BRZRKR #1 - BOOM! Studios

BRZRKR No. 1, February 2021

Financed through a highly successful “Kickstarter” in September 2020, which saw 14,571 backers pledge an astonishing $1,447,212 so as “to help bring this project to life”, this super-sized forty-three page periodical must have seemed like manna from heaven for those readers who enjoy an utterly insane amount of non-stop gratuitous violence within their comic books. Indeed, just Keanu Reeves and Matt Kindt’s body count alone for their collaboratively penned storyline makes an impressive overall number, but that simply doesn’t do the titular character’s savage violence and penchant for bodily mutilation any justice whatsoever.

For starters, the immortal soldier is relentless in his mission to thwart some Dominican Republic President from fleeing the presumably corrupt official’s country scot-free, and will stop at absolutely nothing to tear the man’s bloody heart from out of his horribly disfigured corpse – Whether the situation requires Berzerker to hurl himself out of a top-flight high-rise residence or single-handedly charge a heavily-armed, armoured car. In addition, the machine-like killer uses everything he can get his battle-damaged hands on to aid him in his quest, including one hapless victim’s rib bone which subsequently finds its way into the throat of another opponent; “I’d like to think this is different. Does this feel different to you?”

Happily however, despite all these enjoyable entrails and severed body parts, Issue One of “BRZRKR” still contains plenty of plot to keep its audience coming back for more. The writing partnership’s suggestion that the lead protagonist has suddenly remembered being born some eighty thousand years ago and how this may impact upon his already-traumatised psychological state is thoroughly intriguing, as is whether the recent memory of the dead President’s adolescent son being shot through the head by a government operative so as to prevent him from being a witness, will make the assassin start to question his role working for the authorities.

Perhaps this publication’s greatest asset though, are the breathtakingly stunning panels pencilled by Ron Garney, who seems to have completely immersed his creative skills in the ridiculous energy created by Reeves and Kindt’s script. The increasing damage depicted upon Berzerker whilst he is shot, marred by explosions and fire-ball causing collisions is well-worth the cost of this comic alone, never mind the illustrator’s attention to tiny details, such as the look in the warrior’s eye as he recalls the first sight of his heavily bearded father as he is about to batter to death “El Presidente”.

Written by: Keanu Reeves & Matt Kindt, and Illustrated by: Ron Garney