NORTHLANDERS #18

Review by: Bedhead

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Size: pages
Price: 2.99

Modern comics can be embarrassingly overwhelmed by motivation. It seems that what someone does in comics often has a one to one relationship with an aspect of that person’s past. Spider-man is a hero because he didn’t save Uncle Ben, Batman is a hero because his parents were killed by a cowardly and suspicious criminal, etc. Just look at the work Johns is doing in the DCU, basically retroactively adding stories about DC heroes’ and villains’ childhood that explain why they do what they do today, right down to why Barry Allen wears a bow tie.

This type of storytelling is fun in a kind of figuring out how a toilet works sort of way (oh wow the ball goes up and that causes the water to stop, who knew?); however, as has been noted time and again before (perhaps best by Alan Moore in Writing For Comics) there is something suspiciously cartoonish (bad-simplistic -Marmaduke cartoonish, not interesting-breaking-down-life-Popeye cartoonish) about the whole thing. Human beings are not motivated by one thing. There is a torrid hurricane of often-contradictory past that blasts through every movement you make each day. The superego and the id are eternally battling to produce some sort of reaction in you, not unlike our comic villains and heroes. Creating characters whose actions cannot be so easily sketched back to their past is the sign of great writing; it’s why The Joker in Batman Returns worked so well.

Which is a long about way of saying I enjoyed this issue for what it didn’t say, the motivations not provided. This is a simple tale of three women who fought back against the apparently never-ending rape and pillage of Viking times, an insane act of rebellion that defied the forces of history, power, and myth in their culture. And for an explication for this revolution in gender rolls Woods provides us merely with: “We are simply playthings of the gods, nothing more, and so I cannot explain why we did what we did.” He then lets the actions of these three women, along with their casual conversation (no deep flash-back explorations of character) carry the weight of the narrative, and you can’t help but be carried along with it. It is a story about the consequences of a choice and not a story about why exactly that choice was made. Without these almost child-like motivations on the page, the characters become more real, and their struggle becomes more perilous. I don’t know who these women are; I don’t know what their favorite scroll is or how their father treated them. I just know they’re trapped behind stone walls, a faceless enemy charging towards the gates, an improvised weapon in their hand. And, for this comic, that’s enough. That’s just perfectly enough.

Story: 5 - Excellent
Art: 3 - Good

Comments

  1. Excellent description of a great story, and you’re right, there is far too much play given to motivation in comics these days.  Still, have to disagree on the art.  I love Zezelj and still have no clue as to how he does what he does.  He deserves an equal 5 stars for his stylised renderings

  2. Hey that’s a great review.

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