In Review: The Complete Bad Company

A band of misfits fight alongside Earth forces to battle the cruel Krool in the wastelands of the planet Ararat. Meanwhile the Earth has only 15 years of life left in it. That in short is the premise behind Bad Company by Peter Milligan, Brett Ewins and Jim McCarthy recently published by Rebellion in one complete volume.

2000AD’s Bad Company has many similarities to Battle Picture Weekly’s earlier strip, Darkie’s Mob (reviewed last blog); a brutal war story, character driven, partly narrated inb the form of a diary and with a violent, battle-hardened commanding officer with a mysterious past. But these similarities aside they are very different stories.

The aforementioned commanding officer is a Frankenstein’s-monster type figure called Kano. Once tortured by the Krool, he now has a half-human, half-Krool brain which allows him to share their madness. He lives now only to kill Krool! The narrator is Danny Franks, a naïve young Earth boy who quickly turns from innocent soldier into a shadow of Kano.

Large tracts of the story are philosophical delving into questions of humanity, morality, etc. Itr also has plenty of traditional war action and as such can be read on several levels. I can remember the strips original 2000AD run back in 1985 which ended with Danny Franks becoming the new Krool Heart, a kind of godhead. Aside from a 10 part solo outing for Kano, the strip did not return until 2001 with a short series bringing the whole saga to an end (I won’t divulge anything here in case you haven’t read it before). Reading it at the time it all felt a bit rushed and I felt a bit short-changed. With a bit more maturity and having read the whole saga again recently, I have a different feeling about it. It seems like a slow-burner as more and more background fed into the story culminating in a satisfying end and a logical finish. It was a worthwhile read and remains a classic of the period.

The majority of the art is by Brett Ewins and he has never been better than here. Some of his imagery is very striking and remains in the mind long after reading it. All-in-all then, The Complete Bad Company is a satisfying volume and well worth reading again, or for the first time if you have not read it already.