by Jessica Greenlee
Staff Writer
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Eternal Warrior #5 proclaims itself an all-new arc. It jumps two thousand years from the time of Eternal Warrior #4 with no explanation or intermission between the two. Gilad is once again living in a pastoral village, this time in a post-apocalyptic setting. He remembers machines, medicines, guns, and gods, and his tribe has legends about all of these, but life is once again rural. It is also far from idyllic, as an early attack by a restored machine makes clear. Gilad must once again set out to save his people from an overwhelming force. Overall, it’s a good read with some exciting bits, but there are definitely questions left for Pak to address.
It’s an action-packed tale with plenty of reason to keep turning the pages. Gilad is a very keep-to-the-essentials sort, and that is what he’s doing here: gathering a small group of people, teaching them to hunt—and farm (who knew he had it in him?), and tending to his family and chosen tribe through the centuries.
Diego Bernard does a fine job of portraying the lush natural world that has taken over, one with towering trees, lavish sunsets, and clear blue skies. He contrasts it well with the harsh, angled mechanical city and the oddly hybrid machine-mammoth that attacks. His people are expressive; Caroline, the granddaughter, clearly plucky and Gilad an old, fierce warrior.
The jump between issue 4 and issue 5 is, as I said, somewhat jarring. When last seen in issue 4, Gilad was with his daughter; now she is nowhere in sight and he is caring for a pastoral village with his granddaughter as a sidekick and eager helper. It’s unclear, too, whether the promised confrontation with Nergal has taken place or is yet to come. It is still possible to tell what is going on; no one is going to feel hopelessly lost, and new readers won’t even notice anything missing, but hopefully Pak will fill us in on some of the intervening years as the series progresses and things like Gilad’s continued existence despite the fact that he no longer has a goddess to keep him young will become clear. As yet, Eternal Warrior is fun but in need of a sturdier backstory.
