Rogue Trooper is a science fiction strip in the British comic 2000 AD, created by Gerry Finley-Day and Dave Gibbons[1] in 1981.
[2] It portrays the adventures of a "Genetic Infantryman" named Rogue and three uploaded minds mounted on his equipment who search for the Traitor General who betrayed their regiment to the enemy.
Simon Geller took over, reinventing the character as an intergalactic hitman attempting to end the war by assassinating key figures, but this new direction was dropped in 1989.
John Smith wrote a 'flashback' story, "Cinnabar", set in Rogue's deserter days, before original series artist Dave Gibbons returned to write a much more radical revamp of the character.
Fleischer was replaced with Steve White, who made the military aspect of the strip more up-to-date and tried to reconcile the two versions of the character.
As a result, what remains of the population of the planet, including the troops of both sides, live in enclosed domed military bases and habitats.
The Southern High Command deploy the entire GI Regiment in a mass spaceborne capsule drop over an area known as "The Quartz Zone", which resembles one of the Earth's Poles because the surface has an icy, glass-like nature due to nuclear weapon detonation melting the soil.
The Norts employ elite infantry known as the Kashan and Kashar Legions to repulse the assault, and the entire GI Regiment - apart from Rogue - are wiped out.
Along the way he thwarts numerous Nort schemes, discovers and inadvertently destroys the only portion of Nu-Earth not contaminated by chemical weapons, and is betrayed by every female character he encounters.
Much earlier prototype GIs, created by genetically modifying existing humans featured in the story "First of the Few" in the 1984 2000 AD annual.
During this, other Elite units of the Nort military are introduced, such as the Sun Legion, a Regiment of solar glider troops, and the Scum Marines, an amphibious assault force.
She is secretly an enemy agent known as a "filth columnist"[5] and dies in the final episode of the series when Bagman causes her to fall from a boat into the heavily polluted and toxic "Scum Sea".
The original run, mostly written by Gerry Finley-Day, was: Subsequently, Rogue Trooper appeared in stories by three other writers: The Hitman storyline concluded in the 2000 AD Winter Special 1989 (see below).
featuring alternative takes on popular 2000 AD characters, Rogue Trooper returned in a story written by Andy Diggle: The series appeared in one-off stories in annual special issues from 2014: The character returned to the regular issues of the comic in 2016: The 86ers was created by writer Gordon Rennie and drawn by artists Karl Richardson and PJ Holden.
Venus Bluegenes appeared both in Rogue Trooper and in her own eponymous strip, with stories written by authors including Grant Morrison, Steve White and Dan Abnett.
[9] Gordon Rennie and artist PJ Holden produced Hunted, a nine-part story told from the point of view of the Traitor General, in 2016.
On 20 July 2013, American company IDW Publishing announced that after the success of its adaptation of Judge Dredd from 2000 AD it would now champion Rogue Trooper with recoloured old issues as well as completely new stories.
[10] On 13 November 2013 it was announced that the new series would be written by British fantasy writer Brian Ruckley and drawn by Alberto Ponticelli.
"[13] The new Rogue Trooper features a re-designed helmet, rifle and backpack which serve as the three main supporting characters in the stories.
The game consists of killing Norts while searching Nu-Earth for 8 vid-tapes containing evidence of the Traitor General's involvement in the Quartz Zone Massacre.
On finding all 8 tapes, Rogue has to return to the Souther base of Milli-Com to prove the General's treachery and the extenuating circumstances of his going AWOL.
After Rebellion bought 2000 AD they released a third-person shooter Rogue Trooper video game in 2006, with a Wii version out in 2009.
In 2017 Rogue Trooper Redux was released to the current generation PC, PS4, XB1 and Nintendo Switch, developed by Rebellion and TickTock Games.
[24][25] In January 2024, it was announced that principal photography had concluded, with Aneurin Barnard voicing the eponymous character, and Jones reconfirmed as director, writer, and co-producer.