Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks.
That’s Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War,” after which this series is subtitled, and its message forms a central theme of the first issue of the new six-issue Vertigo series The Royals. It’s set in a world where the divine attributions that started all these hereditary kingships is actually based in some fact. The House of Windsor actually has super powers. However, they’re also the royal family, so doing things to help people that aren’t themselves doesn’t seem to be what they do. It’s in the middle of World War II, with the Germans bombing England regularly, and yet they remain uninvolved, for various reasons. Prince Arthur, for example, spells it out blatantly that he loves his life of privilege and excess and doesn’t give a damn about the actual people. Prince Henry, on the other hand, finds his conscience challenged when he sees firsthand the horrors of the bombings.
It seems that the males of the family have crazy Superman powers, while the women are telepaths. King Albert, howver, was apparently born powerless, and his wife (and cousin, because royals tend to inbreed) Sofia has lost her telepathic mind. The king actually spread the rumor that the Windsors were all now powerless, to protect his children. However, when Henry decides he can’t stand it anymore and heads out to the front lines to destroy a Nazi squadron, it sets off the hell on Earth that we see him enduring as a battle-weary veteran in the opening of the issue, because superhumanity is not the sole province of England.
Rob Williams has an interesting take on all this, with multiple points of view. You’ve got the degenerate Prince Arthur being everything you expect to hate about a royal, Henry and Princess Rose being the idealists you’d hope to love about them, and King Albert being personable but enigmatic, and then Lt. Colonel Lockhart in the Secret Intelligence Service illustrating the viewpoint of the military – basically, angry disgust that they with amazing powers will not lift a finger to stop the horrors being inflicted onto the citizens. Then there’s Travers, Lockhart’s deputy who gets promoted when his superior’s temper gets the better of him, who may serve as our point of view character going forward, as he’s new to the game and will likely be the bearer of much exposition. It’s a little tough to digest this after Kieron Gillen’s and Canaan White’s Uber has done so much to completely deromanticize comic book slants on World War II, but The Royals: Masters of War #1 isn’t quite shying away from the atrocities, either. Simon Coleby’s dark and shadowy artwork really brings forth the brutality of the bomings and of the consequences of Henry’s fighting. But it also stars superpowered princes and princesses. So there are some reservations.
Prince Arthur is the type of bastard that Dylan was castigating in his song. One might then wager that he will turn out to be the man kicking the hell out of Henry in Berlin at the start of the issue, because he illustrates he’s got more power than his little brother. The notion that superhumans are like nuclear warheads, and their involvement in a war leads to mutually assured destruction, is not a new one, but it’s always an interesting one. The Royals: Masters of War promises to examine what happens when duty clashes with responsibility, and the odds are good that it will be pretty compelling when it all shakes out.
