The Creators – Zack Kaplan – Writer, Fico Ossio – Artist, Thiago Rocha – Colours, Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou – Letters

The Players – Freya Asvald, Owen Jabari, Thor Asvald, Steinn Asvald, Leif Asvald, Eric Asvald

The Story – The Asvalds are a very old family and as such, they have secrets that are just as old. They like to keep those secrets hidden and will do anything to keep them that way.

The Take – Presenting a tale of old-school Vikings who have had to make their way in the world through the ages is Zack Kaplan and Fico Ossio and though one might expect one thing, namely barbarian shenanigans, it is something else altogether. Eric Asvald is Eric the Red and he and his children – Leif, Thor, Freya and Steinn are not what one would call typical. Instead of being stuck in the past, they have grown and adapted to the times with their immortality. That in itself is the biggest mystery of the entire book, the how and the why of their long lives and it is something that readers are immediately keen to find the answer to. Freya wants nothing to do with her family, at least for the most part but when she and her reporter friend are attacked, she runs home to seek protection only to find out that they were behind it all. Due to the nature of their family, they do not tolerate reporters and as the book races towards its conclusion, it looks as if Owen knows a little more than he was perhaps letting on with Freya. While she confesses to him their biggest secret and he seems genuinely shocked, he may already know or at least have surmised that there was something uniquely strange about them given the family’s long and storied success. Suffice it to say, it will take reading the next issue to find out what happens on various fronts. This becomes a very easy task to do thanks to the creators of this book, Kaplan presenting a neat spin on the immortality game that so many writers like to bust out, not to mention an interesting one with characters who draw readers in like flies to sugar. Vikings have always been an instant draw for many an audience, immortal Vikings give them that extra bit of an edge but by making them businessmen on top of that and ruthless ones to boot, it makes one wonder how they went from one thing to the next. The book grabs the reader’s attention right from the start and holds on to that very last panel, thanks to the talented writing of Kaplan and Ossio whose incredible pencils are both detailed and electric. This might only be the first issue of the series but, hopefully, it is just the first of a hundred or more, that there are present-day adventures to be had as well as peeks into the very long past of the Asvalds. Simply put, Kill All Immortals is one of the best books to hit the stands in quite some time.

Worth It? – Yes.