Viking Moon #3 // Review
The son of Eric the Red is warning the vikings who have arrived in North America. He has adopted those of the native nation on the Northeast coast. He warns the invaders to leave or the will die. The invading vikings are hesitant to believe a word of what the man is saying. The son of Eric the Red is dead, isn’t he? Regardless of his true lineage, his threat must be acted upon in Viking Moon #3. Writer Joe Pruett continues a captivating historical drama with artist/colorist Mercelo Frusin. Once again Vikings, Native Americans and werewolves mix in a distinctly unique action horror story.
The invading vikings would be foolish to go against a warning from a man identifying as someone their own people say is dead. Of course...they’ve come too great a distance to simply turn around. And they ARE vikings. Invading is kind of their thing. The initial contact between natives and invaders might feel pretty evenly-matched...but then the wolves arrive. They’re huge things practically as big as horses...and infinitely more vicious. The tide of the battle turns around in a hurry. The Nordic invaders are going to have their hands full with beasts that can bleed...but don’t see, to die.
Pruett has already done an impressive job of just setting up the opposition between the two forces. The basic premise is actually very appealing on a whole bunch of different levels. The offer does, however, have a great deal of patience, just letting things play out. The tendency with a situation like this would be to want to create a whole lot of different moving parts in and within the plot that would further articulate the script. However, with a story like that, you just want to set the two forces against each other and see what happens. Pruett has a great deal of patience simply letting the situation develop.
Frusin doesn't work really good job of delivering on the potential of that situation. As an artist and colorist, Frusin no it's exactly how much he wants to render with the line work and how much he's going to be covering in the colors. This creates a really impressive fusion between line and texture and luminosity and shadow. It's a lot easier to coordinate between the artist and the colorist when they're the same person. As a result, the visuals of the series look particularly impressive.
In an ideal situation, there wouldn't be such a long wait between issues. Of course, there are a lot of things that affect what it is that's going on with respect to release schedule of an independent comic book. It's fascinating, seeing periodic glimpses of the past that never was that could have been.Pruet and Frusin make the terminable amount of time between chapters. Well worth the wait. It's a very primal conflict between men and beast that plays out in a prime North America. Very cool stuff. Very well executed on every level.
