BRZRKR: Bloodlines vol. 2

You’d think I’m a glutton for punishment at this point, following this series and its spinoffs for as long as I have.  Through twelve issues of the original series, and now four one-shots featuring the further adventures of Unute, the titular berserker there has only been one part of it that I was thoroughly entertained by.  That would be the “Poetry of Madness” one-shot from Steve Skroce in the first volume of “Bloodlines.”  Which should give you an idea of what I thought about the two one-shots collected in this volume.

We start out with “The Lost Book of B” which comes from the creative team of the original series, co-writers Keanu Reeves and Matt Kindt, and artist Ron Garney.  If you’re thinking it might add some further insight to their original work, I’m going to stop you right there.  This is told from the perspective of one of the cultists that has followed Unute over the centuries and tried to manipulate him as well.  Him, and in this case, Genghis Khan as well.

That’s right, this one-shot is meant to give us the real reason the Khan and his Mongol army were able to conquer a significant part of the known world in their heyday.  It’s a cute concept executed with the requisite amount of dour seriousness and bloodshed that Reeves, Kindt, and Garney have delivered before.  Competent though it is, I didn’t care for it much as a result.  Those of you looking for more of what that initial twelve-issue series delivered may find more to like here.

The other story collected here comes from an A-list comics creative team.  “A Faceful of Bullets” is written by Jason Aaron and illustrated by Salvador Larroca, and puts Unute back in the Old West.  After he survives a hanging, our protagonist encounters a woman whose husband-to-be was gunned down by her evil father’s men during their marriage ceremony.  She prayed for vengeance, but wound up with Unute instead.

Aaron’s writing here feels more restrained compared to what we usually see from him.  To the point where having the protagonist chuck a dead horse at his enemies can be called “restrained.”  That doesn’t serve to make the story more interesting as this tale of revenge is played pretty straight, with Larroca giving everything a slick, polished finish that occasionally feels at odds with the violence he’s tasked with depicting.  There’s one little twist at the end that I did appreciate as it not only breaks with the kind of morality the story looks like it’s enforcing, and actually shows Unute dictating terms rather than passively accepting them.

That’s enough to ensure that “A Faceful of Bullets” is the better of the two one-shots collected here, but not by much.  It also doesn’t do anything to make me look forward to future “BRZRKR” comics, of which there are none on the horizon.  I heard that a movie and animated series were in the offing at Netflix, but they’re either taking their time with those, or have fallen into development hell.  Which I can’t say is necessarily a bad thing based on the quality of its source material so far.