wouldn't say fresh - they seem a bit old hat. And given that we've had, what? around ten episodes of it to date nothing much seems to have happened.

If it is absolutely essential to drag the original out of retirement, something along the lines of Cinnebar - Nu Earth Flashback should be the benchmark. 10 episodes of that did more for Rogues and Co's characterisations than the rest of the series put together. That was indeed fresh storytelling.

Killing the traitor was the original rogues only motivation. Well, that and killing everyone else.
But I liked it well enough when I was twelve. Kinda boring nowadays, even If I didn't already know how it all turns out.

I take your point about Nu-Earth almost being a character itself - But I find on rereading that the weird weapon of the week tales have become a bit dull and formulaic.

I'll admit that Fleischers run was an embarassement. I hated it in fact - especially how the box o tricks on Friday's back could drop out random plot devices (sonic screwdriver anyone?) to deal with whatever unconvincing threat was generated in an attemt to create false drama. And don't start me on the big pink fish in the bubble.

But Steve white took over as writer and demonstrated the style that depth that made the series one of my favourites.  

As far as scope, what did steve give us? - Artic battles, Jungle Sniping, Orbital Battles, Running Tank battles, Demonstrations of convincing field tactics, Fighter plane skirmises, virtual engagements and even psychological attacks.

Rogue was world war one attrition in the trenches. Friday to me was hi-tech warfare over a much wider canvas.

As far as character motivations go how about this-
At his companions urging Friday decides to protect the bio-chips stored in the Soul Scavengers (Ok the Scavenger was a bit rubbish too, but whats been done is done) space station at the bio-chips urging, with other GI's preference for death reiterating the tragic nature of the bio-chip concept.  

How about the loss of friends and a loved one sending Friday in a downward spiral, contemplating suicide and taking part in gladitoral bar fighting to satisfy his death wish.

What about a worldwide invasion bringing back Rogues survival instincts, and the near genocide of civilians driving him to more proactive action in mounting a desperate rear guard defense.

And how about the mind games under interogation, and the terrible knowledge that machines he was forced to fight and destroy were manned by captured children. Snarling "Im born to Kill" through gritted teeth won't help him deal with that one.

How about the driving need for revenge against the enemy commander who put him through it, a man who also coldly killed one of Fridays companions.

If these aren't reasons enough to motivate him against the new enemy, how about the humdinger ending with the truth about the aliens agenda revealed. Yike! - if he comes back it'll be to a world of hurt, but would there be any doubt about his willingness to get stuck in. And the scale of the threat would certainly justify him becoming a bit more gung-ho.

When you get down to it, Friday can be brought back without any baggage. Just a GI and his chums, with a new enemy and far greater potential for new storylines and settings than can ever be achieved dusting off Rogue for some "lost-years"
fluff.


 

I just can't understand the suggestion that the new Rogue Trooper has become too mired in continuity to carry on. It?s all in fact fairly straight forward.  

To summarise -

There was the original rogue and his bio-chipped buddies Gunnar, Helm and Bagman. He was an archetypal bare chested bullet proof hero out for revenge who shot stuff up in the war between the 'Norts' and 'Southers' for a long time before finally killing the Traitor general that got all his buddies killed.

An abortive attempt was made to rejuvenate the character during the brief ?Hit? series, but without even his simplistic motivation for revenge Rogue floundered and the storyline was brought to a rapid halt in a one off adventure that concluded with Rogue's bio-chips being re-gened as  blue babies with tiny mohawks.  

Then along came Friday, an attempt to reboot the character with modern sensibilities and minus the stupid punk haircut. Friday quickly discovered his clone brothers were massacred in a 'popstars' style manufactured war engineered as a testing ground for the GI production line. By the end of the introductory story Friday had already killed his own 'Traitor general' the owner of the corporation that created him and sacrificed his 'brothers' in the name of profit.  

A far cry from the bare chested killing machine of yesteryear this GI truly was a 'Rogue' trooper. Through a one off flaw in the cloning process Friday was accidentally given one thing his predecessor lacked - Emotions, and so finding himself with a conscience required better justification than simply being "born to kill" to get involved in the skirmishes that were the legacy of his creator?s manipulations. Often times he fought to protect those left behind on the battle scarred planet. Initially fighting alone, Friday was eventually reunited with Bio-Chipped versions of his long dead brothers in an admittedly contrived storyline.  

At the time few chimp brained readers seemed incapable of grasping the fact that the new and old rogue troopers were two entirely different people. So a decision was made to reunite the main characters of both series in a story arc intended to deal with inane enquiries like "Why is Helm now called Top?" once and for all.  

In short order Friday found him self face to face with the original Rogue and the re-gened bio-chips now all grown up. Rogue and Co found that the re-cloning came at a price, a deteriorative effect that would eventually kill them. They were forced to work as mercenaries for a shadowy corporation that might be able help them. Turns out Rogue was one of the first clunky trial models off the GI production line (explaining why Rogue has no personality to speak of) and that Friday is a much slinkier version 2.0. The reason they've tracked Friday down is that he holds the advanced genetic coding that can cure them. However, the assembled GI's find out that the corporations are fighting over an orbital storage facility containing millions of Bio-chipped souls, the winner getting to exploit the bio-chips as digital slaves. They all find the idea reprehensible and so elect to take a brave stand against the corporation to prevent it happening, sacrificing the potential cure in the process. In the ensuing battle Rogue, Bagman and Helm and Gunnar Die bravely. All except Gunnar made it clear that they would rather stay dead than be returned as Bio-chipped ghosts.

A weary Friday returns to the planet surface with Gunnar newly added to in his armoury. Having lost so many friends Friday goes a bit barmy and it is only with the arrival of a new enemy that he finds a new reason to live and fight once again. The planet is attacked en-mass by an invasion force of murderous religious fanatics. Friday has to fight all out alongside the now united Nort and Souther forces to help the planets innocent civilians. He manages to save many of them, but does so at huge personal cost, losing one of his own bio-chipped buddies (the annoying Eight-Ball) and almost losing his own sanity in the process.

At the end of the story-arc Friday has discovered that the invaders are the puppets of alien creatures mistakenly believed to be gods. Instead of bringing unbelievers to salvation the invaders are instead bringing prisoners to be used as living raw material for a massive biomechanical machine.  A scarred and beaten Friday manages to escape, but knows that he must soon return to battle this monumental threat.

And that?s how the story ended. I?m sorry, but that was some damned imaginative and intelligent storytelling. I for one don't want misplaced nostalgia to cause me to sit through another hundred episodes of the original cardboard cut out Rogue shooting stuff up in retrospective stories that can by default go nowhere new.

The continuity isn't that hard for anyone with half a brain to understand. Besides, there's no real need to get into it. We can enjoy a Judge Dredd story without having to reiterate the entire history of Mega City every week. Why not Rogue trooper.

All we need to know about Friday is this -
He?s a former Genetic Infantryman. He?s accompanied by Bio-Chipped weapons (0ne of them happens to be Gunnar -big deal!) and a female GI. He?s up against a new alien enemy (of which we know next to nothing) and the human forces they control.

I dearly hope the editors give Friday another chance. In return they would find themselves with great potential for some epic tales of future war without having to retread the same old ground to the same extent as shown in recent weeks.

If it?s a more back to basics hero the editor wants, the monumental scale of the new and interesting threat that?s been set up should be more than enough to forge the occasionally introspective Friday into the battle hardened protagonist they seem to crave.



 
 

I seem to remember lots of familiar faces appearing in the mass grave scenes post Necropolis.
Can't remember the details though.