Comic review: Winterworld #5- Guest appearance by a sex-starved Conan

Writer: Chuck Dixon
Artist: Tomas Giorello
Publisher: IDW
Released: 10th December 2014

There were a lot faces in Winter World #5 that reminded me of the eponymous hero in artist Tomas Giorello’s work in Dark Horse’s (excellent) King Conan title. One of those faces in particular looked identical to Conan himself, so it was really funny to see that the actual character was a sex obsessed violent simpleton. I enjoyed the joke, and I enjoyed this book as well.

Glorious artwork in this book

The narrative itself extends the Winter World landscape by focussing on the individual plight of another twosome, the opposite to the main protagonists in that there is an older female and a younger male, as opposed to the elder male Scully and younger female Wynn.

A meeting, coming together and proxy family situation seems inevitable, but although that is predictable the characters themselves are interesting enough for me to care about what happens to them in the mean time. Issue #5 is a simple book with the foursome facing moments of danger before the inevitable meet up.

Like the previous book I reviewed this week on my blog (The October Faction #3) the artwork is the undisputed star of the show here. Tomas Giorello doing snowy landscapes and Polar bears is amazing. He is a very pretty artist, but when it needs to get intense he’s extremely adapt with sudden dramatic moments of extreme, bloody violence and battle scenes, as anybody lucky enough to own his work on the King Conan title will be well aware of.

Winterworld #5 is a bit formulaic, and most readers will be able to guess exactly where it’s going until a dramatic reveal on the final panel shakes things up a bit. That’s not a big problem though. Sometimes the script has to be linear and a bit predictable to get you where you need to go, and anyway the ride is so much fun this month because of the luxuriously detailed wow factor artwork. Yes, some of the faces are probably a bit too statuesquely similar, but the nod/joke to Conan was extremely funny, and the ridiculously high standard of the artwork throughout makes it a must buy book.

Rating: 7/10