May 12th, 2014
13 May 2014 · page 364 of 1306
Hands up if you didn't see this coming!
..oh, just Wolfe, then
Cast: Dominik Voss, Heinrich Wolfe
Comments (31)
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Wolfe gets executed as a traitor, then ends up haunting Mal...he was a ghost the WHOLE time Spooooooooookey
SpoOOooOoOokie crisps wOoOw
Unlike the movie you're thinking of, he has interacted with Harriet, gotten into bar fights, and been a more successful street artist than you'd expect from a ghost.
Nonono you see that just means all that was Mal acting that way and imagining it was Wolfe...yup he was conning people at cards and hitting on a girl in German at the same time, and then bargained with the councilwoman to have a man released from jail that wasn't there. You heard it here first! (Seriously though, poor Wolfe! Is Mal going to pull him out of the fire again I wonder or will he manage to get away some other way? Looking forward to seeing!)
Eh, in all likelihood the worst he'd have had to endure under the laws at the time (since he'd be a first time offender) was a year of imprisonment, classification as a second class soldier, and an extension of the amount of time he'd need to serve. Capital punishment was reserved for cases of defection to enemy armies (firing squad), desertion while on duty (hanging), or heading a conspiracy to desert involving three or more people (also hanging), but ONLY during wartime.
That said, I'm still hoping for a dramatic rescue from a firing squad or the gallows in the near future =P
laws and practice have been known to differ, especially where strong emotions are involved. those looking for a scapegoat violate said laws...especially if they feel above the law. probably wasn't a whole lot different back then?
Ah, but this is the Prussian military, not some town in rural America from an A-Team episode. Voss and the sergeant could provide evidence against Wolfe, but only a court martial could condemn him to death. The people sitting in judgement would be further up the chain of command than even the lieutenant is and they'd have no interest to fudge all the paperwork that a court martial generates just to see Wolfe hang. Assuming they could even fake Prussia being at war at the time =P
The argument could be made that when he ran off after preventing Voss from shooting Loewe to try to save Mal, that he deserted while on duty (he had not been dismissed, after all). Even though he returned when Voss found him, he has now been accused of violating orders to take the shot and trying to frame his superior. I'm thinking an attempted hanging in Wolfe's future is quite likely, even if they aren't actively at war.
The "while on duty" expressly refers to soldiers that run away during wartime or while guarding "a fortress under siege". These and the ones I mentioned earlier are the ONLY cases of desertion in which capital punishment was called for. Plus that he returned voluntarily is a major mitigating factor. His insubordination is arguably worse, but even then that carries a maximum penalty of three years.
Now there is one possibility where he'd be executed by a firing squad, and that's if the sargeant accuses him of having threatened or attacked him.
Wouldn't put it past the guy....
I so wish I could have seen what all their spirits looked like here...
No you don't. You really, really don't.
I would have punched that bastard in the face even if it meant I'd get executed for-- OH WAIT I'D GET EXECUTED ANYWAY HAHAHHA
I wonder if anyone is going to check to see who's rifle really has been fired.
But - but - Best Friends Foreverrrrr ;~;
I think in Voss' case it was "Best Friends Never".... D:
The scene seems to need work. What orders? We have little enough that even suggests the lieutenant ever said anything to the privates, and even less that he said not to shoot. [Likely scenario: Officer tells sarge to take a couple of men and go scout, reporting back if boss shows. Sarge gets a couple of "volunteers". and tells them a shortened version of what the officer said. The privates may never see the lieutenant until the mission is over.] The sarge orders a shot directly against orders?, why? & why do neither private mention those orders?
Wolfe is shown as such an innocent that he would just assume that "but it was a lady" would be accepted as adequate reason to disobey orders and to stop a lawful shooting. Nor has there been any sign that he would make any excuse about there being countermanding orders.
I suppose the idea is to give Wolfe an easy out. The truth is exposed, and Wolfe is triumphant. But we have a set future for Wolfe, and it rules out much military time. Wolfe emerging with a clean slate is going to conflict with Wolfe as future wandering beggar. His busting jail and fleeing fits his future much better.
Said orders- panel 5 [http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/april-11th-2014/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/april-11th-2014/")
All Wolfe said is that Sarge -disobeyed- orders (to reconnoitre the rebel's leader), not that he "orders a shot directly against orders". However, that ordering that shot was not in accordance with what the lieutenant wanted Sarge and his men to do, is made clear on the page where Sarge tells Voss to pretend that he never ordered that shot ( [http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/april-23rd-2014/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/april-23rd-2014/") ). And even back then, it wasn't normal practice in the army to shoot someone in the back without proper trial, unless you were at war and this were a skirmish, not a reconnoitering (and the purpose of that is exactly to -not- get detected by shooting at people!)
...see previous comment... <3
Wolfe says Sarge disobeyed the lieutenant's orders, orders that as far as we know, Wolfe never heard. Page 6, panels 5-6 are unlikely to be all the orders Wolfe had, but they seem to make it clear Wolfe got his orders from the sergeant and didn't hear the officer say a thing.
Moreover, from what we see and know of Wolfe, he didn't care about the orders. He apparently just didn't think it was proper to shoot a lady [Seduce her and leave her pregnant seems to be a quite different thing, especially if she is a redhead].
Then we have the mystery of why the Sarge ordered the shot. While there are a variety of possible reasons, they all look more reasonable the less of an order there is not to shoot her. [A suggested motive would be glory seeking, and later to cover up failure. But there is little glory in disobeying orders, so the less orders there are to disobey, the more tempting this idea becomes. An unlikely idea of my own is that Sarge knew the woman, say as ex-girlfriend or sister, and knew she would be captured and tortured to betray her comrades. Since he knew she would rather die, he arranged that. But again this is more reasonable if he was not violating his orders too seriously.]
Wolfe would be much more likely to explain the situation with something like... "The Sarge wanted us to shoot a lady, and, rebel leader or not, that is just not done. So I stopped Voss from obeying the order successfully and refused to obey it myself."
"He apparently just didn't think it was proper to shoot a lady..." - Ehhh, what? Wolfe never said anything about shooting a lady, nor had he ever had any notions of seducing her and leaving her pregnant, redhead or not (ye gods, where did you get that idea?!?). He seemed to be genuinely adverse to "just shoot[ing] her", just as he was worried about Mal being lynched only two pages earlier.
I agree that Wolfe never directly heard the lieutenant's orders, but what does it matter? Gullible as he is, he of course takes what the Sarge told him at face value. And I don't see a "mystery" in the Sarge's motives for ordering the shot either. Obviously, he was seeking glory for taking the rebel leader down, but this attempt has ended in not only failing to kill her, but also in completely foiling his orders to reconnoiter, as the rebels now know that they are being hunted. And an embarrassing failure in combination with disobeyed orders wouldn't look good for Sarge's career at all, don't you think?
Wolfe also said nothing about there were orders against shooting, until now.
As to his sexual habits, about the first thing we learn about Wolfe is
that he chases redheads, and we see that too. Nor do we see the ladies
as particularly averse to his attentions. While he is likely not as
successful as he would like [there only being 24 hours in a day], the
presumption is that he succeeds reasonably often. And since he moves
around a lot he is leaving any of these women who get pregnant. He does
not know they got pregnant, but they still get pregnant and he is gone.
Wolfe's objections to Mal's hanging did not rise to the level of trying
to stop it, unlike his objections to shooting the lady.
The
point of the sergeant is that the more we talk about orders against
shooting, the stranger his insistence on shooting is. As I said, there
is no glory in disobeying orders. If he was expecting glory he expected
to get away with dumping her dead body on his superior's desk, and
getting praised for his initiative. So maybe he got told to go and look
around and report back, with the implication that was all. He might
get the idea a dead body saves a lot of work. But if he is told
anything like "don't shoot anybody", he is risking his stripes at the
least. Glory hunting won't do as a motive unless there were no orders
against shooting her.
So we have Wolfe who didn't know what
the orders were resisting the actions of Sarge, who did. Does that
sound at all reasonable. Wolfe finding the action nasty and stopping it
despite its lawful nature is what we expect of him. But in that case
we expect him to be rash enough to say the sarge was being naughty, not
that he was violating any orders.
So the scene can do with a re-write.
... I think you've got the wrong comic. Or you're reading too much into things.
They mentioned the orders repeatedly.
I'm surprised Wolfe didn't seems to have gotten any less trusty after this.
He has Mal for that.
Fair point :D
Wolfe has just learnt an important lesson.
Listen to Mal.
The really scary part of this strip is the promise that Voss is in line for a promotion.
Wolfe.... Why did you listen to the bad man?