Riccardo Burchielli's art gets on my nerves.
Sometimes he has lumps in the wrong
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It's awesome. METAL awesome.
When I was a kid, my second favourite class was always history. I always thought about it as one big story with a whole lot of different characters and groups of characters who clashed and reconciled and clashed again and grew and changed and occasionally died out. Always-always-ALWAYS with something else taking their place. History was my second favourite class only because English class was about how stories themselves worked. Plus fiction always wins over non-fiction. It's more versatile. It's cooler.
I think history was Brian Wood's second favourite subject too because "METAL" Part 1: "The Old Ways" is as much about Vikings ramming people through with sharp weapons as it is about the friction of societal transition between different cultural belief systems. And it's cool.
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The design of each of these characters is human and expressive. Who they are and what they feel is intelligently written on their faces and into their clothes by Burchielli. There's even some beautifully laid-out pages in here if the visual art is a bit off.
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Societies twist and change, sometimes because of pressures from without and sometimes because of pressures from within, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. Erik and Ulf live in a society of Vikings being coerced into destroying their own land to build a cathedral for the disrespectful, money-loving monks. Ulf is an unhappy but willing collaborator to their machinations because he sees the huge amount of money flowing into their village as a boon not to be passed on. Erik sees the influence of the Christians as an unacceptable outside control of his home. He chooses, at the behest of the mysterious and terrifying Hulda (goddess of death?), not to give in. To choose the destruction of his home over the destruction of his beliefs. Ingrid is the kidnapped Viking woman he liberates in his violent rampage.
Wood's pacing of this entire issue leading up to, and including, the attack sequence is nothing short of remarkable. The comic-book industry standard 22 pages somehow feel more like 15 because the trajectory is so breathless. The content is mostly set-up, but WHAT set-up! This set-up is so good it completely overcomes my dislike for the art.
Dear gods. Where can we go from here?
I don't know and I can't wait to find out. You shouldn't be able to either.
~ @JonGorga