In an anticipated moment, the director of Moon and Warcraft, Duncan Jones has announced his next film.  A geeky choice, he has gone to his fandom of British Science Fiction comic 2000AD and chosen the story of Rogue Trooper as his next film.

Duncan Jones

Rogue Who?

Set far in the future, Rogue Trooper is the story of a Genetic Infantryman (GIs) created by science to fight a war between two warring factions, the Norts and Southers on the planet Nu-Earth.

The character first appeared in 2000AD #228 in 1981 and was created by Gerry Finley-Day and Dave Gibbons (Watchmen).

1st Appearance in 2000AD

Rogue Trooper’s platoon of GIs were ambushed at The Quartz Zone Massacre.  As the only survivor, Rogue goes on the hunt to find out who the traitor was and avenge his fallen comrades.

The gimmick is that a GI’s consciousness is uploaded to a bio-chip upon death.  The chip can stored on the gear of other GIs, and then be uploaded to a new GI body back at base.

So Rogue is able to retrieve three of his “dead” friends, named Helm, Gunnar and Bagman and place them in his specialized equipment.  This keeps them from expiring, gives him friends to help out in tactical situations and keep his sanity.

The writers used the Second World War, American Civil War and the Cold War as inspiration for tales that have gone on for 30 years in the pages of 2000AD.

Rogue-Trooper-02A
Rogue Trooper & Bio-Chips
Rogue-Trooper-01
Rogue, Helm and Gunnar

Duncan Jones is a great choice for this film.  Futuristic landscapes, future war, science fiction and hopefully brutal violence and battles.

To find out more about the character there is a collection of the 2000AD stories in Tales of Nu-Earth Volumes 1-4, a 1980’s board game and a video game from Rebellion which has recently been re-mastered for the new consoles.

Hopefully it will not be long before we get some 2000AD news about the Judge Dredd: Mega City One TV show.

Hailing from Dunfermline, Scotland. I am a video gaming, sci fi geek, comic book reading, novel reading, concert going, movie watching, boardgaming Scotsman. The following words are my own metadata: Scotland, HeartOfMidlothian, Alien, SongOfFireandIce, Xenomorphs, Deadpool, XMen, MoonKnight, Playstation4, ElderScrolls, Fallout, ReadDeadRedemption, GodOfWar, Star Wars, RedDwarf, Lovecraft, DoctorWho If any of these words resonate with you....we could be friends.