Northlanders #23

The third chapter of "The Plague Widow" arrives with a cover by Massimo Carnevale that is genuinely haunting — a Viking longship, its serpentine prow adorned with skulls, drifts through a blood-red waterway while skeletal, plague-ravaged figures cluster at the bow against a stark, bare-branched winter landscape. The image carries an atmosphere of creeping dread that perfectly suits the arc's title, "The Death Ships." Brian Wood and Leandro Fernández continue their eight-part saga under the Vertigo banner, and this 2010 installment makes clear that the threat stalking this Norse community is as cold and relentless as the season surrounding it.