Review by Frank Plowright

Allowing for some adjustments due to story length and page count, Rogue Trooper’s run from the beginning was reprinted over five volumes by Titan. However, instead of continuing with the work of Gerry Finley-Day and Cam Kennedy, Book Six featured other creators on Rogue, and while Future Wars does pick back up with Finley-Day and Kennedy, several stories between wouldn’t be available in book form until the second volume of Tales of Nu-Earth.

Despite the gap, Rogue still seeks the general who sold him out, and he’s offered the chance to learn his location provided he carries out a mission for Colonel Kovert. It’s one of those stories where Finley-Day sets things up adequately, but then to save time has Rogue take a giant logical leap that turns out to be entirely right, in this case concerning what the Norts are up to. It features a new recurring enemy, but not a greatly resonant one, so the highlight of the six chapters is Kennedy drawing scenes of Rogue in space with an imaginative elegance.

Next is the nine chapters of ‘Message From Milli-Com’ in which Rogue meets a group of Souther officers tiring of endless war and what they perceive as the blunders of their superiors. They, of course, believe they can do a better job. They see the way forward as assassinating the Nort generals due to attend a conference in forty days as long as Rogue’s willing to train them and lead the mission. Finley-Day delivers some joy in arrogant officers being forced to suffer the indignities of Rogue’s training methods, but he stretches a slim plot too far via the traditional method of a long trek through dangerous territory before reaching the final destination. At that point he throws in a twist and everything picks up for the final couple of chapters. It also features in later collection To the Ends of Nu-Earth, and everything here is in Rogue Trooper: Complete Collection 2.

Kennedy, though, is on top form all the way through, delivering threats ranging from enemy fire to swamp monster and glimpsing forward to the impact he’d have on Star Wars comics via the technology. Look at the craft on the sample art. It’s a beauty. Great art, though, doesn’t save a volume that only occasionally sparks into life.