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Peter Milligan Pays Tribute To Brett Ewins In His Return To 2000AD With Bad Company

Published Mon, 09 Mar 2015 07:00:22 -0500

Last updated Mon, 09 Mar 2015 07:44:07 -0500

Peter Milligan is returning after thirteen year to the sci-fi weekly comic 2000AD to revive his co-creation Bad Company, the series he created thirty years ago with Brett Ewins and Jim McCarthy in 1986, hoping it will be "a fitting tribute to a man without whom Bad Company would never have been what it was". Legendary 2000AD artist and Deadline Magazine co-creator Ewins died last month, aged 59.

The new Bad Company story, First Casualties. will debut in 2000 AD Prog 1950, on sale 30th September, with pencils by Rufus Dayglo (Tank Girl) and inks by Jim McCarthy (The Sex Pistols: The Graphic Novel).

Peter Milligan says "Since I began writing my new Bad Company story, anyone who's connected with 2000 AD has probably heard the sad news of the death of Brett Ewins, penciller and vital component of the original Bad Company team. Brett was a great artist and a great friend and this story has become something of a homage to his memory. If that puts more pressure on us to produce a new story that lives up to the Bad Company name so be it. First Casualties is a surprising tale, revealing new truths about Bad Company and their world, and also saying something about our own world. I hope it's a fitting tribute to a man without whom Bad Company would never have been what it was."

In humanity's war with a vicious alien species known as the Krool on the planet Ararat, when his own unit is destroyed a young soldier called Danny Franks is recruited by a band of renegades known as Bad Company. This collection of freaks and maniacs is led by Kano, a taciturn Frankenstein's Monster-like soldier who keeps a secret in a little box that he refuses to show anyone else. The naive Franks must not only survive the re-animated dead human soldiers, human/alien hybrids, and other monstrosities thrown at them by the Krool but also the insanity and instability of his own comrades as they plunge deeper and deeper into the "Krool heart" of the conflict as the clock ticks down for the future of the human race – but his fate was to become not only as addicted to the war as Kano, but to become the collective mind of the Krool themselves.