Super Soldiers. Jason Inman

Gravedigger

      From Shovel to Rifle

      “A man soon to become legend.” This quote sits on the text box of the very first story starring Ulysses Hazard, better known to comic book fans as “Gravedigger.” Personally, I think any man with a name like Ulysses Hazard is an instant legend. Ulysses is the name of one of the greatest adventurers of all time, who overcame several mythological obstacles in a journey to return to his family. A hazard is an agent that causes damage to humans. It is implicit in his name that Ulysses Hazard was going to defeat burdens and foes far beyond his fellow soldiers.

      We meet Ulysses hunkered down with his squad, enduring bombardment from Nazi forces, clutching their pickaxes and shovels. The first thing any eagle-eyed reader should notice is that his squad is made up entirely of African American soldiers.

      I forgot to mention the other important quote from Gravedigger’s introductory caption box: “Just ask Ulysses Hazard, a man who had to fight not only the enemy—but his own country.” This is an important distinction I’m going to examine throughout this chapter; at every turn, Ulysses is a comic book character told not to fight, and in every case, he does so anyway.

      During World War II, segregation laws infiltrated every aspect of American society. In the American armed forces, African Americans who were drafted or volunteered were assigned to segregated units as cooks, quartermasters, and gravediggers—just like the unit that Ulysses Hazard is a part of.

      Thankfully, my time in the Army was nothing like this. I didn’t enjoy many privileges as an enlisted man, but as a Caucasian soldier, I spotted the differences. One of my best friends in the service was an African American sergeant by the name of Linus Thuston. He was without a doubt one of the smartest men in my unit, and one of the coolest non-commissioned officers in charge of us. Linus understood what it took to lead men. He morphed many of his commands into concepts we could understand. Plus, he was always good for a laugh. If Linus was around, we would make fun of many of the base commanders. Without Linus, our unit would have been worse off. We needed Linus like the DC Comics Army units needed Ulysses Hazard.

      Before his grave-digging days, Ulysses grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. As a young boy, he had to overcome polio, which left him half-crippled. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to overcome his illness, pushed himself to walk, run, and do “everything a normal person could do or die trying,” as he says in his first appearance. Ulysses trained hard, working after hours, building up his strength and stamina to be the best soldier the US Army had ever seen. However, all of his accomplishments meant nothing. In the end, he still had to suffer the indignities of his time. As a result of his skin color, he was assigned to latrine duty.

      Many other men would have folded in light of this setback, but not our hero Ulysses Hazard! He took his duties seriously. Ulysses endeavored to do every job so well that someone would take notice. After scrubbing toilets for years, he was promoted to sergeant and put in charge of a grave-digging detail. Ulysses remarked that he only hated the blind attitude behind his unfair treatment. Ulysses knew he was the best soldier out there—and soon he would get the chance to prove it.

      In his first issue, deep in the European front of World War II, Ulysses and his unit heard the screams of a woman. Shells were flying left and right, pinning his grave-digging unit down. Even though his group was supposed to be non-combatant, Ulysses flew toward the farmhouse, the source of the screams. Next, when one of his fellow soldiers bellowed, “Let the real soldiers do the work,” Ulysses charged toward danger. He charged toward his destiny. In spite of the Army at the time classifying him as a gravedigger, at that moment, Ulysses was a real soldier. Then he launched himself through a window, shovel first, to take down several Nazi soldiers and save the woman. It is a powerful moment. A Black man with only a basic tool in hand was able to defeat soldiers of an empire dedicated to destroying anyone outside the scope of their perfect Aryan ideal.

      He was a hero, certainly, but Ulysses did not achieve victory all by his lonesome. Behind his back, a luger was raised, ready to take the kill shot on the astounding Ulysses Hazard. Thankfully, Andy, a fellow gravedigger soldier, followed him into the farmhouse and walloped that Nazi with his own shovel. Andy saved Ulysses’ life.

      These two American heroes would get little chance to celebrate their victory, sadly. This was their first chance in the war to make a real difference and fight like real soldiers. No, their moment was interrupted by bigotry personified, their commanding officer, Lt. Gage. Gage strutted into the room, bellowed that the civilians must have saved themselves from the Nazis. He was utterly unwilling to listen to Andy, who attempted to correct Gage about who actually saved the day. Lt. Gage’s feeble mind was incapable of accepting two Black men as heroes, so he put Andy and Ulysses on report.

      In our current time, it can sometimes be very hard to read scenes like this—particularly for an old Army soldier, like myself. All of Lt. Gage’s treatment of Ulysses violates the value of loyalty and flies squarely in the face of Army values, which proclaim that you must stand up for your fellow man and fellow soldiers. The blind hatred and fear of Ulysses and his abilities is bewildering. Ulysses took the oath and he defended it. His honor is valid and true—just like every other soldier. Simply because of the color of his skin, Ulysses was pre-judged by the white men in the Army and found to be lacking.

      In many cases, Ulysses is a better soldier than Captain America. In the previous chapter, I explained how Captain America was almost more of an ideal than a man. Ulysses, on the other hand, represents the man: a man’s drive to push through and be accepted because he knows he is the equal, if not the better, of every other soldier in the Army. He believes he is the best, and he proves it by winning a battle with only a shovel. I’d like to see Lt. Gage try this same gambit. Gravedigger is the perfect representation of adversity versus privilege. As in every superhero’s origin story, it’s Ulysses’ original obstacles that mold him into a powerful soldier.

      His legend only grew when, during another mission, the grave-digging unit discovered another opportunity to stand up. A Nazi buzzard (plane) flew a sneak attack on their unit. In a split-second leap of heroics, Ulysses’ pal Andy pushed their commanding officer, Lt. Gage (remember him?), out of harm’s way. Simultaneously, Ulysses scooped up a bazooka and fired off an extremely difficult shot at the evading plane. If you remember, Ulysses had trained himself to be the best soldier. A shot that should have been difficult for a normal man was child’s play to him. Of course, he made the shot and took down the Nazi plane. However, Ulysses discovered his fellow gravedigger, Andy, did not survive the attack. His fallen comrade’s sacrifice, and the amazing one-in-a-million shot he had made, boosted Ulysses’ confidence enough that he demanded the Army move him to a combat unit. With his help and skills, the war would be over sooner, he boasted—and with a soldier as talented as Ulysses, this was no exaggeration.

      His request was denied, of course, because the 1940s could not be as progressive as we would like to rewrite them to be. It’s at this moment in his story that Ulysses takes another step toward his destiny as Gravedigger, the ultimate comics soldier.

      He invades the Pentagon! I did not miswrite that sentence. Ulysses Hazard became so fed up with the bureaucratic and bigoted responses to his service that he decided to seize his destiny by the horns and force the bigwigs in the Pentagon to give him his due. Can you imagine the guts it would take to