The Royals: Masters of War #2 – Review

By: Rob Williams (story), Simon Coleby (art), JD Mettler (colors)

The Story: The Justice Society of America, they ain’t.

The Review: I first remarked, when this series started, on how surprisingly immovable history had turned out to be in the Royals world.  Up until the point when Henry decided to step into the WWII game, events haven’t deviated much from what we know.  A narrative necessity, perhaps; if Williams had to spend any time explaining how superpowers changed things, we’d probably be halfway through this mini before he could start telling his actual story.

Still, you have to wonder how so much has managed to stay the same, even though the concentration of power among royalty would necessarily change prospects for the modern democracy.  It’s hard to believe, for example, that the U.S.A. would exist at all if in response to the Boston Tea Party, King George III (who definitely did not take kindly to seeing all that lovely tea dumped into the drink) flew over and freeze-rayed the rebel colonists.  Looking at the pitiful efforts of America’s current vintage of blue-bloods, you can’t imagine what made old George hold back before.

The Royals: Masters of War #1 – Review

By: Rob Williams (story), Simon Coleby (art), JD Mettler (colors)

The Story: A war among the world’s superpowers—literally.

The Review: I don’t mind telling you that the Vertigo revival has been something of a mixed bag so far—which shouldn’t be all that shocking, frankly, given the success rate of fiction in general.  If I’m experiencing an unusual amount of disappointment, that’s probably because I had been hoping Vertigo would finally unleash a flood of creative daring that it had secretly kept back for some years.  What we’ve gotten instead has been interesting, but not incredible.

If I had to put my finger on the problem, it’s the lack of conceptual novelty.  Not to suggest that an indie title has to have a gimmick to stand out, but look, if you’re not bringing new ideas to the table, then the execution has to be that much greater to keep people invested.  A title like Hinterkind, for example, can’t separate itself from the pack when it relies so heavily on the tropes of its genre(s).  Compare it to Royals, which immediately distinguishes itself with a rather clever premise: how would history turn if the world’s royalty had more than purely ceremonial or political power.  It’s just a great idea, perfectly fitted for comics.