It says a lot about the impact of World War II that war comics in Britain became, from the 60s, a pervasive artistic form that lasted for several decades. No other war inspired the same volume of war stories in this way – but then, no other war had action on land, sea and air, from the Arctic Circle to the Equator, the Far East to our own shores. As a child of the late seventies, I missed the heyday of Commando and Battle comics, but there were still plenty to be found in my childhood, dog-eared maybe but enthralling none the less, a car boot sale bargain. Despite, or perhaps because of, the moral simplicity of the stories, allied with the action, so often dependent on tanks, figher planes or warships, I was enthralled.

Now, perfectly timed to tie in with the recent Comics and Conflict event held recently at the Imperial War Museum, Titan Books are re-issuing several notable comic series from Battle Picture Weekly in beautiful hardbound editions – of which Darkie’s Mob is one such. It tells the story of a small unit of British soldiers, cut off by the Japanese invasion of Burma, and the man who appears from the jungle to take command of them, Captain Joe Darkie. A savage warrior, Darkie drives his small command deeper in to the Japanese controlled area, to conduct a vicious guerrilla campaign against the occupiers. It’s heady stuff, and Darkie is not really a team player, butting heads with the commanders of the Chindits column that Darkie’s Mob encounter. Told in Private Richard Shortland’s diary, we follow Darkie’s Mob on a number of seemingly impossible missions, as more is gradually revealed about the origin of Joe Darkie.

The biggest issue here, which Garth Ennis touches on in his introduction, is the casual racism towards the Japanese foe, and the dehumanised way in which their troops are portrayed. Every Jap cliche is here: banzai charges, ritual sucide by defeated commanders, ghastly treatment of Prisoners of War and more – though of course, these are all inspired by real events in probably the most brutal war British forces served in. The racism, though, is constant and becomes quite easy to ignore. To some extent such comics have always been about stereotypes: dim-witted, upper-crust British officers, stalwart Tommies, daring aviators, honourable German soldiers and devious SS men, and so on – and viewed in that light, Ennis’ argument that attitudes to the Japanese in this book are a reflection of the time and place in which the story is set seems a perfectly reasonable one.

I really enjoyed Darkie’s Mob – it’s not really such a jump from Joe Darkie to Judge Dredd (who John Wagner co-created), and these action-packed pages are evocative and, in places, surprising poignant.

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