Review: The Losers Omnibus, Vol. 1 by Andy Diggle, Art by Jock

Description: The Company thought that it had taken care of the Losers. After they saw a little too much at the wrong place and time, their chopper went down in flames with no survivors and plenty of deniability—and the Losers went down in the records as just another team of black ops foot soldiers tragically lost to one of the C.I.A.'s shadow wars.

But the Losers were just playing dead—and now that they've seen what the Company is really up to, they're through with games. Now it's time to take the fight back to its source.

This omnibus introduces The Losers, formerly an elite U.S. Special Forces unit that served as the covert bloody hand of America until they stumbled across a C.I.A. secret they couldn't ignore.

Stats: Crime Graphic Novel, 304 pages, First 12 Issues Collection, Published by Vertigo, Fedruary 2010.


My Rating: 4 STARS

Crime is probably one of my favourite genres, if only because it takes a great amount of talent to get it right. I had very high expectations of The Losers, from all the good things I've heard I was pretty sure it wouldn't be nearly what I imagined it might be. However, am I happy with what I got!

Before I can even talk about the story, let us talk about the art. It captures the tone and severity of the characters so perfectly that if it was a single shade darker or lighter it wouldn't have worked at all. There's so much action in a story like this one, it's full to the brim with quick scenes that take pages of expertly planned movements to pull off and yet where so many artists go wrong The Losers never missed a beat. I followed along with each character as they moved through the page, dodging bullets, and running fast to try and pull off the impossible. If not for the art this story would not have worked as well as it did. Also, if not for the vivid colouring it wouldn't look so pretty! There are so many pages that I want to hang on my wall and just look at them all the time.

What made it all this even better was that I wasn't expecting it to look this good. Beautiful is not a word you would expect to use about a book that has such a high body count!

The Losers was just amazing all around. The dialogue is fantastic and you can tell that this is a very well thought-out story. Although the characters didn't get a lot of time to get fleshed out with all the action going on you know who they are and what they do within seconds of meeting them. They all have the same mission, but each has their own motivations and that made them interesting. I rooted for them before I even knew what I was rooting for!

But honestly, what I was most worried about was Aisha. She's the only female on the team and that always concerns me, especially in a graphic novel. Graphic novels  Thankfully, she's probably the scariest of the bunch. I'm so use to females being in the role of "femme fatales" in this genre that it is so nice to see a girl who isn't seductive, isn't cautious, and doesn't shy away from unapologetically killing people that get in her way. The guys may talk shit behind her back, but there is no way they'd say anything to her face unless they don't want it any more.

Then there's the plot that brings this bad boy together. When our team gets murdered by one of there own the good don't ever stay dead for long. Now their mission is to get back what's been taken from them.


In American fiction the idea of having to fight a corrupted government is a common concept (I can't imagine why), but I have never seen it done quite like this. The Losers is partly a story about the military and partly a heist story. I absolutely love a thought out, complex heist and this book is one after another. The Losers is so much fun and I'm incredibly excited to see where this takes us in volume two! For right now I'm content to read this book again and again.