Review by Frank Plowright

Akogun certainly lives up to the Brutalizer aspect of his title, heading about the mythical African land of Alkebulan slaughtering any gods that cross his path. In that respect he’s not greatly removed from Conan the Barbarian, but he searches out gods to battle them, be they in the desert, the forest, the savannah or the wetlands.

Murewa Ayodele’s not one for linear storytelling, nor one for spelling things out to readers. Akogun is seemingly sometimes referred to by his full name and sometimes just as Ogun. He’s sometimes seen in what passes for the story’s present, but also often in the past. Is it him alternately showing kindness to his son then belting him, or is he the victim?

The lack of clarity is a shame, because as drawn by Dotun Akande, Akogun in action is a fearsomely intimidating presence with weight, someone you can believe goes around testing himself against giant reptiles with the occasional bout of sex in between. Akande differentiates the environments Akogun straddles, and has a great eye for page composition and storytelling.

Ayodele taps into myth, building a world where gods hinder humanity and need someone to stand up to them, but is never able to bring clarity. We only learn the difference between Akogun and Ogun right at the very end, and then in an astonishingly rapid finale, as if Ayodele’s suddenly told he’s only got two pages left to wrap everything up. The best of this graphic novel is when Akogun’s just setting about business, when there’s nothing to think about other than the methods, brutal of course, by which he’ll overcome his current opponent.

The art is stunning, but confusion reigns.