The Crow Memento Mori #1 & 2 (IDW Publishing)

CREATORS:
Roberto Recchioni (Author) • Moreno Dinisio (Colorist) • Werther Dell’Edera (Artist, Cover Artist) • Giovanna Niro (Colorist) • Matteo Scalera (Author, Artist) •Davide Furno (Cover Artist)

There's nothing quite like beginning a story by quoting the Old Testament. I quite enjoy Exodus myself but mostly because I do think that god is a more probably god, I mean a definite complete sadist. I'm of course an atheist if you have never picked that up from my articles. If I was a Christian I would be very much an Old Testament, god fearing lady because that is the most realistic version of god (Yahweh) unfortunately.

I have been a fan of The Crow series for well over two decades. It was one of the first comics I read, my grandmother had got a giant box of comics at a local garage sale and I would sit and read them. The first Spawn books were among them along with a lot of Conan, my parents didn't realize that comics weren't all for children. I was thrilled. So this is a new Crow story which revolves around a dead alter boy so at least the intro of bible quotes is appropriate and not just there for pretentious  drama. 

So if you've read the original Crow comic or even watched one of the many movies, then you already know the format. Man dies, man comes back to reap vengeance against those who have murdered him and his loved ones. Unfortunately there's no deviation here, a man is dead and so is his lover. Another story with women as plot devices rather than characters. Yay. 

Throughout the book however there are copious panels which both make you feel the distance the narrator feels from the living world, a constant observer but also mixed with panels that feel very intimate. You look at the narrator as if looking into a mirror. I can't help but feel an affinity and emotional understand of him despite his situation having NO possible resemblance to my own. I really enjoyed the artwork, the coloring was appropriate and the characters were distinguishable. 

However, politically I do not like this comic. The first moment of vengeance is reaped in issue one by a white Christian onto an Islamic seventeen year old who is of course one of the people involved in the bombing. Anything that vilifies Islam in favor of Christianity tends to turn my stomach. I really hoped this would be a vendetta against the Churches of Rome, not another religion. I was more impressed with issue two where Christianity isn't looking so hot and the father of the church is looking a very likely target for vengeance. 

I also want to mention that these issues felt short. VERY short in fact. I counted both issue one at 20 pages and issue two at 18 of actual content. Each issue has a preview of an upcoming IDW comic which takes up a significant page count.