About Odin
If there’s one comic announced this week that made me sit up straight and whisper “oh, they’re actually doing this,” it’s Odin – a new nine-issue horror miniseries from Image Comics/Tiny Onion that does exactly what its logline promises and then some.
The Premise and The Creative Team
Here’s the pitch: a group of white supremacist punks trek into the frozen forests of Norway to commune with their beloved Norse god and claim their “promised destiny.” What they find instead is something far older, far stranger, and with absolutely zero patience for their nonsense. If that doesn’t already have you reaching for your pull list, maybe this will: the creative team behind it is stacked to an almost unfair degree.
James Tynion IV (the man responsible for The Department of Truth, Something is Killing the Children, and Exquisite Corpses) is co-writing with Marguerite Bennett (Witchblade, Mommy Blog), with art from the criminally talented Letizia Cadonici (House of Slaughter), colors by multiple Eisner winner Jordie Bellaire, letters by Tom Napolitano, and covers by the hauntingly beautiful Alex Eckman-Lawn. This is not a team that makes boring comics.
What It’s About
The series follows Adela, a journalist willing to go further than anyone should reasonably go for a story. She embeds herself with a band of Neo Nazis who’ve headed to Norway on a pilgrimage. What they’re walking into, though, is something the ancient world cooked up long before their ideology existed – and it has no interest in their prayers.
Where the Idea Came From
Tynion described the comic’s origins as a text conversation between him and Bennett about a real online story involving white supremacists claiming devotion to Odin.
“We started talking about what the real Norse Odin would do with these idiots if he had the chance,” he said, “and it felt pretty immediately clear that there was a mean and brutal horror story in it.”
Bennett’s description of the book is, frankly, one of the best things I’ve read in a press release in years:
“The plain truth is I hope it fucks people up, ups their pucker factor, puts ice in the pit of their stomach. The dread, doom, and desolation is truly unrelenting. We are on a death march through the frozen bowels of the ninth hell.”
That’s not marketing speak. That’s a promise.
Should You Read It?
The official comparisons being thrown around are Green Room meets Midsommar with a touch of The Ritual – which is either a perfect description or an instant pre-order depending on your disposition. Either way, if you’ve been burned by horror comics that pull their punches, this creative team’s track record suggests Odin won’t be doing any of that.
How to Get It
Odin #1 hits comic book stores on May 6 with a main Cover A by Alex Eckman-Lawn, plus variants by Letizia Cadonici, Christian Ward, Martin Simmonds, and Jae Lee for the deep variant collectors among us. It’ll also be available digitally via Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, and Google Play.
This one’s going on the pull list immediately.
More ‘Odin’ Variant Covers
