Malachi Constant posted:

In 1979 an ex-green beret named Barry Sadler wrote a book called Casca: The Eternal Mercenary which chronicled the life of the Roman soldier who was given the job of marching some guy he'd never heard of named Jesus to the cross and standing guard until he died. He decides to help Jesus out by stabbing him with a spear, then Jesus curses him to live as a soldier until the second coming.

His tragic heroic flaws are that women can't help but fall in love with him after he demonstrates his shocking sexual prowess and he occasionally gets his sword/bayonet stuck in an enemy's rib-cage.

Sadler (and his ghostwriters) wrote 22 books in the series, covering Casca's life spanning his Roman days to his experience in the Viet Nam war. The series continues to this day, and is currently on book #45, released in September of 2016.

The original covers looked like this:



based on a picture of the author:



For some reason the covers were redone and now they look like this:
1
2 3 4
5 6 7
8 9 10
11 12 13
14 15 16
17 18 19
20 21 22

I think Casca's vague stare and weak cosplay should be immortalized, since he must still be alive somewhere in our world.






Here's a song written (and performed by!) the author to inspire you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK9KdJWTfQY