It took nearly a half-century, but when the Willy Schultz stories were collected into a hardback last year by Dark Horse Books, writer Will Franz was finally able to wrap up the series. Sadly, Sam Glanzman is no longer with us, but Wayne Vansant stepped in and did an excellent job drawing the story.
I normally don't cover recent comics, but this is an obvious exception. Franz does a magnificent job of bringing the saga to a close. He had only 20 pages to do so and when this chapter suffers, it is because Franz has only a couple of panels to cover aspects of Schultz's story that might have taken up multiple chapters had Charlton stuck with the series back in the 1970s. The story is undeniably rushed. But its a case where it would be unfair to criticize a writer for working within the space he'd been given. It's great to have an end to the story and Franz, as I said, does a magnificent job.
The chapter opens with a shocking scene--Elena (the girl who was falling in love with Willy) has been captured and hanged, along with several other partisans. In addition, Willy is forced to acknowledge that the pardon he'd been promised was never going to happen--even if the murder conviction was thrown out, he had literally fought for the Germans while in Africa. He was going to be considered a traitor no matter what.
Soon, Willy is found by the Germans. But he's wearing a German uniform himself so is once again able to pass himself off as a Wermacht officer, claiming his papers were taken when he was captured by partisans. He ends up fighting on the Russian Front.
It's here that I most regret that Franz had only 20 pages to work with. Moral dilemmas facing Willy are mentioned, but glossed over without the indepth dialogue that Franz was so good at giving his characters to express those dilemmas. Willy is forced to fight Russian partisans who are really no different that the Italian partisans he had fought with. Later, he's forced to realize that he (and, in fact, every German) has been fighting to keep the death camps operating--there is simply no turning away from that responsibility.
All of this deserves more than a passing reference and I have no doubt Franz would have handled these issues brilliantly had he been able to do so in the '70s. It's no fault of his that he has to rush through all this when he did get a chance to bring the saga to an end. But it will always be a regretful "what could have been."
Willy gets a chance to surrender to American troops just before a random artillery shell wounds him and leaves him scarred. While he recovers, Germany surrenders. But Willy has to run when someone recognizes him. He joins the French Foreign Legion and ends up fighting in Vietnam.
After the French are defeated, the story skips ahead to 1969. Willy now owns a plantation in South Vietnam. He's married to Ilse, the German nurse he had met in North Africa. She has her own scars--her family had been executed after the July 1944 atttempt to assassinate Hitler and she had been tortured by the Gestapo. But the two are together and have made peace with the world.
It's a satisfying ending, though I can't help but spoil it a little in my mind by wondering what happened to Willy and Ilsa after South Vietnam fell five years later.
But I really am complaining too much. It's is cool that "The Lonely War of Capt. Willy Schultz" was finally brought to a strong conclusion by the saga's original writer.
Next week, Captain Marvel Jr. deal with a conspiracy of shape-shifting aliens.
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