Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Quintessential 2000 AD, 13 Mar 2005
There's a lot of junk in 2000 AD's back catalogue but this classic future-war story from the mid-1980s is well worth a reprint. Part one is quintessential 2000 AD, bleakly humorous, furiously paced and able to think on the run. Milligan manages to give the cliché of a raw soldier who is drafted into a unit of insane veterans (see also The VCs) seem fresh. Bad Company are an excellent collection of weirdoes but the stars of the show are the villains, the Krool. Utterly evil space-vivisectionists out to destroy the human race. They are given an original and eye-catching look by the excellent Ewins-McCarthy artwork. Part Two uses the cliché of the veteran assembling a multi-talented crew for a suicide mission. (see The ABC Warriors.) It's a sequel like Men in Black II, OK but we didn't really need it. Still, the crew are an entertaining bunch and the saga comes to an unexpected conclusion.
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Stick with Goodbye Krool World, Vol 2 for diehard fans only, 31 Jul 2008
Bad Company: Kano is part 2 of the Bad Company story, the first part which is incorporated in "Goodbye Krool World" which is an essential collectors item for any 2000AD or graphic novel afficionado. The graphics are almost as good here, but the story wanders, retreading old ground. The depths of Kano's inner conflicts are plumbed, and it just leads more firmly to the conclusion that the best material was in the first volume. If you love volume 1 you should get this for completeness, but get vol 1 first.
Volume 1 = 5 STARS
Volume 2 = 3 STARS
Book 1 details the wonderful story of Danny Franks and his recruitment into Kano's Bad Company on planet Arrat. The second half of book 2 involves a quest by Danny Franks to destroy the Krool heart ending the reign of the Krool. It is in black and white. It begins at prog 500-519, 548-557, 576-585.
To clarify, book 2 is in mixed colour and black and white, depending on the original episodes as they appeared in the pages of 2000AD progs 828-837, and 1273-1277. It involves two separate stories, one involving Kano on a strange planet with ghosts of his former Bad Company colleages, then in a mission to return and confront Danny Franks, who became the Krool heart at the end of book 1.
Book 1 is fantastic. Get that book and then think twice about book 2.
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Out here, all morality seems... alien.", 27 Jun 2007
Bad Company didn't run for anywhere near as long as other 2000 AD stalwarts like Strontium Dog & Rogue Trooper but it's still an iconic & powerful series, which has stood the test of time more than most.
The first story is set on an alien world, where humans are losing a war against the aptly-named Krool. When his unit is over-run by the Krool-created zombies of dead earth soldiers (a literal horror of war), Danny Franks is rescued by, & drafted into, Bad Company.
Most of Bad Co. are former POW's who were subjected to Krool genetic experiments, including Flytrap (half man, half plant), Dogbrain (pretty self-explanatory) & Thrax (just funny-looking & psychotic). All of them are battered, weary & have literally had most of their humanity cut away. But all are eclipsed by their Leader, Kano.
Utterly obsessed with killing Krool, Kano cares nothing for the lives of his men, who are dragged along on increasingly suicidal misisons while their numbers dwindle. He is equally obsessed with a black box he keeps with him at all times & frequently stares into during rare breaks in the fighting.
There is plenty of action but warfare is never glamourised. Old-fashioned war comics & propaganda are even sent up via the character of Mad Tommy, who speaks as though he's fighting 'jerry' in WW2.
The 2nd story has the last remaining pockets of the human race clinging for survival, having effectively lost the war. Danny Franks is determined to rebuild Bad Co. & fight on, even though "we can't win. Humans are a dead race... I'm just killing because it makes me feel batter." His new team are even more eccentric than the original, consisting of a masochistic torture victim, a rich elite who fights purely for his own entertainment & a mysterious alien with unfathomable motives.
Kano, meanwhile, is wrestling with his sanity. When he rejoins Bad Co., he will take them on a journey to the very heart of the darkness...
Brooding, thought-provoking & original with slick Brett Ewins art, Bad Company has none of the cheesiness of other 2000 AD reprints. In fact, it's utterly, utterly dark.
Now if only they'll reprint Zenith as well...
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