The Few, The Proud, The Non-Powered

Human Defense Corps 1-6 (2003)
DC Comics
Ty Templeton, writer
Clement Sauve Jr., Juan Vlasco, Norm Breyfogle and Dennis Janke, artists

In most superhero epics, especially those dealing with invading aliens or some other large-scale threat, you can imagine that the world's armed forces are called upon to deal with the invading armies while the superhero in question tackles the mastermind or big villain behind everything. The idea behind this miniseries was to follow a small group of such soldiers, especially one man in particular, as they face truly bizarre threats to the populace of Earth.

The narrator for much of the series is a man named Montgomery Kelly, and he explains that he was part of a National Guard unit called upon to fight a Khund landing party during the Invasion. It was during that pitched battle that he observed that when faced with such an alien threat, understandably an overload to the senses, many otherwise good soldiers freeze up and fail to do their duty. Kelly wanted to be part of an elite force made up only of soldiers who did not freeze up in such situations, soldiers he could trust to have his back in strange, unusual circumstances.

Thus the Human Defense Corps was born — an elite force of human soldiers who could be counted on to help defend Earth from threats both large and small, but most often, extra-terrestrial in nature.

Familiar DC Universe alien threats to the human race — beings such as the Khunds, Starro, Daxamites and Durlans — all have small parts to play in this drama, along with Neron, the 1990s and early-2000s era DC version of the Devil. There is also a new race of other-dimensional vampire-like creatures who play a larger role in the events.

Wisely for a series that says its focus is on ordinary humans, no costumed heroes play even the slightest role in this miniseries. None are even seen in the flashbacks to the Invasion story line. That doesn't mean a familiar DC name doesn't play a role — albeit a small one, as Lois Lane is dispatched by the Daily Planet to get the scoop on this new military branch in the first issue.

Otherwise, this series is kind of a sci-fi updating of classic titles like Our Men At War or Sgt. Rock. It's a good done-in-six tale that was created to go further if interest warranted, but since Kelly and his unit are not seen again, at least not to my knowledge, I'm guessing initial sales on this series were not great. But especially if you enjoy humans facing off against hostile aliens, you might enjoy this read. I was pleasantly surprised by how well it held up after a decade had gone by, but re-reading it now, this series was better than I remembered.