Northlanders #19 – Review

by Brian Wood (writer), Danijel Zezelj (art), Dave McCaig (colors), and Travis Lanham (letters)

The Story: Three women fight for their lives, making a final stand at an abandoned keep.

What’s Good: I loved this issue just as I’ve loved this arc overall, so it’s hard not to repeat what I said in my review of #18.   It’s a gripping tale of feminine solidarity in an age of raping and pillaging; a one of a kind story that hits the brain and the heart. Viking tales are almost always exclusively male in focus, an unfortunate continuance of that masculine-centric time that seems to have been furthered in hindsight rather than questioned.

Indeed, the fact that these three women are at the centre of a Viking tale is perhaps why they are under threat. They take centre stage, while the typical barbarians are left as faceless adversaries. Wood has given us a tale that focuses on female characters fighting for their place and their independence and that those arrayed against them are a horde of indistinguishable males that are out to take what is theirs.

Wood also assails Christianity  this month. I always like it when writers or commentators quote obscure, and socially horrific, passages of the Bible. It’s so utterly jarring to hear a book so central to our culture be so retrogressive and opposed to that very culture.

However, Wood’s greatest achievement this month, more than last, is his effective blend of myth and reality. No, this isn’t a Gaiman-esque tale of Odin showing up in disguise to save the day. Rather, Wood shows how reality, or “real life,” reflects myth and that the two sustain and mirror one another. The last page is genius for this reason, as is the depiction of one of our characters’ escape from the fortress. In that escape, Wood flirts with magical realism, blending myth and super-naturalism with reality so closely, that until the end of the comic, even I wasn’t sure if the character in question wasn’t more than human.

Also, Danijel Zezelj’s art is nothing short of fantastic.  Dark, shadowy, and horrendously bleak, it suits the mood of the book to a tee.  Indeed, Zezelj’s style strikes one as a vision rather than the movie or cartoon look that a lot of comics go for.  I also found it much easier to tell the characters apart, which was a bit of an issue last month.  McCaig does simply awesome work on colors as well, adding even greater emotion to Zezelj’s art by working heavily in monochromatics. The main color of every scene perfectly reflects the action, and more importantly the state of mind, being represented.  The battle scene in particular is set in a glorious array of reds and oranges.

What’s Not So Good: There are a couple lines where the religious commentary feels a little ham-fisted, as though Wood feels he has to spell out his points for the dullards who need to be fed, and it ends up losing some of the subtlety.  Also, what the heck is with the continual use of “pigfucker?”  Why that one profanity?

Conclusion: Very minor quibbles aside, this book is simply awesome.

Grade: A-

-Alex Evans

Northlanders #18 – Review

by Brian Wood (writer), Danijel Zezelj (art), Dave McCaig (colors), and Travis Lanham (letters)

The Story: With their village destroyed and their husbands butchered, three women, treasure in tow, run for their lives.

What’s Good: Brian Wood continues to show what can be done with a Viking comic.  Make no mistake, this is a clearly feminist text and yet, perhaps thanks to its gory Viking historical base, Wood makes it one that is accessible to the everyman rather than off-putting. While it’s emotionally heavy stuff, it’s more action-packed and inviting than it is didactic.  That said, the feminist base makes this issue feel more intellectually substantial, more engaging, and more complex than a comic filled with guys getting stabbed in the gut with pointy sticks.

What Wood gives us here is a story concerning three women fighting for independence in a world where such a thing is not only non-existent, but unthinkable.  It’s essentially three women learning that masculinity is entirely a social construct, as they wage war not merely with a group of murderous vikings, but in so doing, with the nastiest of all patriarchies.  Our three characters appropriate the masculine in a fight for freedom that is definitely stirring stuff.

It’s all the more hard-hitting due to Wood once again flexing his muscle when it comes to writing narrators.  Here, he establishes a unique, highly personal and memorable character voice for the comic through the use of narrating textboxes.  The textboxes expertly pull the reader in, causing you to really connect with the plight of our three protagonists.

Of course, it’s not just about those three characters.  As is often the case with Northlanders, Wood always makes these personal trials seem like a reflection of something more, a battle that concerns an entire culture.  Certainly, the bookending quotations help establish this feel.

As for the art, Zezelj’s work is attractive, stylized stuff.  Dark as hell, abstract, and filled with fluid and creative layouts. It really helps move the plot along and  convey the fact that this is NOT a good place for the women.  In fact, Zezelj’s art makes the comic’s world feel not only threatening, but downright hostile.  Full of shadows, malevolently leering faces, and nondescript, bordering on inhuman looking Vikings, it’s a place out of nightmare for our maidens.

What’s Not-So-Good: Unfortunately, Zezelj’s stylized work is also something of a double-edged sword in this otherwise fantastic comic.  Due to how heavy the inks are and how bloody dark the colours are, it’s occasionally difficult to tell our three protagonists apart.  Zezelj seems aware of this, giving each of them different hairstyles as something of a cheap aid, but it still is confusing at times.  At one point, even Wood’s narration joins in on the confusion, leading me to momentarily struggle to remind myself who WAS narrating.

Conclusion: “Consider us Odin’s wolves, here to send you to your nailed God.”  That’s just a sample of the cerebral badassery on offer here.

Grade: B+

-Alex Evans