Odin #1
Jamison Nilsson
Recap
Marketed as Green Room meets Midsommar, Odin is a new 9-issue limited series from Image Comics created by James Tynion IV, Marguerite Bennett, and Letizia Cadonici that delves into themes of black magic, political prejudice, and even racial identity.
As for the story itself, Adela Aurora is a hard-nosed journalist who goes undercover into a bigoted cult-like group as they seek out Norse gods in the far north using magic only to find far more than they bargained for.
Review
From the opening pages of Odin #1, James Tynion IV and Marguerite Bennett pen a world that is outright and unapologetically deranged. We are quickly introduced to each of the main characters as they slowly step into the story in their own ways, and each one easily becomes more unsettling than the last. An essential aspect being that a few of the characters are in a band, this is told to us directly in dialogue, but it is also shown to us through lyrical captions drawn onto the page. The few lyrics we get to read are used as a way to bring out the darker parts of the band’s personalities.
Letizia Cadonici’s art is elegant. Each of these characters we are introduced to has a unique and memorable shape to their face; further, no two characters blend together in any one scene. The line work is even across the board; the spacing comes off as loosely inconsistent, as if the characters are being crowded together to fit enough content into each panel or onto each page. It’s not something that draws deeply from the pace or the presentation but is worth noting for the longterm fans of Cadonici’s work.
That said, Cadonici has drawn several two-page spreads in this issue worth discussing for their cinematic quality and their depth of detail that add significantly to the story’s overall reception by the reader. It’s easy to follow along panel by panel, but when these two-page spreads bring out a new layer of the story similar to chapter transitions, the reader finds it easier to become engrossed in the next page turn or panel transition.
The storyline by Tynion/Bennett and the line art by Cadonici are bridged together by Jordie Bellaire’s moody colors that bring a sense of atmosphere to the pages and the panels. The saturated colors reinforce a tone that is rich in symbolism but doesn’t drag the scene-to-scene pacing. The lighting is cast across the pages and various panels to show a visual consistency.
Whether it be the orange daylight through windows on a bus ride or the cold melodramatic shading of the cold north, Jordie Bellaire’s work on the colors brings out the character’s ease with their own darker natures and the reader’s own subsequent unease that works to lift the pacing of the story and weave it deeper into the pages.
Final Thoughts
From the decision to use singing captions as a narrative device to the reoccurring motifs of prejudice and finding a sense of belonging in toxic subcultures, the writing of Odin #1 is sharp. That combined with the artwork, which includes several detailed pages and an excellent command of color, creates a cinematic narrative that actively entrances the reader in the story of a group of characters they easily dislike.
Odin #1: With Open Arms, The Vile
- Writing - 9/109/10
- Storyline - 9/109/10
- Art - 8/108/10
- Color - 10/1010/10
- Cover Art - 10/1010/10
