3.5 stars

This was unique and weird, very promising but that ultimately didn't deliver as much as it promised in terms of story.

Based on a true case of a group of British occultists that fancied themselves wielders of magic and practitioners of witchcraft, and who claimed to have embarked on a psychic war against the Nazis during WWII, this graphic novel uses the real story of these "magicians" to create a fictional tale of espionage and sabotage in which the British intelligence enrolls the help of occultists Aleister Crowley, Gerard Gardner, Dion Fortune, Rollo Ahmed, and Doreen Dominy, the protagonist and narrator, for a mission to lure Rudolf Hess, Germany's heir-presumptive to the Führer into coming to England for a supposed occult revolution bent on ousting the government and handing the isle over to the Germans.

The plot is so insane at times you wonder how much creative licence the writer took with the real story, but at the same time it's plausible and not that hard to believe given all we know about Hess' (and other Nazi bigwigs like Himmler) interest in occultism, paganism, arcane spirituality, and all that esoteric stuff Hitler had personally no patience for. You won't be left wondering, though, because both Paul Cornell and Professor of History Ronald E. Hutton have two afterwords each in which they explain separately what's historical and what's made up for the sake of the plot, as well as the former explaining why he wrote this as it is. Broadly summing up what both say, the characters were real and their beliefs in the occult and magic were real, but their "magic" wasn't like in this graphic novel, and Hess' flight was real enough though far more mysterious as to motives. The rest is fictional.

The story feels incomplete, however. Like there's more that was ultimately cut and left out; transition between chapters is bumpy and everything feels both confusingly slow and too rapid when it picks up speed, it feels compressed, and making the magic real gave this an unrealistic twist that I didn't like. Hess' strange behaviour is even more erratic here, because after ordering the killing of one of the important characters, he suddenly decides to go to England? He reacts as the plot needs, and the circle of witches is never challenged hard but everything goes according to plan. It's just too easy for them.

Doreen was a disappointment as a character, too. She goes from a rational translator at Bletchley Park, that collection of super-geniuses working with British intelligence to thwart Nazi plans and decode their encrypted comms, to a dabbler in witchcraft... despite witnessing what a bunch of frauds and con artists they all are. I never felt a sense of why exactly she had such a change of heart, because she's always doubting. It would've made more sense if she'd stayed the sceptic she started out as instead of becoming a witch by conviction. Crowley was far more consistent and always acted in-character from beginning to end, as were the other supporting characters, but this also makes her inconsistent and not that well-developed character all the more disappointing.

All in all, an interesting story that sent me into reading up on the true events to learn more, but that was ultimately very unsatisfying. The art is lovely, though, with a nice palette and design, and I liked that some panels have an appearance reminiscent of a film noir.

Thank you NetGalley and TKO Presents for giving me the opportunity to read an advanced readers copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

That was… different. I really went into it with zero expectations, but I was confident it was going to be my cup of tea. I mean—World War II? Witches? World War II AND witches? I can never say no to that.

The art was beautiful, the idea was crazy good—I can’t even believe it was inspired by real people! But…it kind of fell flat. I wanted more, so much more from it.

I almost never read introductions and afterwords, but I appreciated the ones written by the writer and Prof. Ronald E. Hutton; they answered some of my questions and shed a light on a part of history I never knew existed (not the same witchcraft portrayed in the story, but close enough).

"The Witches of World War Two," is a rollicking adventure told in graphic novel style. How do you defeat the Naziswhen conventional means are not available? The Occult is how and this is a great adventure that tells just that story.