The Lonely War of Capt Willy Schultz

Some time back (I can't find the thread) some of us discussed the Twomorrows publication Our Artists at War, which is a comprehensive (AFAIK) collection of commentary on the war comics of the 60s and 70s. One of the highlights of this genre was the recurring Charlton series The Lonely War of Capt Willy Schultz, which was in the title Fightin' Army. The protagonist is an ethnic German in the U.S. Army who is falsely accused of killing his superior officer. He grew up in the U.S. speaking German at home and therefore was able to pass as a German soldier when he decided to flee (he refuses to kill Americans). I discovered the series in 1969 when I was waiting for the Marvel and DC books to not be three months behind. Except for the extreme situation of Willy Schultz, this series resonated with me (and apparently others) as more realistic than the Sgt Fury and Sgt Rock titles. After sixteen installments the series was abruptly cancelled.

The series was reprinted in a hardcover book published by Dark Horse in February 2023, last month as I write this. For some reason it didn't show up in Cap's solicitations, but it was on Amazon. It includes a final chapter wrapping up Willy's story with what happened to him at the end of WWII and later up until 1969. The original sixteen chapters were written by Will Franz and illustrated by the great Sam Glanzman, who passed away in 2017. The final chapter was written by Will Franz and illustrated by Wayne Vansant (The 'Nam)*.

*I recently acquired all issues of The 'Nam prior to its pollution by The Punisher. There is a French Foreign Legion connection between a chapter of The 'Nam and this final Willy Schultz chapter.

Replies

Jeff of Earth-J March 12, 2023 at 8:44pm

I remember seeing this volume solicited but I didn't pre-order it. I don't generally like war comics (although there are exceptions). I can't discuss the Lonely War of Capt. Willy Schultz because I haven't read it, but I can recommend a series (three volumes) I think you might like: Charley's War.
Captain Comics March 13, 2023 at 1:46pm

I ordered Lonely War when it became available at In Stock Trades, and it's in my to-read pile. It did appear in my weekly Comics Guide in January, which is why I knew to watch for it. But if it didn't show up in your neck of the woods until February, that might have been too soon to do you any good.

My wife read it, and while she said some parts stretched her suspension of disbelief, it was a good read overall. I'm looking forward to it.
Richard Willis March 13, 2023 at 2:02pm

I looked at your Comics Guide posts back to early February, so I didn't see it, and initially missed it. According to Amazon it wasn't available until February.

I don't generally read war comics, Jeff. Lonely War doesn't at all glorify war and could be called as anti-war comic. As a matter of fact, when I came home unscathed from the real war I was drafted for, I took my almost-complete Sgt Fury collection to the dumpster.

Captain Comics said:

I ordered Lonely War when it became available at In Stock Trades, and it's in my to-read pile. It did appear in my weekly Comics Guide in January, which is why I knew to watch for it. But if it didn't show up in your neck of the woods until February, that might have been too soon to do you any good.

My wife read it, and while she said some parts stretched her suspension of disbelief, it was a good read overall. I'm looking forward to it.
Captain Comics October 2, 2023 at 11:58am
I have finally finished The Lonely War of Willy Schultz and find myself ambivalent. I appreciate it was trying to do something different, even -- dare I say it? -- more realistic, for a war comic. But it was not immune to preposterousness:
- Nobody dies who is narratively inconvenient, including Willy. Bullets, like in most entertainment, only have eyes for secondary characters. When a major character dies, it is deliberately, and with great buildup and climax.
- The only two female characters are impossibly attractive, and both (impossibly) fall for Willy.
- Willy's situation is preposterous, and his "I won't kill Americans" isn't workable. It only works by writer's fiat. And while I have no desire to look it up, I have a vague memory that he did fire on Americans in his initial stories. Maybe he just fired generally at them. But you know, as established, if push came to shove Willy would probably kill anybody to save himself.
That last part is probably why I find myself ambivalent. By the end, I was having a hard time rooting for Willy, whose justifications grew increasingly flimsy to my comic-book-created moral paradigm. Sometimes when a character called Willy a coward, I would think, "Yeah, he kinda is." Sure, he acts with Sgt. Fury-level derring-do at times (and with Sgt. Fury-level plot armor), but it's all in service to save his own skin. He rarely, if ever, does anything to help anyone else. (Even when he goes out of his way to help one of his women ... well, it IS one of his women, innit? Would he do the same for a dumpy German hausfrau who wasn't sexually rewarding him? He certainly didn't do anything unselfish for any of the men in his units. Any of his units, of which there were many.)

But I will defer on all of this to men who actually served. I am evaluating Willy Schultz by the only standard I know, which is comics. Those who were actually in the military are in a far better situation to evaluate than I.