Northlanders: Sven the Returned written by Brian Wood, illustrated by Davide Gianfelice, colors Dave McCaig, letters Travis Lanham
Collecting the first arc of Brian Wood’s most recent ongoing series. About, well, Vikings. In this case the story of Sven, a chieftan’s son working as a soldier in Constantinople as one of the Varangian. Sven learns that his father has died and his lands taken over by his uncle. So Sven decides to head back to the home he abandoned for his inheritance. Or at least the parts that clink and are easily portable…
Wood’s story reads like a violent gangster story really. Or maybe a adaption of a never filmed Kurosawa adaptation of a forgotten noir piece. Dark and brooding and full of blood and vengeance. All set in ink by the skilled Gianfelice and McCaig…
Plus its a fat 8-issue tpb that only runs 10 bucks. Thats a damned good deal…
3 responses so far ↓
1 Sardel // Feb 23, 2009 at 7:10 pm
I had the good fortune of discovering this as well, the lower end price plus a 40% off coupon from Borders made this a steal.
I thought it was a great Viking story though one complaint I’ve encountered when introducing it to others is that the language is too modern.
As an aside, most 1st volumes in Vertigo series are $9.99 or below. Sort of like a gateway drug to get you hooked at a cheap price.
2 LurkerWithout // Feb 23, 2009 at 7:42 pm
And then years later they put out Absolute editions for the hard-core junkie. I love “Sandman” as much as the next non-Goth but I’m not spending $100 a book to replace my volumes…
3 LurkerWithout // Feb 23, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Though checking some of my Vertigo trades I see that “100 Bullets” and “The Losers” both have volume 1′s at under 10 bucks. “Lucifer” was 15, the first Moore “Swamp Thing” collection is 20 and “Y: the Last Man” is 13…
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