Sgt. Rock - Fates of Sgt. Rock

Fates of Sgt. Rock

The ultimate fate of Sgt. Frank Rock is complicated. There were initially two versions of the character, one residing on Earth-One and the other residing on Earth-Two. According to a number of stories, he was killed on the last day of the war by the last enemy bullet fired. However, DC has also published a number of stories incorporating a post-war Rock into the modern stories of superheroes, including appearances alongside Superman and the Suicide Squad.

In stories told after the demise of his own comic book, Rock's character was revived, explained to have survived the war, and went on to perform covert missions for the United States government. He also battled his old foe, the Iron Major, and went on an adventure to Dinosaur Island with his old second in command, Bulldozer. According to John Wells:

Kanigher had established Frank's post-war survival in OAAW #168, wherein he had Rock visit the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and Bob Haney picked up on that fact in The Brave and the Bold. In issue #84, he'd had Rock and Easy cross paths with Bruce (Batman) Wayne during the war (in an episode obviously set on Earth-Two) and followed up with a present-day sequel in Brave & the Bold #96. In that one, Bruce arrived at the United States Embassy in South America and was introduced to "our Military Attache and Chief of Embassy Security ... Sergeant Rock, U.S. Army." Two subsequent present-day episodes found Rock tracking a Satanic figure that he believed was Adolf Hitler (B&B #108) and an Easy Company "ghost" that he'd been ordered to execute at the Battle of the Bulge (B&B #117). In the bizarre Brave & the Bold #124, Bob Haney and Jim Aparo actually guest-starred as Rock and Batman trailed a terrorist organization called the 1000.

Following this, he appeared as a general and a Chief of Staff for Lex Luthor's administration. However, Frank Rock was involved with an incarnation of the Suicide Squad. At the end of the title, he peels off a mask and walks away from the team, while his companion "Bulldozer," assumed to be the original, stands up from his wheelchair, comments on how it was good to feel young again, and also walks away. Whether this was the real Frank Rock in disguise or an impostor is unknown; the series concludes with the line "Frank Rock died in 1945." The use of the Rock character in post-war stories had one major effect on Rock's backstory, according to Wells:

All of the super-hero crossovers were more than Kanigher could take. In the letter columns of 1978's Sgt. Rock #316 and 323 and 1980's Sgt. Rock #347 and 348, he announced that his hero had not lived past 1945, blunting most of Haney's Brave and the Bold episodes if nothing else. "It is inevitable and wholly in character that neither Rock nor Easy survived the closing days of the war," he proclaimed.

Indeed in the letter column for Sgt. Rock #374, Kanigher stated that:

As far as I'm concerned ROCK is the only authentic World War II Soldier. For obvious reasons. He and Easy Company live only, and will eventually die, to the last man, in World War II.

The first use of the Rock character after the demise of the series was an issue of Swamp Thing, six months after the release of Sgt. Rock #422. The story was set in May 1945, intimating that Sgt. Rock had survived the war in Europe and raised the question of whether Rock transferred to the Pacific theatre.

In the backup story "Snapshot: Remembrance" in the retrospective mini-series DC Universe: Legacies #4, set during a reunion on July 4, 1976, it is revealed that Sgt. Rock did die, on the last day of the war, using his body to shield a small child who had wandered into in a crossfire. Easy Company learns later that the final bullet that killed him was the last bullet fired in the war. The other attendees are Jeb Stuart of the Haunted Tank, the Losers, Gravedigger, Mademoiselle Marie (and her son, who is a soldier and the others think resembles Sgt. Rock) and possibly the Unknown Soldier.