Written by Matt Kindt, Keanu Reeves
Art by Ron Garney
Published by BOOM! Studios
What exactly is Berserker?
We still don’t know, exactly. Nor does he. But this chapter of the story tells us more nonetheless.
Berserker is above nature. He’s beyond nature. We have a word for that, from Latin, a language still 73,300 away from when Berserker was born.
Supernatural.
Picking up from the first issue, which ended on the cliffhanger of Berserker remembering being born, he continues to tell the story of his parents and his early years.
As I opened this issue, I popped up some music by the instrumental band Zombi.
Their music is best described as what happens if John Carpenter’s mix of original synth rock scores became an actual band.
Zombi’s sound – a heavy mixture of big chords, synths and metal guitars – is perfect for this comic book, which again delivers on mythic storytelling, gut-punching dialog, and the bloodiest, goriest bits of superhuman carnage that I’ve seen in comics in a long, long time. This stuff rivals the gnarliest stuff from books written by Garth Ennis, Mark Millar or Robert Kirkman.
Not only do Keanu Reeves and Matt Kindt keep up the bloody pace, they sketch in more character for Berserker the unkillable warrior. And Ron Garney surely is boning up on his human anatomy illustration books for what it might look like for a man to literally kick someone’s spine out.
The myths pile up quickly. Berserker was born and raised to protect his tribe from raiders who raped and pillaged his people year after year.
Well, namely, he was born to be a weapon sent from the old gods. Or so his parents told him.
But the question remains, as the boy grows rapidly and frequently fails to rein in a power that makes his eyes glow and fills him with an insatiable need to tear any living thing – man or beast – to pieces, often with his bare hands.
Is Berserker a messiah, or something else?
And we get all of this, yet he has yet to tell us his name. His real name, the one his parents gave him.
I could tell you more, but trust me, you want to read this for yourself with fresh eyes. I’ve already said too much.
Run and buy this book, before Keanu Reeves makes this his next movie franchise.
Run.
