The now iconic zombie movie titled 28 Days Later sees an aggression-inducing virus called “Rage” ravage the London area right into a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and in a few select stories from the comic continuation of the film, the idea behind the virus is revealed to have been all about making powerful super-soldiers!
Briefly touched on in both the graphic novel 28 Days Later: Aftermath, by Steve Niles and Dennis Calero, and Boom! Studios’ 28 Days Later #12, by Michael Alan Nelson and Declan Shalvey, these pairing of comics explore parts of the film’s universe not seen onscreen. Focusing on two separate scientists with inside knowledge of the Rage Virus, revelations are made across both tales that address the earliest implications of this virus before it mutated into something far more deadly.
A deadly and mysterious virus understood to have spread via a lab animal who is rescued by activists, these comic stories go deeper into the Rage Virus’ origin while simultaneously painting a far clearer picture as to what was happening behind the scenes during a time when the infected were quite literally tearing apart innocent civilians on the streets of London. Taking place between the original film and its sequel, 28 Weeks Later, the information, when pieced together from both stories, lays out the woefully misguided intentions of a virus that ended up doing the exact opposite of what it was designed to do.
In 28 Days Later: Aftermath, readers find out that the virus was developed to target the parts of the brain that control anger — the initial suggestion being that it would be used to regulate “anger-control issues” if altered correctly. Going on to further stress that it needs to have the ability to spread quickly and be administered easily, it’s revealed that Rage was modeled after Ebola, a deadly virus that not many people who contract it survive. Then, in 28 Days Later #12, the American military claim they want samples of the virus to weaponize it, blatantly revealing they want to perfect the strain as “a super-soldier that can’t think is worthless,” directly alluding to the rage-inhibitor angle seen back in 28 Days Later: Aftermath; something that obviously didn’t work the way it was intended to.
While these explanations are from different creators, aren’t touched on in either film’s story, and might seem mutually exclusive at first, there’s enough information left undisclosed that with a little bit of connecting the dots, can be combined into one working theory. Never definitively given a reason for the virus’ origin in the movies, everything suggested in both comic series tells readers that the Rage Virus was initially meant to be weaponized in a way that it could be dropped on enemy combatants, forcing them to kill each other in a rageful frenzy, then, by basing Rage on the Ebola virus, allow these soldiers’ newly violent natures to spread more quickly and widely to maximum effect. Furthermore, with the American scientist admitting they wanted to perfect the virus to make super-soldiers, this franchise’s depiction of the military as a dangerous, inhumane force fits incredibly well with this super-soldier angle, making it a more legitimate take on the Rage Virus than most.
So although the chances that the Rage Virus would have ever produced a Captain America-level super-soldier were slim to none in the first place, that didn’t stop the nefarious powers that be from trying. The zombie-like enemies of 28 Days Later are a far cry from what was intended by the virus, but at least fans got a great movie and comic book series out of it!
