“When I saw that train barreling down on me, I knew it was going to change my life forever,” Nick Dillion — nearly four decade leader of trad metal maniacs Gods of Brutality — says at the end of his twenty-minutes-to-midnight exit-the-planet interview with a jaded journalist. “I just didn’t think I’d be fighting my way out of hell with the help of Thor and Hercules.”
So begins the truly wild saga Gods of Brutality, a graphic novel series that finds the sweet spot between Valhalla, a classic Slayer album cover, and the best, most unhinged acid trip a Manowar fan has ever been on.
Not only does Rich Woodall present imaginative, ghoulish and wry visions of Hell and Valhalla…
“A cry from the depths of Hell — from a Midgardian rock star — asking that Zeus and Odin save his metal soul. They offer, in return, songs of praise in thy names!”
“It hath been a millennia since a song of Odin hath filled the air of Midgard…”
…but also cleverly plays with the concept of a rock “god” who has trouble living up to the g-word when thrown into battle with other actual gods.
“It’s just Nick…not ‘Rock God.’ Uh, Thor and Hercules, right?”
“‘Nick’ is a strange name for a god. But yes, I am the legendary Thor. And that piece of shit is Hercules.”
Gods of Brutality is an over the top love letter to the visceral excesses of both metal and horror — lovingly rendered, exquisitely fantastical, and, yes, brutal as fuck.
