And the final day of freedom before we return to the tyranny of our work and social lives.
Let's get down with Jack "King" Kirby's The Losers!
Though I certainly didn't vote for 'im.
How's your Free As In Freedom Day going?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BxRBYh8mEw&
>>84264439
God dammit, I meant to post this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGU1P6lBW6Q
Though Brave Combo from Denton, Texas are one of my favorites anyway. Not exactly war music.
>>84264345
MORE AMERICAN STORYTIMES OVER HERE:
>>84260667
>>84261760
So the one-eyed fella is Cap'n Storm, who had his own comic prior to joining the team, called Capt. Storm - PT Boat Skipper.
Oh, and a missive from the man himself.
Kirby writes there that he aims to show a more human side to the war, not as glorified as the ones popular at the time.
That actually made it fairly unpopular with longtime readers and the series was not that well received.
Ironically, the exact thing that made it somewhat maligned at the time is what makes it so loved by later readers (like myself).
Johnny Cloud was introduced several years earlier as "Navajo Ace" in All-American Men of War. His thing was kind of just about commanding officers being prejudiced against Native Americans. He also had a team-up with the Haunted Tank.
For this title he doesn't do much flying, obviously. He just kind of suddenly has masterful tracking powers because hey he's an Injun!
That said, he's a pretty bad motherfucker.
The kid, Gunner; and the old Sarge were from some very short lived feature called "Gunner & Sarge" that ran in I think G.I. Combat.
The whole concept was basically just that Gunner was naive and upbeat and Sarge was grumpy and experienced.
I think Kanigher was pretty smart for realizing these two would work much better in a larger ensemble.
Where have I heard that word before...
>Nice kids, but about as sharp as a pound of wet liver
Now these I've never seen before. I wonder if /k/ would like them.
>>84265020
Huh which is weird cause they would headline till the last issue, I thought they would be fairly popular with the war comics crowd.
>>84265530
The series was still popular, just fans didn't like the change. Kirby left after 12 issues and Kanigher took over till the series ended.
>>84265593
>Ultra Comics
>>84265615
That page is hard-fucking-core.
kek
THEY'RE NOT BOOKS CLOUD THEY'RE GRAPHIC NOVELS RREEEEEE
Is this autobiographical?
I doubt that's supposed to be a bust of Darkseid in the second panel but...
jej
>a supervillain is born
>Save your issues. They're a segment of times you'll want to remember as the years pass.
>Like song and film, they remain ever present to trigger and stimulate images of places and faces you may lose sight of on the road to pompous wisdom.
>What is Americana today may be formal art tomorrow.
Is there literally, LITERALLY anybody more based than Kirby?
More /k/ porn
And some for /pol/ too
Japan Time?
>YOU EEDIOT
Gunner got his name because he uses a submachine gun. Even though they pretty much all use submachine guns now.
We anime now
The letter on the top right there is what I was talking about in regards to fans not being happy.
SPOooOOOoooOKY
Now for some big'uns
Eheheheh
That's pretty much the most suspicious looking man I've ever seen.
Sorry, had too much FREEDOM and got sick in the bathroom.
>>84267811
Thanks for posting these. I never knew the pedigree this series had and always wondered about the DC war books. I read some of the Unknown Soldier and Hauted tank from my uncle so it's good to see these.
>>84267848
If you like Unknown Soldier you should give the Garth Ennis version a shot, and then the absolutely stellar "modern" reinterpretation by this guy Josh Dysart that I storytimed yesterday, I was really amazed by it.
Also I read the modern reinterpretation of the Haunted Tank today as well and... yeah don't read that.
>>84267874
I read some of the Soldier have to check out the Ennis one, love his War Stories. Yeah I read the Haunted Tank one a few years back. It is bad but man I don't know how you could do a modern version without someone freaking out about it.
>>84267939
I get that it's not really a good idea to have a hero who waves a Confederate flag, and the idea was probably to mock the idea of a 19th century white man having to get along with people of several different races. But in practice they're all bad stereotypes that aren't funny.
>>84268101
What it could have done to address the whole Confederate problem was to use it as an opportunity to say, hey, not literally every person who fought for the south was a horrible asshole. Some were fighting for their homeland just like any other defending army.
And I know that can be done well, because they did it perfectly with Jonah Hex.
>>84268101
I wish it could be nuanced than that. Like it has a way to make it work but the idea of a Southern man from the 19th century being more that a racist is a hard sell now. It did not help that making it comedy takes away from some of atmosphere of horror the Haunted Tank had in the stories I read.
>>84268153
And of course there's the idea that humans are complicated and multifaceted, and so believing in one horrible thing (such as slavery or white supremacy) doesn't mean literally every thing you think or do is evil.
Like "hey JEB, you know, you're a really helpful and smart guy, it's just sometimes we have conflict over the backwards religious and political beliefs you have". That's a whole series worth of character interaction and development right there.
/rant
>>84268101
>>84268153
wait, how did haunted tank work if he was a civil war ghost??? technology doesn't work that way!
i can't remember actually reading any of Hex talking about the war, he's got a weird origin in that a big chunk is "raised by native americans" trash
>>84268187
Yeah, I felt like the whole book was someone going "OK Haunted Tank is retarded, let's just make it one big joke". Which worked to some degree with Punisher Warzone but not here.
I guess I kind of have expectations of trying to tackle the more difficult topics in a Vertigo book instead of just using the format as an excuse for more violence and swearing.
>>84268204
They just had the ghost running around with them and sometimes cutting off terrorists' heads.
Also you sound like you gotta read some more Hex. The Native American backstory is expanded upon in the 2006 run to be a lot more complicated. And there's an issue directly addressing people who were asking DC to have him get rid of his Civil War jacket. It explains that, even though he abhors slavery, he saw the war as an invasion of his home by people who don't understand it. He eventually deserted the army because of his disagreements with what many others were fighting for.
Another explanation given later was that he was ashamed of being a Confederate and wore it as a "reminder" or something but I think that's a little too simple and pandering.
>>84268247
Vertigo is a great imprint but when they have a shit book it tends to be real shit. Look up the Girl who would be death, a Sandman spinoff so obscure and bad I doubt it will ever be reprinted, and they reprinted most of them! Still a Haunted Tank comedy book does not really work since well good war comedy is also a hard sell. It's does not fit the character or what he was built for.
>>84268351
i vaguely remember that thing about him getting disgusted with the army. that confederate thing is a tough stain on a character to make work.
& tbf it's not like Hex is exactly a role model.
>>84268379
Man even in a war book Kirby dots, I love it!
>>84268413
Right. He's an extremely morally grey character.
>>84268419
This reminds me so much of his Black Panther art. You don't really think "jungles and forests" when you think of Kirby, but he does a bang up job with them.
I'm gonna be really mad if I can't fit these last three issues in here.
>>84268764
>>84268778
>no M30
Dude, did you ever get a chance to try out Daisenryaku and/or Liberty or Death?
This green tint is hurting my eyes.
>>84269062
I forgot the name of Daisenryaku and was just going to go through the archive and find your post, thanks anon. Literally going to find it right now.
Final Kirby issue
>>84269089
>>84269062
Do you have any idea how complete the Genesis version's translation is? That looks like the one I wanna play but the NES/GB ones supposedly have complete translations.
It's my understanding the actual finale to the series 20 something issues after this is pretty dark. Kanigher seems to like all his war characters to die in the war.
I should read the rest of the non-Kirby issues someday.
And then there's also the Andy Diggle "reboot" that got turned into the movie.
Famously, Diggle said that he had intentionally never read a single issue of the original Losers. To which I ask, what the fuck is the point then
And that's Kirby's run.
And this is a pretty sad letters page.
Thanks for reading, fellas. This is the series that inspired me to post these war comics in the first place. But I'm having so much fun, I'll probably continue with some of the non-American ones, like one anon requested.
Have a good night, and bump if you're enjoying. Next time I'll be back with some Enemy Ace!
>>84269089
I was just playing Liberty or Death. Money management is so fucking important in that game. I kept running out of money and one of my generals couldn't get a loan lol.
>>84269152
Internet says the menus are in english, which is the important part. Once you've memorized the controls/menus you should be able to move on to the SNES games from there. And possibly some of the others. The Genesis one should be a decent starting point, though the last time I played it was ages ago so I can't say I remember much about that particular game in the series.
Bump for non-earlybirds.
