This first volume of Northlanders, written by Brian Wood (DMZ) with art by David Gianfelice, is your archetypal prodigal-versus-usurper story, set in a remote Viking settlement in the 10th century. The prodigal in question is Sven, exiled from the Orkney islands as a teen, who leaves his successful career in glorious Constantinople to claim his birthright at the remote rump end of Europe. This is a good solid story, filled with bitterness and decapitations, and pleasantly lacking in horned helmets and magical bashing weapons.

Northlanders is also a prime example of how modern North American graphic novels now fill a certain cultural niche in a way they haven’t for a long time. (More about that after the jump).

One advantage comics have over live action film (and television) is that their effects, scope, setting, props and costumes are never limited by budget. “Sven the Returned,” with its authentic aerial views of the hardscrabble Viking village, flashbacks filled with Byzantine opulence, and occasional massed battles, would require a generous budget to do properly on film. The story’s downbeat, what-the-hell-is-the-point moral tone, though, just ain’t gonna sell to movie audiences that demand Earth-shattering threats and upbeat endings to go with their popcorn.

This first volume completes Sven’s story, but Northlanders continues to tell other small sagas of the Nordic era. The series is billed as a Viking crime story, although that’s a bit of a stretch. It would also be almost unforgivable to label it “Viking Noir,“ because the orphan suffix -noir has become completely debased from over use. Northlanders is one of many modern comics (DC’s Vertigo imprint now specializes in the type) that traffic in visceral violence and moral relativism, all while avoiding standard-issue spandex superheros, Neil Gaiman-esque mysticism and Frank Miller-style hyper machismo.

Comics like these aren’t striving to emulate, simulate or deconstruct the pulp magazines of the 1930s, or the films noir of the ’40s. They are simply their heirs. In short, they are currenlty one of your your best bets for the genre we might as well just call “men’s fiction.”