The Grand Duke

It’s not that Garth Ennis is the only writer out there who tells war stories, just that he’s the one who is best at it.  That’s a feeling which is regrettably confirmed in this collection of a European graphic novel series from Romain Hugault and Yann — the artist and writer, respectively.  “The Grand Duke” tells a story about two members of the German and Russian air forces.  There’s Wulf, the honorable German Luftwaffe pilot who refuses to put a swastika on his plane and only shoots down other enemy fighters and not defenseless non-combat planes.  On the other side is Lilya, one of the feared Night Witches of Russia, and while she has to contend with a fair amount of sexism even in light of her skills, she’s also not above using her body to get what she wants.  They’re not given much depth beyond this while the supporting cast is made up of one-note exercises in tragedy or villainy.  The exception to this is Major Testhoff, the last new commander Wulf gets, who looks like he just missed the cut for playing the most evil nazi in an “Indiana Jones” movie, but is shown to be surprisingly pragmatic and sympathetic the more we see of him.  It’s a shame the rest of the cast wasn’t created with at least the same depth that was given to him.

Though Wulf and Lilya’s stories are quite predictable, right down to the love story that you hoped Yann wouldn’t find a way to shoehorn in, “The Grand Duke” does have one big redeeming factor:  Hugalt’s art.  It’s easy to appreciate the level of detail the man brings to the planes, other military hardware and scenery which is never less than stunning.  However, there’s a real vitality to his character work that draws you into their struggles no matter how much melodrama is piled onto them.  Though it’s true that he’s also very good at drawing naked or scantily clad women, there are several scenes where something like a gratuitous downblouse shot is either actively distracting from the narrative, or extremely disturbing in that he would illustrate them after having been assaulted by the German army.  I don’t know whether or not Hugalt was indulging himself or if stuff like that was actually in Yann’s script yet the end result is that the artist’s talent is pretty much wasted on the material here.  Had he been paired up with someone like Ennis who knows how to tell these stories in a disciplined way, this might’ve been something really special.