Our Fighting Forces and the “Losers” feature bit the dust in the “DC Implosion” of 1978, but that wasn’t their last appearance. Gunner, Sarge, Johnny Cloud and Capt. Storm were killed off in 1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths #3. Apparently, they weren’t dead enough, since Kanigher returned to kill them off himself in that year’s The Losers Special, entitled “Losers Die Twice.” In 2004, they reappeared in the opening sequence of Darwyn Cooke’s DC: The New Frontier… in which all four of them are killed off.
By then, Diggle and Jock’s The Losers series had been launched by Vertigo. Diggle has claimed that he’s never read an issue of the original Losers comics; he’d just had the title tossed at him by an editor, and worked up a proposal about a group of former military types in the post-WWII era seeking payback after they’ve been left for dead. Then he reworked his idea to set it in the present day, with characters of his own devising. That’s the version of the team that became the new movie, which incorporates Diggle’s two tributes to the original incarnation: one of them is a guy (not a dog) known as “Pooch,” and, as Diggle puts it, “maybe my Frank Clay is the grandson of Sarge Clay; or maybe it’s just a coincidence.” In fact, Diggle and Jock’s new Losers had one other thing in common with the ’70s series: excellent cover design–including the cover to #12, below, which bears a certain resemblance to the movie poster.
More on Techland:
Read Douglas Wolk’s weekly comics column Emanata
How To Kill A Superhero Franchise In 20 Easy Steps: Spider-Man Edition