Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, Rebellion / 2000AD | Tagged: action, battle, battle action, brian k vaughan, garth ennis

Garth Ennis Joins Brian K Vaughan on Battle Action From 2000AD

Garth Ennis Joins Brian K Vaughan on Battle Action with John Wagner, Torunn Grønbekk, Chris Burnham, Dan Abnett, Rob Williams, John Higgins, Henry Flint, John McCrea, Steve White, Keith Burns and Tom Foster.

Garth Ennis and Brian K Vaughan are teaming up on a brand new series of Battle Action, launching this August from Rebellion/2000AD. A ten-issue magazine-sized monthly anthology will also see John Wagner, Torunn Grønbekk, Chris Burnham, Dan Abnett, Rob Williams, John Higgins, Henry Flint, John McCrea, Steve White, Keith Burns and Tom Foster.

This includes a brand new revival of the controversial series Kids Rule OK from Brian K Vaughan and Chris Burnham based on the original strip from the seventies weekly comic from IPC, Action, that saw questions asked in Parliament and the comic book cancelled in 1976, with copies pulled from the shelves in outrage. And the final, terminal story of WWII aerial ace Johnny Red by Garth Ennis and Keith Burns.

Battle Picture Weekly was created in 1975 by writers and editors Pat Mills and John Wagner, it introduced new grittiness into British comics with a cast of anti-heroes, misfits with a bombast and energy that sparked a sea-change in what comics could do, leading to Mills' creation of the controversial Action and then 2000 AD. Which being science-fiction meant the could get away with a lot more, without anyone in government or the tabloid press noticing.

Garth Ennis, who wrote for last year's version, says "This time we've got more stories, more brilliant writers and artists – some from last time, some new – and more of an emphasis on Action, with half the ten stories featuring its characters." Kids Rule OK is once again set in a hostile future London but now a young American boy runs for his life from a mob of xenophobic British punks "but he has a secret weapon they aren't expecting". "Getting Brian on 'Kids Rule OK' is a particular coup," says Ennis. "I personally think he's the best writer to get into the business in the last thirty years, and his love of British comics gives this a nice sense of things coming full circle. I secured his involvement at great personal cost, namely a cheeseburger. I think it may have cost Rebellion a bit more."

Johnny Red, fighter pilot in World War II, will see a moment in his history which has never been seen before: the final days of World War II. Ennis says  "A Couple Of Heroes sees Johnny and the Falcons battling the retreating Germans at the beginning of 1945. The war has a way to go yet, but for Johnny it can't end too soon – his friends are nearly all dead, the woman he loves is missing in action, he's not far off approaching burnout. But a figure from the very beginnings of the strip reappears with an offer of work, one that sees our hero flung back into the maelstrom on the deadliest mission of his life…"

Alongside Johnny and returning characters Nina Petrova, Major Eazy, HMS Nightshade, Dredger and Hellman of Hammer Force, the series will also see the return of Hookjaw, former-enslaved-man-turned-outlaw El Mestizo, and violent future sports series Death Game. Some of yhave a lot of googling to do and Wikipedia entries to read… and have until August to do it.

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