I am incredibly glad I decided to start watching Blerd Without Fear’s Youtube videos sometime ago, as it was thanks to him that I first learned of Oni Press/Murewa Ayodale/Dotun Akande’s Akogun: Brutalizer Of Gods title. Which is essentially described as African Conan and after reading the first two issues, I believe it. To my knowledge, I don’t think I’d ever heard of Africa’s Yoruba religion until I got to reading Akogun, which is set at several different points of Africa’s past history and features several of Yoruba’s Pantheon such as Ogun, Obatala, Osun (Oshun), and Sango within these first two issues. I’ve only ever really been familiar with Anansi (partly thanks to the Disney show Gargoyles), so getting to learn of more Dieties from Africa was really great for me and an example that I should have done some research. And seeing Murewa and Dotun’s take on the Yoruban Pantheon and African history is another thing I am really loving for reasons you all know by now when it comes to my interests in comics and other media adapting Mythological material.
Now in between battles and love making is our boy Akogun (One Who Repels War and boy is that fitting), who is out for some revenge against some folks who’ve taken everything from him.
But first, our boy’s gotta do some training to prepare himself for the fight and those scenes are done fantastically well by Dotun and Dee Cunniffe’s colors do it all justice as well. Now trying to domesticate those sorts of creatures would probably be pretty difficult though! But I bet Akogun could do it and probably did at some point before those he’s after so rudely came and changed things for the worse for him. I’m very curious to see how past events are going to play out in Akogun’s time, especially as some of it helped shape him as it is thanks in part to Obatala. And I’m curious as to how Ogun’s going to handle that if and whenever he learns of the entirety of it all.
Course, as we see later on, Ogun himself has some problems to deal with thanks to Sango and probably wishes like Hell afterwards that he’d listened to Osun. But we men can be dummies and have to learn some things the hard way. Though it seems Ogun, by the time of present day events, has become a very different person and I’m curious as to what led to all of that.
Though I strongly doubt Akogun is going to care one bit about it and I don’t blame him considering Ogun’s people took everything from him when they could have bartered or something else that was a bit more peaceful. I can’t wait to see what happens next in this epic tale from Murewa and Dotun and awesomely enough, the third and final issue comes out on my birthday (August 7th)! Now I am curious as to why the two chose only to do 3 issues with each being roughly 36 pages (or a few more) each and perhaps the fact Murewa is working on the upcoming Storm series from Marvel may have something to do with it.
Or maybe its because they felt it was just better/easier to do a 3 issue series. So if you’re wanting something that’s Conanish, or just something Fantasy in general, or because you want to support POC creators, I highly recommend checking out Akogun: Brutalizer Of Gods!! First issue available here and second issue available here!
Akogun: Brutalizer Of Gods #’s 1-2
Oni Press
Writer: Murewa Ayodele
Artist: Dotun Akande
Colorist: Dee Cunniffe
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Reviewer: Rob Wrecks
Summary: In an age thought forgotten . . . when man, monster, and the divine all strode the Earth . . . a lone warrior emerges to test the immortality of the cruel gods who would deal destruction with impunity . . . He is a one-man reckoning that stands in defiance of his divine masters with a sword in hand and a thirst for godblood. His name: AKOGUN THE BRUTALIZER!
In the tradition of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s Thor, and the best-selling God of War franchise, superstars-in-the-making Murewa Ayodele and Dotun Akande-the creative duo behind I Am Iron Man and Moon Knight: Black, White & Blood-usher in a new epoch of African dark fantasy on the ancient continent of Alkebulan with a mythic cycle of cosmic destiny and unrelenting warfare colliding man against god . . . and blade against blade!
Told across three powerful, oversize, bi-monthly chapters, steady your mind and spirit for a glorious new comics milestone revealing the fabled origin and battle-tested fury of . . .Akogun: Brutalizer of Gods!
