Barbaric: Axe To Grind #1 – Michael Moreci, Nathan Gooden, Addison Duke, Jim Campbell, Tim Daniel, The Vault
The latest offering from The Vault is a bloody, brutal and brilliant. Showing more heart than you would expect from a book about a barbarian and his possessed axe, Barbaric: Axe To Grind #1 is a sequel to the original Barbaric
series, but totally welcoming to new readers that don’t have history with the characters.
Savage
Opening with our axe-wielding hero in the midst of a battle with giant zombies, Barbaric: Axe To Grind drops us straight into the action, introducing the characters we will spend the rest of the book with via pithy quips and cleverly delivered exposition. The artwork here from Nathan Gooden (Brandon Sanderson’s Dark One, Barbaric) is a great asset, as the enemies they are fighting cleverly form the backgrounds of the panels, with the level of details fading out in set pieces to make our protagonists clear. This doesn’t mean that we don’t get to see the faces of the enemies, or their injuries – far from it! Some of the latter are laid out in very visceral details – this is not a book for those with a weak stomach!
Add in the colour work of Addison Duke (The Rush, Heart Eyes) and some of the latter pages in particular are spectacular. No spoilers here, but there are some sea-based pages that absolutely blew me away. The combination of an artist and colourist that work together as well as Gooden and Duke is outstanding, and elevates the book to a whole new level. Even their blood spurts are out of this world!
Beauty
This book isn’t all blood, guts and gore though. There is a real heart to is that sneaks up and jumps you, a depth of feeling between the characters that is belied by the brutal and bloodthirsty opening. Michael Moreci (The Plot, Wasted Space) gives the characters space to grow through this first issue. Even the bloodthirsty axe – must be a thing with Vault books to have talking weapons! We get to see their lighter sides, their vulnerabilities, and their fears.
Even just in this first issue we get a whole pile of character development, but there is no clunky exposition or unweidly dialogue. Everything we are told, by and about the characters, either serves to forward the narrative or build their personalities. Despite not knowing them when I started the book, I can now tell you about the three main protagonists (four with the axe), and the big bad that they are going to face off against. Not bad for a single issue!
Letterer Jim Campbell (Judge Death, Destiny NY) deserves a special mention as well, as always he does a stand up job of lettering the speech, but here he also manages to give a masterclass in screams! The sound effects that Campbell inserts over the artwork once again elevate it, and give a real sense of bones breaking and spines shattering.
Even if, like me, you missed the initial series of Barbaric, this is a perfect jumping on point to meet Owen, Steel, Soren and more. Barbaric: Axe To Grind #1 is a fun book, with plenty of hooks to draw you in and a nice juicy cliffhanger ending. Adrian Wassel did a huuuge giveaway of preview copies of this book last week on Twitter, for which he has my thanks, as this is now getting added to my pull list – I highly recommend it goes on yours too!
You can find more from the creative team on social media:
Michael Moreci – Writer
Nathan Gooden – Artist
Addison Duke – Colourist
Jim Campbell – Letterer
Tim Daniel – Designer
Adrian Wassel – Editor
The Vault – Publisher
