Will Franz and Sam Glanzman bring us the 13th chapter of "The Lonely War of Capt. Willy Schultz" in Fightin' Army #89 (January 1970). And it's a powerful chapter in the saga.
Willy is still fighting alongside partisans in Italy. As the story opens, they have some German soldiers trapped, with mortars sited to wipe them out.
But the German soldiers are all kids--a bunch of barely teenaged boys in uniforms and helmets too big for them. I love the touch of ill-fitting helmets. It effectively emphasizes that this children are indeed... well, children.
Willy goes up to talk to them, urging them to surrender. He tells them they have families who want them to live. This backfires a little, as one of the kids point out that everyone in his family has already been killed. Willy promised his father he'd come back alive. The German kid promised instead to win an Iron Cross.
As is often the case in this series, Franz and Glanzman present us with a dialogue-heavy chapter, this time with very little action, but makes it work. The conversation is heart-rending and the tension--will the partisans be forced to kill child soldiers--is high.
But just as it seems that Willy has convinced the kids to surrender, a wounded sergeant pops out of a tent and shoots Willy. The bullet careens off Willy's helmet, knocking him out and sending him tumbling down the hill. But Major Dario, the OSS agent commanding the partisans, thinks he's dead. Enraged, he orders the Germans to be wiped out.
And that's it. Willy pins an Iron Cross on the corpse of the dead child he'd been speaking to, but knows that doesn't do any real good. It's war and in war, people die senselessly.
This is indeed a powerful chapter--one I might pick as the best of the series.
Next week, we'll return to the Hulk as he continues his journey through microscopic landscapes.
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