Renate and Martin conclude their discussion of Prince Rudolf's suicide pact with his teenage girlfriend Mary Vetsera, as depicted in the top right panel:

“But she evidently didn't listen to him. Only then did Rudolf decide to end it all. He didn't want to live to witness the horrors he felt he had caused. And the young Baroness, in love with him, chose to share his fate.”

“Uhm... If that's what happened. So it was Klara who determined the course of history, and she wouldn't let herself be convinced.”

“And Rudolf, a kind man, didn't want to force her, even though he had the power to do so.’

“She had already lost three children, and perhaps she didn't want to risk losing another. Or perhaps she simply didn't believe him when he told her about the vision he had had in Russia. Is that how can you blame her? Klara probably thought that the man she had loved and perhaps still loved had simply gone mad.”

“And perhaps, in the end, he really did, crushed by guilt. In any case, the construction site at the Eagle's Nest will soon reopen, and the documents I found in that underground bunker will become public. Alone, they can say very little, but perhaps others like us will start investigating to delve deeper into the story, and discover the truth.”

“I don't think so. After what happened, the monks will keep the diary secret for at least another hundred years. And let's hope that, by then, there will no longer be anyone who will try to exploit it for propaganda purposes. Let's hope that, as time passes, the past is truly dead and buried.”

And so ends our tale. Its structure and themes may seem strange to American audiences, not least for the massive, constant infodumps of exposition that Professor Mystère keeps delivering. His quest ends in failure; he never does get to read Rudolf's diary, nor would it have proved how Rudolf died. It would have proved that Adolf Hitler was the son of a nobleman, but Martin deems that truth too hot for the world to handle until Nazism is truly extinct. I also question the conclusion that Rudolf was "a kind man."

The script specifies that the airport be decorated for Christmas, which makes sense as a symbol of hope and redemption. But the previous issue said that the story takes place in March, the same month in which issue #409 was cover-dated. Evidently the story was originally intended for a December release but was pushed a few months later. This necessitated a little extra dialogue to excuse the appearance of a St. Nicholas parade in #409. The Christmas decorations at the airport pass without mention in the text.

Italian comics have a long gestation. The script was finished and art begun in 2022, prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I wonder whether it would have changed the depiction of the Russians here. Maybe not; they're shown to be pretty ruthless.

Social/Sharing