Images & Words – Northlanders #35
[images & words is the comic book pick-of-the-week at OL. equal parts review and diatribe, the post highlights the most memorable/infuriating/entertaining book released that wednesday]
How does it feel to be abandoned by those once thought of as family? What life can be led when the shadow of death looms overhead? Is losing all purpose liberating, allowing an individual to take chances otherwise thought foolish? Just how much would it suck to be an old dude in a Viking village?
These are the questions raised in Northlanders: The Girl in the Ice.
In what should be no surprise to the initiated, Brian Wood kicks off yet another arc of his Viking-age mythos in exemplary fashion. Reunited with artist Becky Cloonan, his partner in the crime known as DEMO, Wood presents a tale of quiet rumination. Whereas Northlander‘s last arc, METAL, centered on the manipulation of human pawns caught in a war between deities, The Girl in the Ice focuses on one man’s search for meaning now that he has passed his prime.
Hell, even today getting old sucks – and we’ve got advanced technology and wonder-drugs to curb the sting. When you hit forty your ass starts sagging, it’s harder to clear the cobwebs out of the mind, the secretary at the office doesn’t lean in front of you to reveal her cleavage quite so often, and your boss wants to toss you away like an orange peel.
Now take that sentiment and set it in the Iceland of 1240 A.D. Yeah, that’s right – fuggin’ terrifying. Our hero describes his lot in life with a Hemingwayian candor:
The clans play at war like you and I breath air.
I am Jon. I’ve lived here for decades.
As a youth I pledged to the Sturlings like everyone else in my district, but as my advanced age has prevented me from fighting…
…Their protection and support has been more and more distant.
I live alone. I fish the lake and tend the valley, and soon I will die.
I’m a sucker for character-driven pieces and I’d be happy with two issues just dealing with Jon’s daily living, peppered with his innermost thoughts. But Wood maintains the elevated potential for violence found in Northlanders titles by throwing the protagonist into the midst of a murder mystery. While ice fishing Jon finds the body of a dead girl encased in ice. He digs the cadaver out of its frozen grave and brings it home to investigate. His conclusion? “This is a crime. A crime of empowered men in a lawless land…”
Unfortunately for Jon, warriors of his clan stop by to inform him that a battle is on the way. While they know he’s too old to fight, they require him to quarter two soldiers so that they can look out for rival clansmen. Jon acquiesces, but not before buying himself some time to hide his makeshift post-mortem examination.
Jon, like many of us will be someday, is past his prime. He’s down and out and doesn’t have much time left to do anything useful. But he’ll be gods-damned if he isn’t going to try to get to the bottom of this suspicious murder. The portrait of the old broken bastard making one last concerted effort to leave the world better than he entered it has stood the test of time – but Wood makes sure to paint his rendition with his own self-assured brushstrokes. The result is an engaging Viking twist on the last-chance archetype.
And not all Vikings deserve second chances.
My prediction for the second part of The Girl in the Ice is that Jon is going to meet a glorious, violent end. In the process, he will unearth the truth about the crime he’s stumbled into. And the reader will walk away with yet another incredible Northlanders yarn stored in the consciousness.