Northlanders

I've been reading some Northlanders and eh...

it's rather good.

The above is one of the covers from omnibus 2's Icelandic Saga, which isn't even the best of the Northlanders stories, and to be honest one of the least engaging arcs in the series, and apparently the readership and Vertigo thought so as well, because it lead to Northlanders' eventual cancellation; but well... you can probably see why I wanted to share it:

Blood and gloom coupled with the contrast of the title, makes this particular piece quite the stand-out.

Try as I might, I just couldn't get decent enough scans of some pages, so you'll just have to do with some enhanced photographs instead. I do think I did it ok, though.

Written by Brian Wood and illustrated by a host of different artists, Northlanders' 50 issues follow around various characters and families in 14 separate arcs during the age of viking exploration and expansion.

If you want to, you could probably slot the Black road comic under Northlanders as well,

as it's certainly similar in most respects; subject matter, approach to violence, introspection and even the art style.

Come to think of it, Black Road has a crazy amount of similarities to the Cross and the Hammer arc.

It's Brian Wood slipping one under the radar maybe, by going to Image, but certain names had to changed to make that possible I'm guessing. There's certainly some dudes called Magnus in both of these.

Here's how all that looks on the shelf, by the way.

For the purposes of the picture the volumes are snugly nestled between my Matthew Woodring Stover stuff and what is still a pretty cool-looking bottle, even if it was a gin one.

Anyway, back to why we're here: The Northlanders arcs are largely unconnected and generally can be read on their own, except of course for the absolute King of these arcs, which has a one-shot closing out the saga in another omnibus:

The Saga of Sven The Returned.

Sven the Returned stands head and shoulders above the rest of Northlanders.

It is the tale of a warrior returning to his homeland in search of his hereditary wealth.

Naturally the current holder of that wealth doesn't much like this forgotten relic coming back out of hiding to undermine his authority, and so, plans are forged to get rid of 'little Sven'.

Problem is though that ever since his leave-taking of his home and culture 'little Sven' has not had an easy life, and through ups and downs, this has made of him a member of Constantinople's Varangian guard, and a warrior without peer.

And so. Violence ensues.

A lot of violence.

 But that's not all of the appeal here, because besides the violence entrenched in some readily approachable art, there's also quite an engaging and against-the-grain story, and on top of that it's got a main character liberally endowed with Brian Wood's penchant for melancholy introspection.

It's pretty much what I generally want in any swords and blood comic.

And the ending, both the one of the Sven the Returned arc, and the one of the addendum to the story in omnibus 2, are also quite good. No downer endings these, unlike a lot of the rest of the Northlanders arcs (omnibus 2 in particular).

The rest of the Northlanders arcs are mostly hit, though frequently too short to be of much consequence. I do like all of them, apart from the Icelandic saga, which is just a little too incoherent, though well researched.

Yeah, this post is mainly just to showcase that first piece and the Sven story.

Somebody else might've just shared that and moved on without comment but I just couldn't just leave it like that.

I've not read Omibus 3 yet though I'll get around to it...

With titles like 'Metal' and ' the Viking art of single combat', there's still some definite promise here.

There's even an arc of similar length to the Sven saga.

Hmmm, better get round to that soon-ish, I think.