The Crow: Curare comes off like The X-Files meets Law & Order: SVU. Grizzled homicide detective Francis Joseph Salk, who has long put his job first, is wallowing in the failure his life has become since the death of a little girl in 1973. Salk caught the case and began obsessing over finding the killer. The cost of his obsession? His family. His career and his mental well being. Estranged from his family, and beating himself up for never catching the killer, Salk is a man on the edge. Then she appears. The little girl back from the dead, accompanied by a crow.
James O’Barr, writer and creator of The Crow series, returns with The Crow: Curare. Is this the most original story ever told? Nope, not by a long shot, but then The Crow has never been big on originality. Revenge from the grave has been exploited since fifties-era horror comics, O’Barr just gave it a romantic, goth make over. In recent stories, O’Barr has toyed with a notion where the returning spirit isn’t a white-faced harbinger of death. The Crow: Curare seems steeped in that idea as well. The dead girl returns, not to find her killer alone, but to inspire Detective Salk not to give up on her.
As each Crow adventure usually features a different subject, Curare issue #1 is a set up issue. O’Barr shows us the night Salk found the girl, how his family life falls apart and what his life is now. The point here is to really care about Salk; it’s imperative if we’re going to connect to the story. Problem is, Salk is such a clichéd character it’s impossible not to be indifferent about him. The grizzled cop, haunted by all he’s seen, who lost his family due to his obsession with “that one case,” is just too familiar to hook the reader.
The Crow is supposed to tap into our feelings of being defenseless. We ignore the easy plot devices, because we get to live vicariously through the returned spirit of vengeance. Take that away, and suddenly you’re stuck with a very special episode of The Ghost Whisperer. O’Barr needs to choose one or the other. The story should either be formulaic and filled with retribution, or it needs to be something completely off the reservation that deals with the more angelic spirit returning to lead a living person to the truth. The Crow: Curare achieves neither of those things, leaving very little motivation to return for issue #2.
We don’t even get O’Barr’s artwork for this story. Antoine Dode, whose artwork is completely wrong for The Crow, handles art duties. Dode’s work looks more like something from Ghost World or Hate Comics. His light touch and lack of shading brings none of the noir style that The Crow relies on. Often, panels look unfinished, or rushed. The entire exchange between Salk and his wife comes off like sketches, not finished artwork.
The Crow: Curare is for hardcore fans only.
(2.5 Story, 2.5 Art)
