Comic book character, owned and published by DC Comics. His first appearance was in 1959's "Our Army at War #83"; he was created by writer Robert Kanigher and artist Joe Kubert. The character proved very popular; in 1977, the comic was renamed to "Sgt. Rock," and it ran until 1988, one of the very last regularly published war comics.
Sgt. Franklin John Rock was a sergeant in the U.S. Army infantry fighting in Europe during World War II. He and his unit, Easy Company, fought in every major action in the war in Europe. His backstory, as filled out in different comics, had him growing up in Pittsburgh. He left his job at a steel mill to enlist after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He was stationed as a private in North Africa, but his superiors kept getting killed, which lead to field promotions until he was finally platoon sergeant. He also had two siblings, Larry, a Marine in the Pacific Theater, and Amy, a nun.
Rock is generally dressed in olive drab fatigues, usually torn to shreds. He wears the chevrons of a Master Sergeant on his uniform and applied oversize to the front of his helmet. He's armed with a .45-caliber M1A1 Thompson submachine gun, a .45-caliber Colt M1911A1 semi-automatic pistol, and a cluster of hand grenades attached to his equipment. He also wears a M1 Garand cartridge belt and two .50-caliber ammunition belts of around his torso; these would be useless to him, as he doesn't carry any weapons requiring that specific ammo. The ammo belts are, nevertheless, a permanent part of Rock's outfit -- he wouldn't look like the same character without them.
Rock's unit, the Combat-Happy Joes of Easy Company, were generally identified by nicknames. There were a lot of different soldiers who cycled through Easy, some for only one issue, some of them with no known names, but the best known characters in the company included:
- Cpl. Horace Eustace "Bulldozer" Canfield, Rock's second-in-command, the largest and strongest soldier in the company.
- Harold "Wildman" Shapiro, a former history professor from Colorado, known for his scraggly, bright red beard, and tendency to go wild in battle.
- Jackie Johnson, a former heavyweight boxing champ and one of the first non-stereotyped Black characters in comics. His presence also made Easy Company the only integrated company in the Army.
- Louis "Little Sure Shot" Kiyahani, an Apache sniper who decorated his helmet with feathers.
- Phil "Ice Cream Soldier" Mason, an under-sized soldier who was always calm during combat and also operated well in colder weather.
"Sgt. Rock" was a war comic, not a superhero comic, but Rock had some superpower-ish abilities. His "combat antenna" was basically a Spider-Sense that clued him in on impending ambushes, giving him time to warn his unit of danger. He also regularly shrugged off bullet and shrapnel wounds, and was a world-class fighter, whether in hand-to-hand combat or with almost any gun he could lay his hands on.
DC would often come up with stories about Rock living to the present day. In one crossover, he was even the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But his creator, Robert Kanigher, always maintained -- and many readers agreed -- that Sgt. Frank Rock died on the last day of the war, killed by the last enemy bullet fired.
"Nothin's ever easy in Easy."