Northlanders #44

Written by Brian Wood
Art by Paul Azaceta

With this issue, the first third of the Icelandic Trilogy has ended, establishing Ulf Hauksson's control of Iceland, as his campaign against his rival clan, the Belgarssons goes well for him. All of this is mostly pointless though, as Ulf and his wife, the freed Irish slave Una have not been able to produce a child yet.

Wood has created an interesting family drama in this arc.  Ulf is a vicious, paranoid, and controlling man, but also a ruthless leader and successful military schemer.  He's the type of person who worries about creating a legacy though, and so this situation causes him a lot of concern.

I'm curious to see where things go next, as the next third of the trilogy looks to jump a hundred years or so, to the turn of the millennium, which should put things right around the time of Eric the Red, and the discovery of Greenland.  I thought that Paul Azaceta, who has done a wonderful job on this arc, was going to be drawing the entire trilogy, but I guess that's not going to be the case.  I've liked upcoming artist Declan Shalvey's work on Marvel's Thunderbolts, and am curious to see how he does with Medieval Vikings.