Hi, and welcome to Comics You Should Own, a semi-regular series about comics I think you should own. I began writing these a little over fifteen years ago, and Iâm still doing it, because I dig writing long-form essays about comics. I republished my early posts, which I originally wrote on my personal blog, at Comics Should Be Good about ten years ago, but since their redesign, most of the images have been lost, so I figured it was about time I published these a third time, here on our new blog. I plan on keeping them exactly the same, which is why my references might be a bit out of date and, early on, I donât write about art as much as I do now. But I hope you enjoy these, and if youâve never read them before, I hope they give you something to read that you might have missed. Iâm planning on doing these once a week until I have all the old ones here at the blog. Today we’re back with more of Brian Wood’s Viking saga! This post was originally published on 24 October 2011. As always, you can click on the images to see them better. Enjoy!
Northlanders by Brian Wood (writer), Leandro Fernández (artist), Dave McCaig (colorist), and Travis Lanham (letterer).
Published by DC/Vertigo, 8 issues (#21-28 of the ongoing series), cover dated December 2009 â July 2010.
I guess there are SPOILERS below. I mean, itâs not really a spoiler-y kind of story, and I know I didnât spoil some things, but I certainly didnât mind spoiling other things. So beware! Be aware!
The first thing you notice is the artwork. You open the issue and see three panels: One shows three corpses, partially hidden in snow, surrounded by black trees on a white ground. 
The perspective is from above, so we see the splayed bodies and the trees rising up from the ground like rays of the sun. The second panel shows a white world with a thicket of black trees on the horizon. In the right foreground stand three gray trees, the foremost sporting a bloody handprint. Then, the third panel shows the Volga river, black water choked with corpses, indeterminate masses of flesh like a beaverâs dam, the eerily viscous water sucking them down. Itâs horrifying, true, but it also sets the mood of âThe Plague Widowâ beautifully. This is a story of winter and death, and Leandro Fernández establishes that wonderfully on the first page of issue #21.
Despite the fact that the artists on Woodâs Northlanders are top-notch, the surprising thing is that Fernández, of all of them, perhaps does the most with the least. The entire story takes place in the winter, so Fernández doesnât get to show a beautiful landscape as Ryan Kelly did for Ireland in âThe Cross + The Hammer.â The story takes place far from the wind-swept coasts of Scandinavia, so Fernández doesnât get to draw dramatic ocean or coastal scenes like almost every other Northlanders artist. He is constrained by Woodâs desire to tell the story of an isolated settlement in the middle of a harsh season, with snow blanketing the ground and everyone wrapped in furs. Yet Fernández turns this to his advantage â âThe Plague Widowâ is stunning, perhaps the most beautiful and primal of any Northlanders story, because Fernández has to convey so much with so little. Heâs conveying grand vistas of utter white (or gray, depending on the time of day). His two main male characters have thick beards covering their faces, cutting off much of their expressive powers (Gunborgâs beard is less restrictive, and heâs often a cheery psychopath, so Fernández is able to do a bit more with him). 
But Fernández does amazing things with these limitations. In issue #23, he gives us a giant panel showing the forest surrounding the settlement. Against a slate-gray sky that matches the snow on the ground, he draws trees â green in the foreground, black in the background â and a single, large puff of snow in the distance as the trees shatter under its weight. Itâs so far away we see nothing, but the immensity of the moment is staggering. In issue #24, Gunborg takes some men and tries to reach a settlement further south. As they leave, Gunborg looks up and Fernández shows the forest from his perspective â naked trunks reaching anemically skyward, forming a small circle of light through which the blank clouds peek. At the end of the issue, Gunborg returns from his mission, and Fernández shows him, alone against an almost totally white background, staggering through the depths, triumphant. We almost believe he can defeat nature itself, even though itâs a false hope. Gunborg burns the great hall in issue #25, and Fernández gives us a full-page spread, shrunken houses dotting the foreground and background, covered in white, with the giant hulk in the center, burning white-hot and belching tar-like smoke into the sky. The people are so insignificant in the face of such elemental violence as to be unrecognizable â the crosses in the graveyard next to the hall look as human as they do. Obviously, Fernández does have other things to draw, and when he is asked to focus on the characters, he does an amazing job. His characters are unique, from Gunborgâs gap-toothed, squinty-eyed visage to Hildaâs steely gaze to Borisâs inscrutable gaze. These are characters who have endured, and Fernández does a marvelous job showing that, as when Hilda is forced to cross the settlement twice at different times without enough protection from the cold. 
The first time she does it, when Gunborg forces her to drag a tithe to the great hall, Fernández shows her as bowed but defiant. The second time, Gunborgâs nephew has taken her child, and she radiates pain and rage that this has happened to her daughter and to her home. The first time, it emboldens Gunborg to abuse his power. The second time, it emboldens Boris to challenge Gunborg. Both times, Fernández shows us in her face how the men would react the way they do. Of course, as with any Northlanders arc, there must be violence, and Fernández is up to the task, delineating it with almost clinical precision. The other artists in the series â Davide Gianfelice, Dean Ormstrom, Ryan Kelly, Vasilis Lolos, Danijel Zezelj, Fiona Staples, Riccardo Burchielli, Becky Cloonan, Simon Gane, Matthew Woodson, Marian Churchland, Paul Azaceta, Declan Shalvey â all have a bit of a scratchier line than Fernandez does (even those who donât have a scratchier line normally do so in this series), and thatâs partly why Fernández is such a good artist for this arc, because it makes his scenery look more pristine, contrasting it with the ugliness thatâs occurring in the settlement. But it also means that his violence, while as horrific as any in the series, also looks somehow cleaner, as if nature is trying desperately to preserve the purity of a world covered with snow. This is true even when Gunborg takes over the settlement and begins a pogrom in earnest â itâs horrible, but precise. It matches one of the themes of the book, that of calculated violence destroying the humanity of those who perpetuate it. 
Only rarely, when Gunborg or Boris or even Hilda loses control of their emotions does the violence become a bit more messy â when Boris and Gunborg fight for the future of the settlement and when Hilda attacks Jens because he took her daughter. The fine, confident lines of Fernández make the book far more effective than another artist, even a great one, would have made it. Wood always does a good job enlisting artists to help him. With âThe Plague Widow,â he got almost the perfect one.
Fernándezâs slightly cartoonish artwork masks, somewhat, the fact that âThe Plague Widowâ is perhaps the most complex story Wood tells in the course of Northlanders. Itâs exciting, of course, and if you so choose, you can read it as a brutal thriller, but thereâs much more going on in it. At its core, itâs the story of a woman and her daughter surviving an ordeal. Hildaâs husband, who doesnât even get a name, dies of the plague ravaging the settlement on the Volga early on in the first issue, and Hilda must somehow protect her daughter, Karin, from Gunborg, the ambitious second-in-command. At first, Hilda despairs for herself and Karin and tries to expose both of them to the plague, but when they survive, she realizes she must do something different if they are going to remain independent. Wood does a marvelous job showing how Hilda slowly changes into a woman of steel â in the first issue, she rages at Boris, the priest, who claimed that the plague was contagious. By the second chapter, however, sheâs doing âmanâs workâ â slaughtering a goat â and standing up to Gunborg. 
This is the first time she walks across the settlement â Gunborg demands a tithe greater than what others are giving, because Hildaâs husband is dead and she can âspareâ more than others. Itâs blatant extortion, but Hilda doesnât bow down to Gunborg, and she takes the tithe by herself instead of trusting it to Gunborg and his men. When a neighbor, Thorir, brings her food, she accepts but also makes it known that she canât be his lover, because it would weaken her position â sheâs realized where she stands in the community and wonât allow herself to be tied to a man. When Gunborg brings his men back from their scouting mission outside the settlement, Hilda nurses one of them after he gets sick and tries to get him to talk about what happened out in the wilderness, because Gunborg, of course, isnât revealing anything. In issue #25, Jens, Gunborgâs nephew, attempts to rape Hilda (after he kills Thorir), but she has already become much tougher, and she fights him off ⊠with help from Karin, who has learned well from her mother. She sews up Borisâs wound in issue #26, again showing how much tougher she is than when the plague began. The second time she walks across the settlement, sheâs doing it to save Karin, and Wood shows us that the circumstances are even worse than the first time â the leader of the settlement is dead, Gunborg has taken over, and heâs established a reign of terror. Hilda also has to walk across with even less protection than she did the first time. When she reaches Jensâs house, heâs drunk himself into a stupor, and she cuts his throat with less difficulty than when she slaughtered the goat. In the final chapter of the story, Wood shows how far both women have come â they leave the settlement and strike out on their own, and when Hilda finally becomes too weak to carry on, Karin is able to find a shelter and save her motherâs life. Itâs a beautiful story of a mother and daughter surviving a horrific experience and becoming stronger and more independent people because of it. Medieval women were always more âliberatedâ than we might expect, but Hilda manages even more than that, and itâs impressive how Wood tells her and Karinâs story over the course of eight issues.
Wood isnât just telling a story of a mother and daughter, however. The other grand theme is the breakdown of civilization in the face of isolation and fear. 
For the first seven issues, the reader is trapped inside the settlement with the principal characters â Wood cleverly doesnât follow Gunborg to the other town, so that we only find out later exactly what he discussed with them. We see the breakdown in society clearly because Wood makes sure the reader experiences the claustrophobia and the paranoia of the inhabitants, so when Gunborg returns and takes over, the terror is palpable. Fernández helps in this regard, as well, as Iâve pointed out â his landscapes seem to encroach on civilization little by little, until Gunborg takes over and it feels like something primal explodes out of the woods, turning men into animals. Wood shows how easily society falls apart â these people walk a fine line early in the story, as Gunborg begins to assert his dominance, and even in issue #21, Wood shows how dire their situation is. Boris, the priest, convinces the old man â who rules the settlement â to banish those stricken with the plague from the settlement, and Gunborg ruthlessly follows through. Once outside, the banished turn on each other, and it foreshadows the horror of the later issues. Of course, this kind of story isnât new in history â the besieged becoming less and less âhumanâ is common, and while theyâre not besieged by an enemy, the inhabitants of the settlement are living in a similar situation â but that doesnât mean Wood doesnât tell it effectively. The idea of the strong preying on the weak is also common in a siege situation, and Wood shows that very clearly. When I first read this story, my mind immediately went to the situation in MĂŒnster in the 1530s, but when I re-read it, I had just read a book about the wreck of the Batavia off the coast of Australia in 1629, and the way the islands where the survivors clung to life turned into a slaughterhouse. Gunborg doesnât do anything unique, but Wood does a marvelous job showing how quickly law and order can break down and how easily the weak can become prey. 
It might not be the most effective example of the breakdown of civilization because Gunborg is a chained animal from the beginning of the story, so weâre not surprised when he breaks the chain and goes on a rampage, but the destruction of the settlement is still a terrifying tale ⊠and it helps with Woodâs main theme, as Hilda and Karin need to figure out how to survive the pogrom.
Wood even takes some time to introduce other themes â usually through Boris and Gunborg, who stand as polar opposites in the story. Boris, the priest, knows that the plague is caused by âinvisible wee creaturesâ â to use Gunborgâs dismissive description â and lobbies the old man to banish the sick so they will not infect the rest of the settlement. For whatever reason, Gunborg thinks this plan is stupid. This is not the last time the two men clash, and it leads to their final showdown in the snow outside Gunborgâs house. Boris even knows that fire will destroy the contagion. In issue #23, when the settlement spots three ships marooned in the ice and it turns out theyâre full of sick marauders, he tells Gunborg that they must burn the ships (this is after men have repelled the invaders). Boris understands this, and Wood does an interesting thing later in the story â Gunborgâs burning of the great hall can be seen as a perverse âburning outâ of the infection that he believes has entered the settlement. Gunborg, in his own twisted way, is paring the settlement of the âsickâ â those who are too weak to defend themselves against. Just because they canât defend themselves against men with axes and swords instead of the plague doesnât mean that Gunborgâs analogy doesnât make a twisted kind of sense. 
Again, Wood brings the story back to the breakdown of society. Gunborg takes Borisâs message to heart, and the settlement suffers.
As with many medieval narratives and with Woodâs series, a lot of âThe Plague Widowâ centers around Christianity. The settlement is a Christian town, of course, but Hilda often considers it abandoned by God. When the men leave the settlement in issue #24 and try to make it to the next one south, Hilda narrates over a scene of them in the woods. âWhere is the white Christ, on a night like this?â she wonders. âWhy is he absent when needed the most? Is he testing us? As in the stories of the saints that the priests tell us? Why must we suffer so? While the laughter of the old gods rings in our ears?â She prefaces this by thinking, âThe old ways, I suspect, will never fully leave us.â Wood doesnât get much more explicit than that, because he prefers to show that Boris, the priest, will stand up for the rights of the weak, and thus show Gunborg how muscular Christianity works (Boris is a warrior, after all â he kills more than a few people in the course of the story). Only at the end of issue #27 does Wood make the Christian aspect of the tale a bit more explicit â Hilda wonders if Boris will die so that they might live, a clear Christological parallel. The tension remains, though â Boris, the priest and the âforeignerâ (given his name, heâs probably Russian, which makes that epithet ironic coming from the settlers), represents the modern â in this case, Christianity. The townspeople are old-fashioned Christians, perhaps not even actual converts, just praying to the old gods under a new name. Wood sets up the priest as the voice of reason, and itâs a fascinating switch by Wood, as most modern readers would expect the Christian to be the backward, superstitious one. 
Boris has access to Constantinople, perhaps, by way of the Volga (it drains into the Caspian Sea, which was a bit outside the Byzantinesâ and even the Arabsâ sphere of influence in AD 1020, but it also flows close to the Don, which drains into the Sea of Azov and was certainly close to the great southern civilizations), and he is at least cognizant of some of the debates occurring in the urban centers of the south.
âThe Plague Widowâ is a classic story in the vein of something by Joseph Conrad or Jack London, with people battling nature and their own demons, close to the edge of slipping away from sanity and civilization. Hilda and Boris stand as sentinels against the terror, but they stem the tide by the slimmest of margins. Itâs an adventure story in many ways, but like the works of so many others in this genre, thereâs much more going on beneath the surface. Wood and Fernández create this harsh world and populate it with people who are trying to scratch out a living, where the smallest weight can upset the equilibrium. The downward slide of the settlement into terror is horrifying, but Wood is able to show how close we all are to it, and that makes it, like the best stories in Northlanders, a remarkably modern story. âThe Plague Widowâ has been collected in a trade, of course, and like the other stories in Woodâs series, you can read it in a vacuum, enjoying it for what it is â a gripping story of the worst and the best of humanity and how people can triumph over evil, if only they have the strength to do so.
As usual, I direct you toward the archives for more Comics You Should Own. Why waste time with mediocre when you can read the best?
[I don’t have much to add to this – I think I did a pretty good job writing about it – except to say that, as usual, if you don’t want to support Wood, that’s perfectly fine with me. This is the last Northlanders entry as of this moment – when I reached this point, the series wasn’t over yet, so I passed it by and haven’t looked back! The only thing I might include next time around is the final, nine-issue arc, because that is pretty good, but I haven’t re-read it since it came out so I can’t be sure. Northlanders is a terrific series, not only the excellent three arcs I spotlight in this column, but all the other stories too, which might not be quite as excellent as these three but are still worth a read. Wood isn’t quite as big a name as he was back when this series was coming out – I have no idea if the allegations against him have something to do with that – but he’s still an interesting writer, and Northlanders shows what he can do when he’s really locked in. I’ve linked to the trade of “The Plague Widow” below, and remember that if you use that link, even for something else, we get a bit of it, so have fun shopping!]
