The Losers

AUTHOR: Diggle, Andy

ARTIST: Jock (pseudonym of Mark Simpson, illustrator); Shawn Martinbrough (illustrator); Clem Robins (letterer); Nick Dragotta (penciller and inker); Alé Garza (penciller and inker); Ben Oliver (penciller and inker); Colin Wilson (penciller and inker); Lee Loughridge (colorist)

PUBLISHER: DC Comics

FIRST SERIAL PUBLICATION: 2003-2006

FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 2004-2006

Publication History

In 2002, Andy Diggle, a former 2000 AD editor who had recently written the Lady Constantine miniseries (which was published in 2003) for Vertigo, was invited to discuss ideas for an ongoing Vertigo series, which would be a reworking of an existing DC Comics property. After spending some time searching for a suitable concept or character, editor Will Dennis suggested

The Losers, a series published in DC’s war title Our Fighting Forces (issues 123-181, 1970-1978). Diggle had never read it, but he liked the title.

The characters were dead in the DC Comics continuity, so Diggle planned a series set in the 1950’s that would reveal the group had survived and was essentially in hiding. They would then get involved in a heist caper. However, Garth Ennis was already doing a retro military series with War Stories (2001), and Howard Chaykin and David Tischman were working on a 1950’s crime book, American Century (2001-2003).

Ultimately, Diggle set his story in the present day with a new set of characters, meaning his series had barely any connection to the previous one. In two nods to the original, Diggle included a character named Clay (the original Losers featured Sergeant Clay) and used the name of the group’s dog, Pooch, as the call sign of one of the other characters.

The Losers illustrator, Jock, the pseudonym of British artist Mark Simpson, had previously collaborated with Diggle on the Judge Dredd Megazine series Lenny Zero (2000-2002). The first issue of The Losers, dated August, 2003, was a larger-than-average thirty-two pages. Jock illustrated the first six issues, but because of the pressures of producing a monthly book, he shared art duties with various illustrators thereafter. Jock tackled two crucial story lines: the flashback to the Losers’ final mission before they were officially declared dead in the 1970’s series (issues 16-19) and the climax to the entire series (issues 29-32). Diggle never intended the series to run indefinitely, and it came to a close with issue 32, dated March, 2006.

Plot

The Losers are a Special Forces team, seconded to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), whose chopper was shot down during a mission ordered by their CIA handler, Max. They escaped back to the United States but found themselves placed on a secret CIA death list.

In Dead Man’s Hand, the team intercepts an illicit shipment of heroin being trafficked from within the CIA. The proceeds would have been used to fund dirty operations. In Goliath, the team launches a raid for data on the Goliath oil company, which has been running the drug shipments. Roque betrays the Losers, conspiring with Max to steal a quarter of a billion dollars of CIA money from a Goliath facility and to blame it on the Losers. The team escapes with the data.

In Downtime, Clay contacts Colonel Coleman, the man who put the Losers together, for information on Max. The code name Max has existed since the end of World War II and has been used to deal drugs and weapons to fund U.S. military campaigns and to interfere in other nations’ politics. Meanwhile, Jensen extracts the stolen data, and in Island Life, he delivers it. There is no evidence to tie the CIA to the drug shipments, but the data reveals Max is searching for something on the volcanic island of Montserrat. Meanwhile, Max orders the death of a geologist, Hashimoto, who was investigating tectonic activity in the Persian Gulf on a decommissioned oil rig owned by Max. On Montserrat, the Losers face off with Max’s team and steal a safe containing Hashimoto’s survey.

In Sheikdown, the team arrives in Qatar and is employed by political advisor Sheik Abdul Aziz Ibn-al-Walid to intercede between Qatari dissidents and CIA operatives. In return, the Sheik shows them Max’s oil rig (which is deserted) and tells them Max is an insider at CCI, the bank that launders his drug money. In Blowback, Aisha rescues her former boyfriend, Fahd, from prison in Turkmenistan by tricking the CIA into moving him between prisons then hijacking the convoy.

The Pass flashes back to 1998 and the Losers’ last mission. Assigned to seek a terrorist named Ahmed Khalfan Fadhil and guide a bomb to him, they attempted to abort the mission upon discovering children were being trafficked at Fadhil’s location in the Khyber Pass. Max told the Losers to continue, but they disobeyed, rescuing the children and executing Fadhil. Cougar found a prisoner in the cellar, Max’s former right-hand man, who told Cougar that Fadhil was not a terrorist but a heroin runner for Max. Max wanted to prevent his secrets from getting out. The Losers loaded the children onto a rescue chopper, but Max, believing the Losers were aboard, ordered the chopper destroyed. In the present day, Aisha reveals that Fadhil was her father.

In London Calling, the team infiltrates the London branch of CCI. A courier comes to pick up some bonds and the Losers plant a tracer in the briefcase. The courier is Roque, and in Anti-Heist, the Losers trace him to a ship in the Azores. They foil Roque’s plan to hijack two shiploads of decommissioned nuclear warheads, and in the process, the ships are sunk. However, Roque sends a hired Russian submarine to retrieve the warheads from the seabed.

In UnAmerica, the Losers track Roque to Pripyat’, an abandoned Ukrainian city near Chernobyl, where the nuclear weapons are being constructed. Pooch is captured and tortured by Roque, but the team saves him and kills Roque. The earthquake predicted by Hashimoto creates a new island underneath Max’s oil rig. In a televised address to the world, Max declares it the independent state of New Jerusalem and announces that the nation has placed nuclear weapons in forty-six cities around the world. His plan is to force all nations to adopt a free-market capitalist model. As a demonstration, he explodes a bomb in Pripyat’, which the Losers barely escape.

In the final story line, Endgame, Pooch has quit to return to his family. Sheik Abdul helps Clay, Jensen, Aisha, and Cougar infiltrate New Jerusalem via a secret undersea pipeline. Unbeknownst to the Losers, the Sheik sends Fahd in after them with a nuclear bomb in case the Losers fail. “Max” is revealed to be a pair of twins, the sons of the original Max. Clay is killed but kills one of the Maxes in the process. Cougar is mortally wounded by Fahd and retaliates, killing him; Cougar stays behind to set off the nuclear weapon. Pooch rescues Jensen while New Jerusalem and Max are destroyed. Aisha’s fate is unknown.

Volumes

•The Losers: Ante Up (2004). Collects issues 1-6. The stand-alone first issue introduces the team via a heist plot, while the other five issues chart their first steps toward finding Max.

•The Losers: Double Down (2004). Collects issues 7-12. The Losers discover more about Max and steal a geological survey he has commissioned. Their mission is increasingly aimed at exposing Max’s plans.

•The Losers: Trifecta (2005). Collects issues 13-19. The Losers discover Max’s oil rig while Aisha launches a rescue mission. The full story of the Losers’ final mission is told.

•The Losers: Close Quarters (2006). Collects issues 20-25. Roque returns, overseeing Max’s plans to steal nuclear weapons. Jensen appears to be killed but, in fact, survives.

•The Losers: Endgame (2006). Collects issues 26-32. While tracing the nuclear weapons, the Losers kill Roque. Max’s plans come to fruition but are thwarted by the Losers. Clay, Cougar, and possibly Aisha are killed in the process.

Characters

•Lieutenant Colonel Franklin Clay is the team’s leader, a grim-faced, hard-bitten soldier with a fierce sense of morality and duty to his country. He leads the Losers back to the United States after they are declared dead and starts plotting their next move.

•Sergeant Carlos Alvarez, a.k.a. Cougar, is the team’s sniper. He has long, fair hair and wears a Stetson at all times. A man of few words and disturbed by his combat experiences, he has extraordinary ability with a rifle.

•Sergeant Linwood Porteous, a.k.a. Pooch, is the team’s vehicles expert. A shaven-headed, easygoing family man, he can drive, pilot, or steer a wide variety of vehicles. He is motivated by a desire to clear his name so that he can return to his wife and children.

•Corporal Jake Jensen is the team’s communications and technology expert. Physically slight compared to his colleagues, with glasses and spiky blond hair, he specializes in hacking computers and cracking security systems.

•Aisha al-Fadhil is beautiful but brooding and often humorless. Raised amid violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, she fought the Soviets as a child. Her father was assassinated on Max’s orders, and she joins forces with the Losers to destroy Max.

•Captain William Roque is the team’s second-in-command, identifiable from the large scar across his face. From the outset, he is more interested in personal gain than the moral high ground and, before long, betrays his comrades for money.

•Max is a CIA code name first used by an agent during the Cold War. The same name was used by the Losers’ handler when they were seconded to the CIA; he gave the order for their transport to be shot down.

•Marvin Stegler is a middle-aged, graying CIA agent who is frustrated by his relegation to desk work. Assigned to investigate Max, he quickly runs into the Losers.

Artistic Style

The book’s style is set by Jock, who drew twenty-one of the book’s thirty-two issues. As a result of Jock’s work, the protagonists of The Losers are far removed from the square-jawed heroes of the war books that inspired the series. His artwork is rough-edged and chaotic; his characters’ faces are often scored with wild lines and are hidden in shadow, a technique appropriate for a book set in an unstable world and that follows a group of characters who, for all their skill, are constantly forced to improvise. The artwork suggests messy complexity, with things hidden in dark corners.

Additionally, Jock’s work is kinetic: characters and other visual aspects of the page always seem to be in motion. This not only suits the tone of the story, in which the Losers are unable to rest in their pursuit of Max, but also befits the large amount of action in the book. Despite its roughness, Jock’s work has an underlying clarity; the sequences flow well on the page, and the impression of chaos is aided by a huge array of sound effects. Color is used boldly, but often with a restricted palette to denote different locations. In the flashback issues, Jock and Lee Loughridge use a slightly different approach, muting the blacks into grays and throwing angular light and shade onto the images.

The series’ guest artists generally adhere to the style set forth by Jock, making the book fairly consistent visually. The greatest departure comes with Nick Dragotta’s issues, which were produced to layouts from Jock: Dragotta’s style is cleaner and simpler than Jock’s.

Jock’s covers are also worthy of note. They are often extremely graphic and incorporate elements of collage. The book’s politicized nature is well represented on the covers through imagery such as flags.

Themes

For a period in the 1990’s, the conspiracy thriller chiefly became a vehicle for fantasy, inspired by the television show The X-Files. These tended to work on the assumption that real-world conspiracy theorists were delusional. The September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States cemented this perception of the conspiracy theorist, as various outlandish explanations for the attacks were advanced. However, this shift in the geopolitical landscape is precisely what The Losers uses to connect the conspiracy theory to reality, returning it to its Watergate-era roots.

The series comments on an early twenty-first-century milieu in which it is increasingly clear that the full reasons behind political actions are not being disclosed. With the first installment of The Losers arriving within months of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the issues underpinning the series remained current throughout its run. (Lest the reality of his subject matter be doubted, Diggle closes issue 6 with a quote from a former Drug Enforcement Administration operative testifying that his investigations consistently led him to CIA employees.)

Because the series is anchored by a pertinent backdrop, elements of the story are quite lurid. Max, the series’ villain, initially seems superhuman, and his plan to create an independent island state to advance American interests is at the edge of scientific credulity.

However, while the plan is overblown, the motivation behind it is not. Max believes that the Americanization of the world is an inevitable process, and the major threat to global stability is resistance to this process. His plan is a more aggressive rendition of the real-world American mission in the Middle East, in which liberal free-market democracy is imposed in an authoritarian fashion. Presenting this as the solution to a future of environmental catastrophe and wars over food and water, the comic leaves the impression that, while this is obviously not the answer, a solution is required.

Impact

The Losers did not enjoy spectacular sales—it launched with sales of 19,850 but toward the end of its run had settled to 8,000-9,000—but it was well-received and established Diggle in the American market. Not long after the series ended, Diggle became the regular writer on Vertigo’s flagship title Hellblazer, a job most leading British comics writers have been given at one time or another, and wrote a Batman miniseries, Batman Confidential (2006-2011). Jock worked separately on Hellblazer, illustrating the Pandemonium (2010) graphic novel, and reunited with Diggle for the Green Arrow: Year One miniseries.

The Losers was part of a new wave of Vertigo comics branching out into other genres, following 100 Bullets, Human Target, and American Century. During the 1990’s, Vertigo had been dominated by works with fantasy elements, following in the footsteps of Sandman and Hellblazer. The Losers marked a growing interest at Vertigo in producing crime books, culminating in the foundation of the Vertigo Crime range. One of the launch books was Diggle’s Rat Catcher (2010). The influence of The Losers can also be seen in the crime and conspiracy books that followed, such as The Last Days of American Crime (2009) and Ghost Projekt (2011).

Films

The Losers. Directed by Sylvain White. Warner Bros., 2010. This film adaptation stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Clay, Zoe Saldana as Aisha, Chris Evans as Jensen, and Idris Elba as Roque. The film draws mostly on the first six issues of the comic, plus a brief version of the flashback issues (16-19), with the action relocated from the Khyber Pass to Bolivia—indeed, the Middle East barely figures in the film. Max is a stronger presence in the film, but his plan is significantly different: He merely wishes to engineer a terrorist incident. Diggle had unofficial input into the screenplay, and Jock produced artwork for the film; both contributed a commentary to the U.K. DVD release.

Further Reading

Chaykin, Howard, et al. American Century (2001-2003).

Diggle, Andy, and Ibañez, Victor. Rat Catcher (2010).

Diggle, Andy, and Jock. Green Arrow: Year One (2007).

Bibliography

Diggle, Andy. “Real American Heroes: Andy Diggle Extensively Talks The Losers.” Interview by Arune Singh. Comic Book Resources, May 12, 2003. http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&old=1&id=2230.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. “Winning and Losing: An Interview with Andy Diggle.” Interview by Brent Keane. Ninth Art, December 8, 2003. http://www.ninthart.org/display.php?article=728.

Diggle, Andy, and Jock. “Andy Diggle and Jock.” Interview by Tom Butler. Little White Lies, June 1, 2010. http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/interviews/andy-diggle-jock-11090.

Milligan, Peter, et al. Human Target (2000).