Radiant Comics

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

Buffy: Season 8 – 29

North 40 – 4

Savage Dragon – 153

Grim Jack “The Manx Cat” – 3

Planetary – 27 (Not a hoax! Not a dream!)

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

“Northlanders: The Cross and the Hammer” by Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly

This is the second “Northlander” collection to come out but it is not a continuation of volume one. Besides taking place at the time of the Vikings (around 1000 AD) they two volumes are unrelated. All new characters and an all new story line.

This volume takes place in Ireland during the Norse occupation. It’s basically the tale of an Irishman, he may be an insurgent or he may be a madman, who is going around and killing some of the key Norse occupiers. A Viking lord who is sort of a crime scene specialist is sent to track and kill him. It’s a violent story of the hunt and the chase.

It’s also a very human story where it’s hard to pick a side to sympathize with. Of course it’s natural to side with the Irish insurgent/madman over their occupiers but both sides commit violence towards the other with remarkable frequency and aplomb. Just when I thought I was with one side or the other my allegiance would switch because of some act of violence. The violence was understandable though. The characters were not violent for violence’s sake. They were doing what they thought was right and the enemy’s lives were cheap.

Overall this was a very enjoyable volume of historical fiction. There was more violence and less politics then the first volume but I enjoyed both of them and look forward to more.