History Comicbook / Battle

''Battle'' marked an interesting transition in British comics. Though it would never quite engender the same controversy as ''Action'' and ''2000 AD'', its war stories typically defied the "Boys' Own" mentality of the likes of ''ComicBook/{{Commando}}'', ''Valiant'' and ''Warlord'' in favour of a more '70s and anti-authoritarian sensibility and willingness to depict [[WarIsHell the uglier, but equally true]] aspects of war. Like ''Action'', many of the stories were "dead cribs" -- [[SpiritualAdaptation direct rip-offs]] of popular or iconic films or books. They also made game attempts to do stories set in wars other than [=WW2=], in defiance of conventional wisdom about what would sell. And they ([[DependingOnTheWriter usually]]) had a policy of [[ShownTheirWork doing the research]] -- their aim was that if Grandad was [[PeripheryDemographic sneakily reading it over your shoulder]], he wouldn't turn away in [[ArtisticLicenseMilitary disgust]].

[[folder:Charley's War]]
* AbortedArc: We were supposed to get more of Jack's story, focusing on the Battle Of Jutland, but according to Pat Mills, editorial insisted naval warfare storylines were unpopular with readers, so the idea was scrapped.
* AncestralWeapon: Blue's American comrade in the Legion, Lacey, is rather fond of his father's Single Action Army. [[spoiler: Its black powder cartridges leave evidence that he stole water from Krotowski's flask.]]

** Charley's World War II Sergeant, Bert Nickles, is implied to have enlisted just so he could kill people, [[spoiler: having concealed the fact that he has only one eye from everyone.]]

* BunnyEarsLawyer: Smith 70, the platoon's [[CloudCuckooLander eccentric]] machinegunner has some [[MadScientist pretty nutty ideas]], such as training rats to fight, using his machine gun to play musical tunes and rigging up a ''revolver'' [[RecklessGunUsage as a servants' bell for the officers to use]]. He also describes everything he does as "[[CatchPhrase a bit technical]]". However, he is an excellent machinegunner. Thanks to some mathematical calculations, he works out a way [[ImprobableAimingSkills use his machine gun to lay down indirect fire on a café occupied by some Germans]] in the same manner as an artillery strike.

* ChildSoldiers: The British Army is more than willing to overlook the fact that Charley is only sixteen when he enlists. It gets worse when his thirteen-year-old brother, Wilf, tries to sign up until Charley steps in and stops him. [[spoiler: When Charley goes back to the front, he enlists under an assumed name. Later on, Wilf would volunteer for the Royal Flying Corps as a gunner where he perished in 1917 during a sortie against a German bomber.]]

** The first story has Kurt, a German sniper who wears steel plating over his face and body who [[BloodKnight revels in killing Tommies]]. His own comrades can't even stand him, as they're as fed up with the war as the Brits. [[spoiler: He's the first person Charley ever kills thanks to a bayonet to an exposed point where the plates join.]]

* CruelMercy: When [[spoiler: Snell]] is hit with an acid sprayer, he begs Charley [[MercyKill to put him out of his misery]]. Charley refuses, leaving him to die slowly.

* DarkSecret: The Secret of Lost Platoon, according to [[ShellShockedVeteran Lonely]], [[spoiler: was his platoon wiped out by RoaringRampageOfRevenge by the Germans after deaths from a bomb catapulted by Lonely under the order of [[TheNeidermeyer Lieutenant Snell]] during a Christmas Truce in 1915.]]

** Lucky attempts to shoot his own foot off to avoid going over the top at the Somme, only for Charley and Pops to stop him. [[spoiler: [[AnArmAndALeg He ends up losing a leg in a subsequent shelling]].]]

* DownerEnding: Though the series continued for a couple of years under Scott Goodall, Pat Mills considers his own ending to be the important one. It's fifteen years later, and an older Charley runs into [[spoiler: "Ole Bill" Tozer]] and reminisces. Charley's [[TheGreatDepression unemployed like so many thousands of others]], but he's glad other kids will never go through what he did. And he walks down the street to the dole office, [[AllForNothing passing a newsboy announcing Hitler's appointment as Chancellor of Germany]].

* DroppedABridgeOnHim: Given that it's World War One, many characters die suddenly and quite shockingly. [[spoiler: [[TheLancer Ginger]] gets blown up by a shell when he's laughing about a joke sign that someone has put in their trench and Charley's mother dies of [[UsefulNotes/TheSpanishFlu Spanish Flu]] thanks to her immune system being weakened due to her time as a munitions worker.]]
* {{Eagleland}}: Mixed Flavor with Type 2 Boorish leanings. Many American characters are portrayed negatively, especially their racist policy towards African American soldiers, one of the whom happened to be part of few good American characters and an acquaintance with Charley. While Blue--British Foreign Legionnaire--had good views on American Legionnaires, he saw [[{{Jerkass}} Wes Lacey]] as an exception rather than a representation [[spoiler: since he was the one who framed Blue for drinking Krotowski's water. Despite his action, he did have a RedemptionEqualsDeath moment when he gave his life fetching water bottles from dead Germans before he was mowed down by rifle rounds.]]

** Lieutenant Thomas makes a tactical withdrawal to save the lives of his troops. He's so well respected [[spoiler: Charley and Weeper refuse to participate in the firing squad at his execution]].

* IgnoredExpert: InvokedTrope by Lieutenant Thomas during a raid into a German trench, where he discovered that German's dugouts and shelters are deep enough to survive bombardments for a massive operation but also knew that the [[GeneralRipper Command]] would not listen to him and would have him court-martialed if he told the truth to his men. Consider [[ForegoneConclusion the massive stalemate and casualties for Battle of Somme]] along with [[spoiler: its indirect role in his execution thanks to a battle that he retreated against a direct order to hold position]], his insight became a HarsherInHindsight.
* InsaneAdmiral: Snell was [[TheNeidermeyer bad enough]] to start with, but a [[TisOnlyABulletInTheBrain head wound from a ricochet from his own revolver]] leaves him with brain damage, which causes him to go insane and try and kill Charley. He fails and is locked back into the mental institution he had been in until [[GeneralFailure some genius]] decides that he's fit to go back into action. He decides to lead a mad charge on the Mons just minutes before the end of the war [[spoiler: getting his entire platoon, barring Charley and Ol' Bill killed]] before trying to kill Charley.

* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler: [[TheNeidermeyer Snell]] only died at last battle of First World War, where the combination of his insanity and callous nature wiped out an entire platoon except for Charley and Tozer, both of whom were "volunteered" into Russian Civil War as part of the deal for the surviving company. He left to die by Charley after an incident with an acid sprayer.]]

* MirroringFactions: The German soldiers have the same attitude to the war that their British counterparts do. Some of them are given character focus to a certain extent. A notable example is when Charley's platoon captures a German trench and finds a young soldier chained to his machinegun. He explains that he did it himself because of his fear that he would flee the battle and didn't want to be seen as a DirtyCoward by his superiors. Charley convinces Pops not to kill him because he's around the same age as Pops' two sons who had died in action. It's kind of a heartwarming moment [[spoiler: until [[TheNeidermeyer Snell]] walks up and shoots the poor kid in the face.]]

** Most officers tend to fall under this category, but the worst of all the Lieutenant Snell. He actually makes Charley wait until he's had his tea before reading the message Charley had risked his life to bring him, asking for support for his overwhelmed comrades. This is just after knocking Charley out and using him as a human shield. [[WeHaveReserves To him, soldiers are simply expendable]] and the war is [[HuntingTheMostDangerousGame just a sport]] with him holding a BodycountCompetition with other officers while they shoot wounded Germans during ceasefires. He even gets Charley's unit wiped out on the final day of the war in one last, pointless push [[spoiler: that finally resulted in his death after being corroded by an acid sprayer]]. Mills considers him the BigBad of the strip.
** Lieutenant "Monkey Face" Volmar is Blue's hated commanding officer in the Legion, who--according to Blue--tend to punish his soldiers for disobeying his orders even if they are often inflexible and futile to achieve. He develops a deep personal hatred towards Blue and their coming to blows is what leads Blue to desert. Not that the French officer corp was better since they sent in a group of untrained Sengelese soldiers to the front as part of the "test" to see their performance in trench warfare, which their lack of knowledge in dealing with machine guns nearly got them annihilated.

* NotSoStoic: Sergeant Tozer, in spite of epitomising the SergeantRock trope, is as scared of dying as the rest of the troops. When Charley overhears him having a FreakOut in his own dugout, he confides in Charley that he lets it out in private before a big battle so that the men won't see him do it and lose confidence in him and that keeping it all bottled up is actually bad for him. This advice helps Charley out, as he was having a HeroicBSOD of his own after the death of [[spoiler: Ginger]].

* PoliticalOfficer: Russian Civil War arc had Red Army fielding commissars ranging from frontline fighters like [[ActionGirl Rosa]] and ideological overseers like [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Zumarov]], latter being a chagrin for Spirodonov due to his dislike for those who do not take pro-active role in combat that led to an argument [[spoiler: where it became a source for Grodno to report to the brass of his "disloyalty".]]

* TokenEnemyMinority: [[spoiler: Skins was turned out to be a British-born German who joined the military as [[TradingBarsForStripe an alternative to conviction after accidentally killing a man who insulted his heritage]]. This allowed him to disguise as a German soldier, and distinguish German military units. His brother was not lucky as he was conscripted into the German army, where he was eventually killed by a scared British soldier, during his visit to his grandparents just before the war broke out.]]

[[folder:Darkie's Mob]]

* BittersweetEnding: Bordering on DownerEnding, [[spoiler: everyone but Samson and Shorty survived by the end of the series with Joe himself managed to avenge his parents' death by killing the General. Rather than going back home, two of them continued their guerilla war with their final fate left unknown with the only clue being Shorty's journal that was found in deep jungles a year after the end of Second World War.]]

* BoomerangBigot: [[spoiler: Joe Darkie is a half-Japanese, but he had no issues using slurs against the Japanese. JustifiedTrope since his parents were executed by the Japanese Army out of disgust for their mixed marriage.]]
* {{Gonk}}: Joe was drawn to have a few facial differences from his impressed British soldiers even by his brutish appearance standards, [[spoiler: which had more to do with his Japanese heritage]].

* TheReveal: [[spoiler: Joe Dakee, or Joe Darkie, is a half British- half Japanese whose family left Japan due to having suffered discrimination for their interracial heritage. Due to impoverished life in a village, he turned to banditry and briefly worked for the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) until an officer executed his parents in Burma. He then took the British army uniform and formed his own unit, Darkie's Mob, for revenge.]]

[[folder: ''HMS Nightshade'']]
* BittersweetEnding: Of course. The ''Nightshade'' sinks off Dover [[spoiler: with all but two hands (and Dogfish) lost]], and, too damaged to salvage, she lies there still.

* {{Retirony}}: Poor ol' [[spoiler: Never-Gonna-Make-It Brown, who else? Only a day after being discharged due to his injury, he's hit by a bus and killed instantly.]]
* SoleSurvivor: We learn quite early that by the 1980s, George Dunn is the only survivor of the ''HMS Nightshade''. [[spoiler: By the end of the story we find that only he, "Never-Gonna-Make-It" Brown and Dogfish didn't go down with the ship.]]
* TokenEvilTeammate: Parsons chose the Navy over prison, and rumours spread that he's a murderer. [[spoiler: They're true, incidentally.]] He's also a bully and generally petty and cruel.

[[folder:Rat Pack]]

* DarkerAndEdgier: The series was deliberately darker and pulpier than the title series of DC Thomson's ''Warlord'' - rather than an aristocrat who secretly volunteered as a commando on suicide missions, they were a gang of ruthless working-class criminals forced into it, often at gunpoint. And instead of being TrueCompanions, the Rats not only hate Taggart, they usually hate each other as well.

* SuicideMission: The Rats' whole purpose - as they're already convicts, they're considered expendable.

** PointMan: Rogan, usually, as his speciality [[JackOfAllStats is his great athleticism]]. He's also often the least hostile to Taggart. Not that that's saying much.
** TheBigGuy: Kabul Hassan, aka "the Turk".

** MasterOfUnlocking: [[TheChick Weasel]]. Also a DirtyCoward most of the time.

** KnifeNut: Dancer.

* MundaneUtility: Smith 70's Vickers machine gun is water cooled, so it's often used as a field expedient way to boil water for a SpotOfTea.

''Battle'' marked an interesting transition in British comics. Though it would never quite engender the same controversy as ''Action'' and ''2000 AD'', its war stories typically defied the "Boys' Own" mentality of the likes of ''ComicBook/{{Commando}}'', ''Valiant'' and ''Warlord'' in favour of a more '70s and anti-authoritarian sensibility and willingness to depict [[WarIsHell the uglier, but equally true]] aspects of war. Like ''Action'', many of the stories were "dead cribs" -- [[SpiritualLicensee direct rip-offs]] of popular or iconic films or books. They also made game attempts to do stories set in wars other than [=WW2=], in defiance of conventional wisdom about what would sell. And they ([[DependingOnTheWriter usually]]) had a policy of [[ShownTheirWork doing the research]] -- their aim was that if Grandad was [[PeripheryDemographic sneakily reading it over your shoulder]], he wouldn't turn away in [[ArtisticLicenseMilitary disgust]].

While initially successful, ''Battle'' suffered from declining readership and [[ExecutiveMeddling editorial]] changes that saw it move away from war stories and into a more general "action" genre. At the same time, sales were slipping, and by 1984, the comic was approaching cancellation and merger into the re-launched ''Eagle''. It was saved by a marketing deal with Palitoy, the UK licensor of Franchise/GIJoe toys, which saw the comic re-branded as ''Battle Action Force''. The titular team's adventures gradually came to dominate the book (Occupying the valuable centre colour pages, the covers and as much as half the pagecount), but at the same time turned around its sales and kept it alive for several more years.

* DownerEnding: Though the series continued for a couple of years under Scott Goodall, Pat Mills considers his own ending to be the important one. It's fifteen years later, and an older Charley runs into [[spoiler: "Ole Bill" Tozer]] and reminisces. Charley's [[TheGreatDepression unemployed like so many thousands of others]], but he's glad other kids will never go through what he did. And he walks down the street to the dole office, [[AllForNothing passing a newsboy announcing Hitler's appointment as Chancellor of Germany.]]

* BookDumb: Charley took it UpToEleven compared to his working-class compatriots, which his first appearances include being easily tricked into enlisting an old horse into the military (unsuccessfully) and inability to add up for his fake birthday (using 1900 without realizing it would make him 16 years old by the comic's time). Though it took a CharacterDevelopment to make him a hardened soldier, he is still ignorant about other places in London like The Ritz hotel, which he assumed was named after their dugout rather than the other way around.

** [[BadassMoustache Sergeant "Ol' Bill" Tozer]] is typical of this trope. As an NCO, he does distance himself slightly from the men so as not to get too attached, but stands up for them when Sergeant Bacon tries to give them any shit. He tells Bacon that while his troops are dirty, it's honourable dirt from battle. He comes to respect Charley's courage and the pair of them become FireForgedFriends over the course of the war.

* AristocratsAreEvil: The majority of the British officers came from British aristocracy; which also complement their [[WeHaveReserves indifference to the soldiers' suffering]], [[GeneralFailure inability to adapt on changing warfare]], and [[GeneralRipper willingness to order a costly attack even for a few miles]]. Of course, the [[NotSoDifferent same]] goes to [[TheVonTropeFamily Junker-dominated German officer corps]] with [[ColonelKilgore Zeiss]] being an exception as SelfMadeMan.

* NotSoDifferent: The German soldiers have the same attitude to the war that their British counterparts do. Some of them are given character focus to a certain extent. A notable example is when Charley's platoon captures a German trench and finds a young soldier chained to his machinegun. He explains that he did it himself because of his fear that he would flee the battle and didn't want to be seen as a DirtyCoward by his superiors. Charley convinces Pops not to kill him because he's around the same age as Pops' two sons who had died in action. It's kind of a heartwarming moment [[spoiler: until [[TheNeidermeyer Snell]] walks up and shoots the poor kid in the face.]]

The comic has seen a bit of a resurrection recently, as resolved rights issues have led to the more famous stories being reprinted and the likes of Creator/GarthEnnis, a longtime vocal fan (he had a letter printed in it, back in the day), helping to spread the word. In 2015, Ennis resurrected ''Johnny Red'', and in 2018 Rebellion's ''Videogame/SniperElite'' tie-in featured an appearance by the Rat Pack. In 2019 the ''Battle'' name was revived by '' ComicBook/TwoThousandAD'' with a new story, ''Operation: Overlord'', set during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII's Normandy Landings, and in 2020 a 100-page ''Battle of Britain Special'' was released, featuring stories by the original writers alongside [[BigNameFan major fans]] like Ennis and Creator/DanAbnett.

** Most officers tend to fall under this category, but the worst of all the Lieutenant Snell. He actually makes Charley wait until he's had his tea before reading the message Charley had risked his life to bring him, asking for support for his overwhelmed comrades. This is just after knocking Charley out and using him as a human shield. [[WeHaveReserves To him, soldiers are simply expendable]] and the war is [[HuntingTheMostDangerousGame just a sport]] with him holding a BodycountCompetition with other officers while they shoot wounded Germans during ceasefires. He even gets Charley's unit wiped out on the final day of the war in one last, pointless push [[spoiler: that finally resulted in his death after being corroded by an acid sprayer]]. [[WordOfGod Mills considers him]] the BigBad of the strip.

* PostScriptSeason: Despite the war ending, Charley doesn't get to leave the army as intended immediately, since Snell gets him "volunteered" into fighting in the Russian Civil War. Once the British Army pulls out of that, there's a TimeSkip to the DistantFinale with Charley on the dole as Hitler is elected Chancellor of Germany. The World War II stories also fall under this, taking Charley up to the evacuation at Dunkirk.

* TimeSkip: Entire story arc revolving around Fred Green's visit to [=WW1=] Memorial after 1982 in search of Charley, who saved his life after surviving a plane crash. It took him 65 years to remember his surname, but Charley's fate remained unknown after First World War. While Charley remained alive after First World War in future comics, whether or not Charley remained alive by 1982 was left hanging with the story ending in Second World War due to Pat Mills being replaced with Scott Goodall and [[AuthorExistenceFailure Joe Colquhoun's illness before his eventual death]].

* WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: At the end of 1917 during the Christmas truce, we're told what eventually happens to the German soldiers given characterisation and Charley's sniping partner; Len is killed by a German sniper the following summer while on the German side, Gregor is paralysed six months later and lives until 1971, [[TearJerker Bruno's leave gets cancelled and he's dead within two months, having never met his son]] and Adi, [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII well, we all know]] [[DrivenToSuicide what happened]] [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler to him]].

* UsefulNotes/ThatSouthEastAsianCountry: The story was set during the Japanese occupation of Burma, though [[ArtisticLicenseGeography the local culture get lumped up with Malay culture]] by the author.