"Ask my family and they'll tell you I was a Navajo.
Ask the Army Air
Force and they'll say I was an American.
But if you ask my brothers,
they'll set you straight.
John Cloud was a Loser."
Long before the Vertigo comic or the movie based on it, "The Losers" was an old-school war comic published by DC Comics.
The series was created by writer Robert Kanigher (with
illustrations by a variety of DC's artists, including Sam Glanzman,
Russ Heath, and John Severin, with Joe Kubert providing outstanding covers and
occasional interior art) and appeared in a comic called "Our
Fighting Forces" in early 1970. It starred a team of characters who had
previously appeared in other DC war comics -- a pair of Marines called
Gunner and Sarge, a Navajo pilot named Johnny Cloud, and
Captain Storm, a PT boat commander with a wooden leg.
All of Kanigher's war comics tended toward the fatalistic, with
war nearly always portrayed as a difficult, painful, and ultimately
futile business, but "The Losers" really dialed that up to 11. While
the Losers usually completed their assigned objectives, they would also
suffer serious setbacks that sometimes made their missions completely
moot. They would obtain desperately needed intelligence, but the
hostages they rescued from the Nazis would be slain or turn traitor. A
successful mission would be attributed to a blind act of god or
ignored entirely, leaving their efforts unacknowledged by the brass.
They would destroy a Nazi base, but another Allied unit would end up
claiming the credit, leaving the team looking like, well, losers.
Their equipment and transport would malfunction or be destroyed, forcing
them to walk back to HQ. And no plan ever worked right the first time.
The Losers had the worst luck of anyone on either side of the lines.
At one point, Captain Storm was seemingly killed by a bomb, and he
was briefly replaced on the squad by Ona Tomsen, a member of
Norway's resistance forces. Another occasional team member was
Gunner's pet dog, Pooch. Storm eventually reappeared, having lost an
eye in the explosion. He suffered from a bout of amnesia and plagued
his old friends for a while as a stereotypical pirate, though he
finally regained his memory and rejoined the team.
The Losers have had several different endings, official and
unofficial, in and out of continuity. During the Crisis on Infinite
Earths, they were killed by the Anti-Monitor's shadow demons. In the
post-Crisis continuity rewrite, they were killed in action while
destroying a German missile facility. Gunner was resurrected as a
cyborg during a revival of the Creature Commandos series. Gunner and
Sarge were stuck in a POW camp on a time-lost Dinosaur Island and
rescued in an issue of "Birds of Prey." A backup story in the "DC
Universe: Legacies" miniseries established that all four survived the
war -- Sarge owned a chain of gas stations, Gunner was a veterinarian,
Captain Storm worked for the Bureau of Disabled Veterans Affairs, and
Cloud served at least three terms in Congress.
The ending I prefer comes from Darwyn Cooke's amazing DC: The New
Frontier series. The tale is told from Johnny Cloud's POV. On a mission
to a mysterious island, the Losers encounter a host of dinosaurs.
Gunner is killed by a Tyrannosaur, Sarge goes missing while trying to
get revenge on the monster, and Captain Storm is lost to a
pterodactyl. Even Pooch is killed by a booby trap. Cloud ends up
sacrificing himself by leaping down the T-rex's throat armed with a
couple of live hand grenades. The story is short and has little
bearing on the rest of the miniseries, but the affection for the Losers
and their dedication to each other really shines through beautifully.