The Losers is a comic book series written by Andy Diggle and illustrated by Jock, and published by the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics. It ran for 32 issues from August 2003 to March 2006. The idea was very loosely based on the original The Losers for DC Comics, a group of World War II soldiers, although Diggle maintains he has never read a single issue of the original series. The series was adapted into a film of the same name that was released in 2010.

Publication history

Andy Diggle has talked about the development of the concept, which developed from conversations with editor Will Dennis about doing an original title at Vertigo: I had to show that I could deliver the goods, first. So we talked about revamping an old DC character of some sort. I wanted to write a contemporary, crime-y, thriller-y—something in that genre. We started trying to think of a character we could revamp for Vertigo. I thought that 'Johnny Double' did exactly that. He was some character from 'Showcase' or something like that. I'd never heard of him, but Azzarello just plucked him from obscurity and revamped him in his cracking little miniseries. That was the model we were thinking of, find something as obscure as that... I was looking at all the online encyclopedias and stuff but we couldn't find anything that worked. One day, Will rang me up and said, 'Hey, have you ever heard of "The Losers"?' And I said, 'Well, actually no, but it's a great title. I could do something with a title like that'. I went straight onto Wikipedia and read up on who the Losers were and all that, but I've still never read any of the original issues. I made it a point not to. He originally thought about returning to the original and doing a war comic: [B]ut then it occurred to me—Garth Ennis was already doing War Stories at Vertigo, which already had the World War II angle covered. Howard Chaykin and David Tischman were doing American Century, which was a '50s crime book at Vertigo. Both those bases were already covered, so to hell with it, let's just throw away the original concept, keep the title and come up with something completely new from scratch. The only thing I kept from my original idea was what if it was about a bunch of soldiers who were dead but it turns out they're not really dead, they're just lying low for some reason. It was originally pitched as a four-issue miniseries. It was going to be much more a military crime caper in the tone of Three Kings or Kelly's Heroes. It went through a drastic mutation. The ongoing monthly comic concluded in 2006 after 32 issues, but it was never cancelled. According to Diggle, "everyone always thinks it got cancelled—it was always intended to be two or three years long".

Plot

The Losers' reimagining was set against events surrounding and including the War on Terror. Originally a Special Forces team integrated with the Central Intelligence Agency. In the 90s, the Losers were betrayed by their handler, Max, and left for dead following the conclusion of their operation. Eager for revenge and the opportunity to remove their names from a secret CIA death list, the Losers regroup and conduct covert operations against the CIA and its interests, uncovering startling operations spearheaded by the enigmatic Max, whose influence within the CIA and U.S. government is unparalleled.

Characters

Collected editions

The complete run has been collected into a series of trade paperbacks. All stories are written by Andy Diggle, with Jock on the majority of art duties: In 2010, a "double volume", including both Ante Up and Double Down, was released to tie in with the film adaptation and a second book to collect the rest of the series:

Reception

In the week after the film's release, The Losers: Book 1 topped the New York Times paperback graphic books list.

Awards

In 2004, the series won the Eagle Award for "Favourite New Comicbook" and was nominated for the "Best New Series" Eisner Award. In 2006, Jock was nominated for the "Best Cover Artist" Eisner Award, for The Losers.

Film adaptation

A live-action adaptation of The Losers was released on April 23, 2010. The film was developed by Warner Bros. Pictures and Dark Castle Entertainment. The Losers was directed by Sylvain White, with a screenplay by Peter Berg and James Vanderbilt. Tim Story was considered for directing. The actors starring in the film are Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans, Idris Elba, Columbus Short and Jason Patric.