If you’d told me a year ago that I’d consider a Viking comic one of December’s most anticipated new releases, I’d probably have been fairly sceptical. More so if you’d told me that it’d be coming from Brian Wood, who’s made his name writing a mix of hip indie, street-level blockbusters and the odd politically-tilted piece of speculative fiction. And yet, here we are. Northlanders #1 is the latest attempt by Vertigo to show they’ll go where other publishers probably wouldn’t dare. It’s certainly got a credible name on it, but since the only other viking comics I can recall are Groo and Hagar the Horrible, it feels like a fairly risky move.

Of course – no-one need have worried, because Wood simply goes from strength to strength and hasn’t had anything even resembling a flop since his first Vertigo mini, Fight for Tomorrow,scooted neatly under everyone’s radar after a fairly big launch – and even that was almost 5 years ago. If anyone can make this work, it’s him. Northlanders is Vikings done by way of TV’s Deadwood - even the hero of the piece is hard-talking, lustful and violent, and while he doesn’t talk like a viking, the curse-filled and blunt tone of the writing echos the spirit of the time, if not the letter of it. The first arc, Sven the Returned, focuses the titular hero, a cosmopolitan young Viking who returns to the home he abandoned to collect what’s rightfully his – his dead father’s money. When he gets there he finds his uncle has taken control of the village and with it, Sven’s money. After receiving a severe beating from his uncle’s goons, Sven vows to move on with his life and forget the past he feels no connection to. What are the odds that’ll happen?

In a way, this is the most out-there comic Wood has ever written, yet on closer examination, it’s actually not that different from his others. Wood’s signature themes are all present – family, homecoming, honour and obligation – these are things you can find as the subtext in a lot of his work. Perhaps, then, that’s why Northlanders works so well. It’s not simply concerned with being “the viking comic” but with telling good stories about good characters who also happen to be vikings.

Art comes from Davide Gianfelice who, I believe, makes his US comics debut. Wood has collaborated with European artists before, notably on his other vertigo series, DMZ , and it brings his comics a unique flavour. It seems that the language of comic art from mainland Europe is as different to their American counterparts as Italian is to English, and just as I never tire of Burchielli on DMZ, I can imagine the art in Northlanders will continue to delight with each new issue.