Note: This page is functioning in the capacity of being a comic book genre, it should detail a general overview with examples of this genre's history and trends over time around the world. There is no practical value to crediting it on individual issues except in cases where it represents a very particular issue but nothing else in that volume. For all volumes with a general war focus (that should therefore not have any issues credited), click here.

This page will cover the topic of the world wars because they are intended to be so all-encompassing on the topic of war (and the vast majority of military comics being set in World War II specifically) but for specific wars in fiction and history, there should be more appropriate pages to find their comic connections. For fictional wars, they will generally be covered in story arcs or character pages. For real-world conflicts there will generally be intuitive pages to use as a jumping off point that can cover the wars as they have been depicted in comics. In some cases it will be locations like the Vietnam War (Vietnam), Korean War (Koreas), Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, South Sudan or Cyprus. In others it will be military factions like Nazis, Confederate Army, Soviet Armed Forces, Spartans, Gauls or historical figures explicitly associated with those wars like Napoleon Bonaparte or Frederick the Great.

World War I

The First World War, fought between the Allies and the Central Powers. It is also popularly known as The Great War and "the war to end all wars". Of course, these two names were used before World War II.

"This war was to be the war to end all wars, the last war ever, it was the war to kill off war. But it killed only men, pointlessly, all wars are pointless."

--To The Slaughterhouse by Jean Giono

The First World War took place between 1914 and 1917 and was fought between the Allies and the Central Powers.

Origin

In June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austria-Hungary throne, and his wife Sophie were shot dead by assassin Gavrilo Princip, a Serb nationalist.

Tensions quickly rose among the European powers when monarchs and governments began taking sides, mainly because they were involved in treaties which obligated them to defend their allies and ententes during international conflicts. During the days following the assassination, Austria-Hungary openly promoted Serb discrimination, causing the Russian Empire to condemn such racism as the Serbs were of Slavic ethnicity. In turn, the German Empire backed Austria-Hungary by condemning the Serb movement as terrorism. Great Britain and France soon back Russia, forming the "Triple Alliance" to fight the "Central Powers" Germany and Austria-Hungary.

The war officially began at Archduke Ferdinand's one-month anniversary at July 28, 1914. Although Austria-Hungary only declared war on Serbia, Germany, Britain, Russia, France, and the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey) would eventually join the fray.

Aftermath

The Central Powers - Germany, Ottoman Empire, and Austria-Hungary, eventually surrendered after continued United States involvement.

Many historians agreed that the Allies were too excessive in punishing the Central Powers. The Treaty of Versailles burdened them, especially Germany, with unrealistic requirements to pay post-war reparation costs and military restrictions which sparked more aggression rather than humble the defeated nations.

Dictators such as Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini would later use the Treaty to rally major support in a second great conflict.

However, the war, aside from dissolving the German and Austria-Hungary Empires, also weakened the Allied Powers' dominion over their colonies and protectorates. In the midst of the British Empire's weakened state, the United States of America rose as a second superpower. President Woodrow Wilson used this momentum to found and foster the growth of the world's premier peacekeeping organization - the League of Nations. Although the League's fate was little better than the German Empire, other world leaders would become weary of war and adopt Wilson's ideals.

World War II

The War fought between the Axis and the Allies. It began on July 7, 1937, when full scale war broke out between Japan and China near the Marco Polo Bridge. The war ended in September 1945 with victory to the Allies.

World War II lasted for eight years and directly involved over a hundred nations with around 60 million deaths. World War II has been featured in countless comics; by far the largest variety of these were published by American (and British) comic publishers during 1950-1970.

World War II comics usually represent one of the following sub-genres:

Traditional

Most Silver Age WWII comics fit this sub-genre. One example is Sgt. Rock. These books featured stories about normal people in the war. It is worth mentioning that many of the creators of these comics had served in the army during the war or were actual combat veterans like Jack Kirby.

• Our Army at War

Superhero

This sub-genre bring superheroes into WWII: like the early Captain America comics or WWII is a setting for a character's origin story, like Magneto Testament. WWII is by far the bloodiest conflict of all time, and as a result has been an important part of popular culture. The scientific developments used to make weapons more efficient has been exploited by sci-fi writers, such as the Nazis and the experiments of HYDRA.

Fantasy

Either alternative history comics or more often comics where WWII serves as a setting for a Fantasy/Horror stories like The Light Brigade, Life Eaters or American Vampire. Writers use the folk tales and mythology of the main countries to give a certain twist. A great example of this is in Hellboy by Mike Mignola (Dark Horse Comics) where Germanic, British and Japanese myths and folk tales are explored.

Modern

Modern take on WWII, like the Battlefields series by Garth Ennis.

World War III

World War 3 is usually shown as a nuclear warfare between the superpowers (United States and Russia from 1950 to 1989), ending in a nuclear holocaust or a war against super soldiers, machines or an alien invasion. Stories set in a post-apocalypse are generally considered to be the consequence of a World War III.

Post-Apocalyptic

Comics with a Post-Apocalyptic setting usually depict it as a large desert wasteland with very few standing buildings or landmarks. It represents what the world would look like in the author's mind many years after the fall of modern society.

The desert like imagery and dilapidated buildings were a result of a postulated post-nuclear war landscape which was a very real fear beginning with the advent of nuclear weapons in the 1940s. This fear continued to in strength where it reached it's apex at the height of the Cold War in the 1970s and 1980s. Most post-apocalyptic fiction can be traced to this time frame.

This added element of nuclear waste also leads to the introduction of mutations and mutants which also populate the post-apocalyptic landscape.

The desert setting and the sudden return to a pre-industrial age led to many elements of the Western being included into the post-apocalyptic setting.

Such films as 28 Days Later and the overwhelming success of the television adaptation of the Walking Dead, the post-apocalyptic genre has expanded to include both nuclear and biological catastrophes and the subsequent alterations to humanity. In these settings much of what humanity had built before the catastrophe remains, only in a dilapidated condition. As with nuclear mutation, in these stories the biological agents leads to forms of mutation all their own.