Heathen is Back with #7: A Review

Writer and Artist (Interior and Cover): Natasha Alterici / Letters: Rachael Deering / Vault Comics Vault Comics has exploded onto the comics scene in the last few years, bringing all kinds of new speculative fictions to my pull list on the weekly. Wasted Space. Submerged. Queen of Bad Dreams. She Said Destroy. All unique. However, my favorite is the first one I found: Heathen. Written and drawn by Natasha Alterici, Heathen tells the story of Aydis, a young Viking woman exiled from her home for the crime of loving other women. She sets out to free a mythical Valkyrie and ends up doing oh, so, much more than that. This issue, #7, picks up right where #6 left off over a year ago. A Little Background Heathen is such a good comic. I don’t begrudge the delay between #6 and #7. Instead, I relished curling up with the previous issues and re-reading them, remembering all the details. Aydis has found Brynhild, then swearing to free her from the curse, sets off in search of Odin. On the way, she meets a crew of women pirates, mostly freed slaves from other parts of the world, and hires them to help her. Brynhild the cursed Valkyrie returns to her previous husband for help and together they also search for Odin. Meanwhile, Freyja, Odin’s wife and goddess of love, has intervened and attempted to discourage Aydis. Unable to change her mind, Freyja gets involved. She returns to Odin to try to talk some sense into the King of the Gods. You can imagine how well that goes. These threads don’t …