Written by Matt Kindt, Keanu Reeves
Art by Ron Garney
Published by BOOM! Studios
I wasn’t ready for this! I wasn’t ready!
Yes, the title literally is bezerker AND it’s created/co-written by John Wick himself AND the cover is a Keanu Reeves-looking dude, loaded for war, his body full of gunshot wounds and knives. But I still wasn’t ready for the blood-soaked thrill ride this comic book is.
And neither are you. You may think you are, but you’re not.
In essence, this comic boils down to “What if Vandal Savage, an immortal caveman, were a relentless killing machine that wasn’t evil, didn’t know the source of his powers, and just wants it to stop?”
Ron Garney, whom I last reviewed in Marvel’s Juggernaut series, continues his seasoned, capable sequential work.
But here, Garney seems as unleashed and relentless as Beserker himself with the license of BOOM! Studios to not have to cut away from the carnage.
No offense to Cain Marko and the exploits of that X-Men antihero, but here we see what this unmovable force does to many, many objects of flesh, bone and blood.
Don’t get me wrong – the carnage is artful, visceral, and somehow a bit sad.
The story begins with some kind of black ops mission with a wetwork crew operating presumably on behalf of the U.S. government in some unnamed Latin American country. They’re hunting down that country’s president, for whatever reason.
If you approach this with any consciousness of American imperialism, the aims of the mission may turn your stomach more than what Beserker does to the president’s soldiers who stand in his path.
It’s not enough, or accurate, to say Beserker cuts through those soldiers. He shoots, stomps and punches his way through them, figuratively and literally. And they shoot into him as well, but he won’t fall. He won’t die.
As the issue progresses, we find out more about his situation, which takes on some vibes of Weapon X-era Wolverine and the great Lazarus from Greg Rucka and Michael Lark. The scientific experimentation, the super-science rebuilding Beserker’s gorily damaged body, it all will be familiar.
However, BRSRKR features an intensity in execution of the familiar concept that has become a signature of many projects Keanu Reeves has attached himself to in the past decade of his career as an actor, producer and director.
The first issue pulls you into this world quickly with blood and guts, and I look forward to how the next 11 issues will unfold. What other characters will Reeves and New York Times bestselling co-writer Matt Kindt (Folklords, Bang!) introduce us to? How will they flesh out this world? If this is someone who literally remembers the day he was born, what has he forgotten? What can’t he remember? What would he rather forget?
And, most importantly, it’s going to be fun seeing how this series delivers as an emotional journey for a timeless warrior seeking his final rest.
