Tag: Amon Amarth

The past decade has been extremely kind to bringing Vikings (as a historic mythology and a distinct narrative genre) to the pop culture spotlight, beginning with the History channel debuting its original series, Vikings, in 2013. Comics, video games, music (the Viking metal genre had been popular in the extreme music scene since Bathory in the early 90s), books, films, and so on, followed in the wake of the series’ critical success. With the release of Robert Eggers’ The Northman in the spring of 2022 combined with reoccurring appearances of Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, interest in Vikings remains kindled.

Seidr is a three issue comic miniseries that adds to the burgeoning Viking canon. Created by Michael Nunneley (writer) and Tosin Awosika (artist), Seidr aims to distinguish itself from other Viking neo-peplum stories by incorporating elements of horror into its fold. Viking armadas, grandiose battles with undead warriors mixed in, beheadings galore, and a vengeful, magic-wielding seeress, if all this sounds violent, epic, and maybe even a little metal, the feeling is intended. Per Nunneley: “I am a pretty big Amon Amarth fan and I actually listened to the Twilight of the Thunder God album before each interview I did about Seidr #1 to get in the mood. The Vikings show and Vikings: Valhalla were big inspirations for me. I basically wanted to capture the same spirit of the Vikings shows and make [something] paranormal, mythological.”

The first issue of Seidr is told in flashback. Viking warrior Björn Ulrichson stands on trail for murdering King Ingvar’s son Eric and brother Lars. The events leading up to the deed are recounted: Ingvar and his army lead a raid into King Victor’s lands, but encounter a greater resistance army thank expected. However, the tide turns with the arrival of the seeress Völva who resurrects all the dead to fight for King Ingvar. The Vikings may win the battle, but there is a darker future in store for them when Völva becomes vengeful. 

Violence and Vikings go hand-in-hand, and Seidr is not short on depicting bloodshed. Vikings and soldiers are immolated, bombarded with arrows, slashed and beheaded, all while falling slain into pools of blood. And yet with all this violence, Seidr (at least issue one) is surprisingly chaste and does not steer into visceral territory. There’s no prolonged suffering (like in a Blood Eagle depiction) or drawn out dismemberment with an emphasis on gory entrails (like one would find in an Avatar published comic). Seidr may draw its action from violence, but it draws horror from elsewhere. Nunneley took the approach of a “slow burn build up” before turning to “violence, gore, the undead and the paranormal.”

Sans the splatstick element, Seidr has quite a bit of common with the Evil Dead/Army of Darkness series. Aside from the resurrected army of the dead in both the comic and in the film and buckets of blood, there’s quite a bit of horror drawn from the loss of autonomy when possessed by a malevolent, unseen force. This facet of Seidr works extremely well. The Viking genre has often dipped into the fantasy and sword and sorcery genres (intervening Norse gods, shamans, and so on) and Seidr parlays this aspect successfully by harnessing the innate (but not often explored) horror elements.

If there is a flaw with Seidr, it is the over reliance on narration boxes to tell the story as actual dialogue between characters in scarce. Though the story is told in flashback, it does devalue the other characters by taking away their voice by relying on the disembodied narration of King Ingvar. Telling, not showing – which is unfortunate as the mise-en-scenein the panels does a great job at conveying the Viking excursion and subsequent confrontations, be it human or paranormal. 

Seidr is planned to be a three issue mini series with big plans, and it is off to a promosing start, building on a unique premise for the genre. Per Nunneley, “things just get more crazy and out of hand with each issue” cumulating with the destruction of the Church of St. Cuthbert in the final issue. Aside from Seidr and eventually collecting it into a trade paperback, Nunneley is also writing Omen & Gallows Men and has “a brand new martial arts-fantasy/superhero called Dragon Girl/Albino Warrior #1 coming to Kickstarter in July.”

Seidr can be found at:

• Amazon Kindle
• GlobalComix

Sincere thanks to Michael Nunneley for the quotations used in this article. He, and more information on Seidr, can be found at:

• Michael Nunneley Twitter
• Tosin Awosika Twitter
• Guido Martinez Twitter
• Revelation Comics