Grimlock ♥ Ultra Magnus

What do you get when you mix the living dead, Norse mythology/vikings, and witches?   Well, Helheim.   So long as you add stylistic art that complements the story perfectly and an ending that I just didn't see coming, and that also had me wondering how it could just end there.   The ending is perfect, partly because it left me wanting so much more because it was so unexpected. 

Groa and Bera are two witches who are feuding, to the point that they're killing the world around them.   Not only the humans, but at some point, the fish goes bad and the blame is laid at the feet of these two women.   To be fair, one has a demonic army and one has an army of the dead and they really are killing off, well, everyone.   

Rikard is the pride of his village, a fierce fighter and is blinded by a woman named Bera - a women whom he doesn't realize is part of the cause for his people's misery.   When he dies, she brings him back to life - she controls the dead, obviously and Groa controls the demons.   The plan is for him to protect her from her enemy, and the army coming to kill her. 

Instead, Rikard, honorable, proud, and yes, fierce, somehow remains within the body Bera has constructed.  His anger knows no bounds, and is aimed equally at Bera and Groa, as he believes them to be equally responsible for what he has become. 

It's a child, a child who has lost her people, her family, her entire village who ends up giving him the encouragement he needs, whom he takes under his wing, and who ends up helping him as he gets ready to take a war to the witches instead of waiting for them to come to his village.   Or what was once his village. 

I was absolutely enthralled by the art, by the pace, by the connections between the characters and how this story unfurled.