Radiant Comics

I’m back from the comic shop this week and I gotfour new comics:

And now for a review of something I’ve read recently.

”Northlanders Volume 5: Metal and Other Stories. By Brian Wood and a few Artists

Here I am back for the fifth volume of the “Northlanders” series. This one is made up of issues 29-36 of the comic. It’s a series that’s mostly historical fiction about the far north of Europe in the years around 700 to 1240 AD. I say mostly historical fiction because this issue took an almost sword and sorcery turn for a story.

The first story is a one issue tale of a crew of Norse sailors in the year 760 who are taken by their captain on a voyage towards west towards the undiscovered land of Greenland. It’s not what they signed up for but the captain had ideas other than moving his usual cargo. I liked this story. The art was by Fiona Stables and it was well drawn. I’ll spoil the ending for you because knowing the end is the most interesting part to me. Y’see the ship doesn’t make it back. I like that. It rings true to me. Some ships had to not make it back while exploring before the first ones eventually did return. This is the story of not making it back. Interesting. I don’t see that very often.

The second story is drawn by Riccardo Burchielli and is five issues long. This is where the book takes a turn towards a bit of sword and sorcery. It takes place in Norway in 700 AD. Christianity is taking hold and one of the followers of the old ways doesn’t like it. This is the story of him fighting back and trying to wipe out every Christian he can. The sorcery part is that he actually sees and talks to the old gods of his land. He even fights some sort of monster. This is a departure from the rest of the series and maybe it was all in the guy’s head but it was the least interesting story to me. I don’t have much to say about it but it was solid

The third story is a two issue tale of an old man living in Iceland in 1240 AD. He lives out by himself in the hills but war is coming to his valley and the young men of the town look at him as a suspicious old weirdo. While fishing one day he finds the body of a young girl frozen in the ice. He digs her out and tries to figure out what happened but he knows this is going to lead to trouble for him. It does. All he wants at the end of his life is some peace and the truth but it comes at a price. Good stuff. The story is drawn well by Becky Cloonan.

As I’m back for a fifth volume you know that I like the series. All the stories are independent of each other and though the first and third of this volume were my favorites I liked all three. “Northlanders” is a good series from volume one through volume five. I’ll be back for volume six.