Darkie's Mob joins Titan's 'Battle' line-up

After a long wait, Titan Books has published a full, uncensored collection of Darkie's Mob, John Wagner and Mike Western's hard-hitting Far East World War 2 adventure, first published in Battle Picture Weekly.

In the hellish, humid jungles of Burma, renegade Captain Joe Darkie leads a rag-tag squad of British soldiers behind Japanese lines, transforming them into the brutal 'Darkies Mob'. Narrated in diary form by hapless Private Richard Shortland, Darkie's squad face hardship, horror and vicious combat at every turn, as their Captain's mania threatens to engulf them all.

But what is Darkie's terrible secret, and how many will have to die before his bloodlust is finally sated?

Darkie's Mob was created by John Wagner (perhaps best known for his work on 2000AD's 'Judge Dredd' and his graphic novel, A History of Violence) and legendary British artist Mike Western (The Sarge) and ran in Battle and Valiant between 14th August 1976 and 18th June 1977.

"Darkie’s Mob was about as grim as Battle could get," notes Moose Harris, who provided scans for the new collection. "John Wagner had just turned freelance when he began writing it, and needed to get a good, strong story under his belt. He researched the Burma campaign extensively, and Darkie’s Mob reflected his findings. The scenes where Darkie is nailed to a roof to bake in the sun, where Meeker’s arm is amputated with a hunting knife, and where one of the mob is crucified and left to die, were all based on actual events.

"This didn’t save the Battle editorial team from the attentions of Parliament at the time of the investigations into Action. When the strip was reprinted by Battle in the post-Action era, five episodes were dropped because of their content. Mike Western, a veteran of many years and many stories, found certain elements of the narrative disturbing, but still regarded it as his favourite collaboration."

This is the first time the strip has appeared in its full uncensored form since its first publication in Battle, and Titan Books have been understandably careful in their presentation, warning on the cover of 'strong language' - a reference to the jingoistic parlance of the characters. But the hard-hitting story, when read as a whole, hides a grim secret that puts Darkie's hatred for his enemy in grim perspective once revealed.

Asked in 2002 if there was ever the threat of censorship during the strip's original run, John Wagner said: "Surprisingly, no. It was one of the things that made the story readable. No plastic soldiers like 'Captain Hurricane', this was an attempt to portray the reality of war and the strong emotions and sometimes desperate condition of the men who fought it."

Speaking about the strip in 2007 to David Bishop, John felt the strip was "a wee bit repetitive" when read in one sitting. "I’m surprised that we got away with some of the stuff we did," he said. "Most of it is based on real incidents."

The story is a grim adventure tale, exposing the jungle war as a savage setting - for both sides in the conflict. Joe Darkie is an unforgiving anti hero, and it's no wonder the tale influenced stories such as Bad Company in 2000AD later.

Moose Harris has done a sterling job on scans for the book - often no easy task given the original printing - and deserves praise for his graft.

Overall, Darkie's Mob is a powerful tale that some will no doubt find offensive - but could it be any more offensive than glossing over the realities of war, and all it brings, as some comic stories have done?

• Buy Darkie's Mob from amazon.co.uk

• Buy Darkie's Mob: The Secret War of Joe Darkie from amazon.com

Further Reading

• Colonel Marbles John Wagner Interview
2002 interview

• Vicious Imagery: John Wagner talks about Battle Picture Weekly Part 1
David Bishop talks to John about how he came on board at IPC


• Vicious Imagery: John Wagner on Battle Picture Weekly Part 2
The origins of Darkie's Mob discussed

In Review: The Best Of Battle

It feels like it has been a long time coming but Titan's Best of Battle has finally hit the stores and surprisingly, for a "Best Of" book, the wait has been worth it.

Battle Picture Weekly was IPC's answer to DC Thomson's Warlord, a straight shooting war comic named to tie-in with IPC's long running Battle Picture Library digest which was some 890 issues old when the first issue of Battle Picture Weekly appeared dated 8 March 1975. Battle quickly amalgamated the older Valiant and in late 1977 was given the remnants of Action to become Battle/Action. While the title would eventually become home to Palitoy's licensed Action Force toys and, for a while at least, lost some of its individuality in a Whizzer and Chips style two comics in one publication, everything included in this book is from the early years of the title.

Taking its cover from the 1979 Battle annual, the Best Of Battle has total of 18 different stories - from the popular Johnny Red set in the USSR, to the acclaimed Charley's War set France, via Vietnam in Fighting Mann and Burma in Darkie's Mob. Each story has a one page introduction with background information on the creation of the story plus copious quotes from editors Pat Mills and Dave Hunt. While it would have been nice to see a similar short introduction to the comic itself at the beginning of the book, perhaps using the two pages given over to the single cutaway of an aircraft, this is a minor gripe as these introductions raise the quality of the publication above the normal multi-story reprint books.

The book has art by a lot of names familiar to British comics fans such as Joe Colquhoun, Cam Kennedy, Mike Western, Eric Bradbury, Pat Wright, Jim Watson, John Cooper and Mike Dorey and it also shows just how much of a crossover in artists there was between Battle and Warlord. Perhaps most interestingly, for 2000AD readers at least, it has two stories with pre-Judge Dredd art by Carlos Ezquerra. Rat Pack was Battle's version of The Dirty Dozen and a popular early strip while Major Eazy, rather more bizarrely, was a laid back James Coburn-style loner driving his 1930s sports car around the North Africa desert during WWII. Yet the strip that stands out for me is Fighting Mann, a much later story, both story-wise and publication-wise, about US Marines Colonel Walter Mann's battles against the Viet-Cong while trying to discover what happened to his son. The story by Alan Hebden gives Cam Kennedy the chance to include a wide range of well drawn military equipment in his work and is different enough that I would like to read much more of it.

The problem with "Best Of" reprint titles is all too often the question of just who the audience is. While the books must always be aimed at the general public, are they actually of interest to the fans as well? Carlton/Prion's Best Of 2000AD fell into the double trap of reprinting partial stories that the fans knew were available elsewhere in more complete forms while also pricing the book so high, at £20, to put off the casual purchaser who only remembered the title because they bought the comic as a youngster. At a cover price of £9.99 for a flexi-covered 288 page B&W reprint book, The Best Of Battle is much more competitively priced and while the Charley's War pages are available in the first of Titan's Charley's War reprint books the rest of the stories, so far, are not.

For the casual reader who may remember the comic this is a good purchase with its wide range of stories and its cheap price. For the more dedicated reader of Battle it gives a wide range of stories from 1975 to 1982, enough factual information on them and a very pleasing selection of artists in a well presented, good value book that hopefully will stimulate interest in the Titan's forthcoming collections of Darkie's Mob, Major Eazy, Pat Pack and Johnny Red that are to come.


There are more details of Battle on "Captain Hurricane's Best Of Battle" website and "Colonel Marbles' Battle" website.