Keanu Reeves' comics co-writing debut, and if the title gave you the same earworm as me then to answer your next question, no, we don't see some making fuck from the protagonist, but he does steal hearts, and not in the romantic way. Looking more than a little like a certain actor who might be hoping this becomes his next action franchise, the lead is basically Wolverine except that he's even older - as in, tens of thousands of years older - and doesn't really give a fuck whether mad scientists clone him or whatever, if only they could find a way for him to become mortal. And in the meantime he's a tool, or a weapon, and sometimes he needs to let the rage loose, so the USA uses him as a blunt instrument just like so many mortal states before them. This could easily have come across like the worst excesses of nineties comics, but Ron Garney's visceral art and the story's haunted tone keep the appropriate note of horror thrumming, even as they remind us that comics are unquestionably the best medium when it comes to one guy punching right through another guy's head.

(Netgalley ARC)

Note: I received this book for free from the publisher for the purposes of reviewing it.

The ultraviolence is so extreme that it is hilarious how creative they need to be with it to avoid it becoming rote. I would say they were beyond successful here but I don't know how long the series will be able to uphold it's novelty in this realm. The plot seems to have a lot of potential in it and could survive off of flashbacks alone with the depth of history that inhabits it. Overall it was a fun read that exceeded expectations.

Wolverine meets mythology -> that was my first impression.

Berzerker is born out of a human woman and an ancient god. His reason for existence is simple, he was made for war.

Like many other immortals in fiction, Bezerker wants one thing, to end his immortality. He believes that he can do that through the help of the U.S government and modern technology.

In this first volume not much is revealed. We get a glimpse of his blood-soaked life and how he was created.

The art and the visuals are absolutely stunning. The story on the other hand, didn't leave a big impact on me.

Nevertheless, I would like to know how Berzerker's story progresses. I'm more interested in his history than his modern life.

Many thanks to BOOM! Studios and NetGalley for providing me an e-copy of Brzrkr, vol. 1 in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you netgalley for this free arc.

Brzrkr is about a half human half god named Berzerker. Berzerker is a fighter it is what he was created to do. Having found a place to call home working for the United States government he fights the battles other men would undoubtedly die. His does this in exchange for the hopes of one day becoming mortal.

The premise of the story is nothing new BRZRKR is just an extra gory take on the story we have heard millions of times that just so happens to be written by Keanu Reeves. If you are into a story that is not unique or original, lots of gore, and a mc that looks like Keanu then you will most likely enjoy this.

This is John Wick: Eternal Warrior. B. is an immortal that has lived for 80,000 years and can't be killed. However, he needs to keep fighting to keep from going into a berserker rage so berserker, vowels are jettisoned to the wayside. We've seen this story before in comics. Old Guard, Eternal Warrior, Wolverine, Vandal Savage, so on and so on all the way back to Gilgamesh. The only difference here is the hyper-violence. The book is chock full of page after page of gore and dismemberments. There are so many pages of it that I became numb to the panels, even though Ron Garney does a fabulous job of illustrating this. Maybe by the time this is done there will be a story here, but right now it's mainly just intense amounts of random violence.

General Impressions

Full honesty: I requested this because of Keanu and Keanu only.

I enjoyed reading this even if it was the introduction to the world and so storywise, it was mostly flashbacks. It reminded me a bit of The Old Guard in how it followed an immortal warrior tired of living but it didn't grab me as much.

It's already confirmed to be adapted, so there's that to look forward to because if there was one thing that this was, was VIOLENT! There was blood, guts and brains flying around in half the frames and I loved it. The art was definitely my favourite part.

I also appreciated how this was a book set in the Stone Age and yet there were characters of all kinds of races (see it's not difficult!) and it addressed, genocide, imperialism, children exploitation and power.

Thank you to NetGalley and BOOM! Studios for this DRC.

Rating: 3/5

Keanu Reeves plays a character so tough he killed all the vowels in his book’s title! Want to read a comic that rips out the spine of good taste and murderizes subtlety with it before dancing in the blood of restraint? Disappointed that no comic out there caters to the FBI watch list crowd for deranged psychopaths? Worry not, my soon-to-be-suicided-by-cop friend - BRZRKR is here for YOU!

I’m not sure why Keanu Reeves has decided now is the time to embark on a comics career - maybe he thought he’d publish the storyboards of his next project and make some extra cash that way (ie. the Mark Millar school of comics) - but here we are with what is essentially a story about John Wick with Wolverine’s healing factor.

Novelty Neo aside, it’s not that great. It’s one extended hyper violent action scene after another which gets banal and repetitive pretty quick, not least because B. (the imaginative name for Keanu’s character) is unstoppable so it’s hardly tense or gripping reading. B. is 80,000 years old (he looks great for his age, like Keanu) and the sliver of a story that’s here is B. trying to find a way to die for good, which involves talking to a psychiatrist apparently.

That angle is only half-heartedly pursued though as the main point of the book seems to be having Keanu killing a LOT of dudes, either in the present day or caveman times, for no real reason other than he can. And, though I found the action tiresome after a while, the bloodiness is so absurdly over-the-top that it made me laugh occasionally.

How to ensure a guy doesn’t throw away a grenade after you pull the pin? Simples - hold the grenade against the man until it blows up! B.’s healing factor means his arm grows back but the guy stays dead! Out of stabby things? Punch into a man’s torso, tear out a rib and stab the other man with it! Want to stop a bullet? Put your hand over the muzzle! It’s coconuts, brah.

Kudos to artist Ron Garney for his work on this book, bringing the non-stop carnage to life so well. The action is easy to follow because of his fine cartooning and the epic scale of Keanu’s violent fantasy is fully realised thanks to him. If this book succeeds at all, it’s entirely due to his talents.

I liked the nod to the Sad Keanu meme from a few years ago on the first page and I’d’ve preferred to see more playful references to Keanu in the book - I mean, there wasn’t even a single “woah”! And how B. came to be born is hilariously stupid too, though the caveman stuff in general didn’t do anything for me - I’m not a huge Conan the Barbarian fan, and that seems to be the audience for this part of the book.

BRZRKR, Volume 1 wasn’t for me - it looks great, it’s easy to read, some of it is amusing, but it’s way too much gratuitously pointless action and not enough story. Keanu enthusiasts might enjoy it purely for his involvement, as might the readers of Conan the Barbarian and Valiant’s Eternal Warrior, the latter of which this comic is basically ripping off completely!

This might not be every one’s cup of tea, but I drank pretty deep of this one. Thank you NetGalley for accepting my request to read this ARC.

I am going to need more comics with Keanu Reeves! I was very surprised by this series. Amazing artwork as well.

A promising start to a new series. This story is not for the squeamish. Ultraviolence abounds but in a way that is so over the top it stops being gory and is instead a little ridiculous. The main character B is a one man army who cannot die and with a vicious bloodlust. This volume introduces him working for the government who is trying to recover his lost memories. We see those memories of his creation as a village protector and the early days of fighting. This volume ends with the hook of more revelations that will keep people interested. The art is dynamic and represents the story well while the coloring adds mood to each page. The blue tinged lab scenes, red washed fights and earth toned village all create a distinct feeling with the art and color.

Starting on this volume, which contains the first third of a planned 12-issue series, I expected there to be close to no story, in a negative sense. The surprising thing is that I ended up wishing there was no story at all, with no narration and little dialogue, just gloopy oodles of ultraviolence.

Because there quite super amounts of ultraviolence. In fact, there is so much of it, a flurry of red slurry, it quickly becomes visually dull. It doesn't help that the main character is immortal, making every violent encounter completely devoid of tension.

This could've been a chance to get creative with the violent antics, but that doesn't happen either. If you've seen one horse's head ripped off, or one fist punched through someone's head, you've seen em all.

Then there is the story, which feels derivative, most blatantly of The Old Guard. There's quite some narration, which made me think how much more powerful of a statement this could've been without any narration, and the barest of words spoken.

The main character is a duller version of John Wick. There barely are other characters.

So yes, this does feel like a storyboard for a Netflix series, and personally, I hate it when comics do that. Be a great comic first and foremost - don't be so desperate to be something else.

Thanks to Netgalley and Boom Studios for the advance copy

I've always been a sucker for immortals in stories, the notion of how the perspective would change over what amounts to several lifetimes, how inevitably everything would devolve into being the same thing over and again because whatever you'd done that day, chances are you'd have done it before. New experiences would be a thing of the past, and without the curiosity of having something new to look forwards to, is eternal life actually a benefit.

This isn't Highlander, it's not Old Guard, it's something new, this is a character that can't be killed, not even by dismemberment, and they don't have much of a memory (perhaps all that being sliced up did some damage after all), so much so that they don't recall really who they are or indeed what they are, and they're searching for that enlightenment.

It's violent, it's stylish, but there is the notion that there's more to this than endless waves of gore, this isn't (and it would have been easy to go in that direction) John Wick crossed with Conan, you get the impression that this person wants to know who/what they are, and they've been trying to find out for eighty thousand years.

This is the first part of the story, we get as far as brief revelations and ideas that might prove to be something more given time, but with the inherently unreliable nature of the narrator and their own admission that they don't recall everything, can what we see be trusted?

Liked it, curious to see where it's going next.

I received an eARC of this title through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

I felt like this was a rough start to a graphic novel. It felt like it was all exposition and less pushing the story along. The main character is essentially an immortal man who works with the United States government in hopes of becoming mortal. While the main character's, Unute, story is interesting, it felt like it laid all the good stuff out there without leaving anything for later issues. Either, there are more surprises to come or this is going to be a quick series.

I am hoping that Volume 2 gives the reader more intrigue and less exposition.

I think this story could actually work if the graphic violence was toned down. Like a lot. It's like dumping a cup of chili powder on a piece of hamburger, to pep it up. Unfortunately, it overwhelms the story, making the age level only for adults (this is likely to give kids nightmares). The underlying story of an immortal could be a key winning element. In other words, if we saw more of what life was like, so may thousands of years ago, less the ocean of violence, then we could see more of the up close struggles of the main character.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher BOOM! Studios for an advanced copy of this graphic novel.

A group of very talented men, present to us a book with an astonishing amount of violence. Actor Keanu Reeves, along with Matt Kindt, best selling writer of some of the most interesting and challenging comics series being published, including Grass Kings and my favorite MIND MGMT, have combined their skills to write a story that almost seems like a studio elevator pitch. John Wick meets Kratos from God of War. Hijinks ensue. However, besides being super violent, the book is fun, full of mystery and has a whole lot going on under the surface, as can be expected from Mr. Kindt.

The art by Ron Garney, with colorist Bill Crabtree is powerful and realistic. From huts to helicopters, clubs to assault weapons, Mr. Garney makes everything crisp, clean, and just beautiful to look at. Oh and its violent. I can't stress that enough.

The main character is a man driven by violence, created as a weapon, loved as a weapon, born from a human mother, and sired by possibly a god. Our hero has killed for thousands of years, driven by a rage he can't control, and now finds himself working with the US government, sating his need, as his employers investigate what makes him so good at what he does.

The story is well plotted and moves along well. Enough is left unsaid to keep the mystery alive and with Mr. Kindt I am sure this well a great series. I can't wait to read more adventures about this character.