Reviews with content warning for Sexual violence - The Crow

Yep, it's still a 5-star read. The Crow is an absolutely fantastic books that transcends the comic world. Because I saw the film before I was quite suprised at the amount of meditative moments that the book shows between all the revenge murder stuff. And those were my favorite parts of the book.. the quiet flashbacks or scenes of grief.

Since trying to recapture what made that original film so special in a mew movie is entirely misguided, the only new movie version of the Crow I'd be interested in seeing something that keeps very close to the spirit of the book. This book made me feel emotions with such strong saturation, I can't even begin to put into words how this made me feel. It's not a wide range of diffe ent emotions on display but damn do the present ones hit hard. I'll just say I recommend it if you're fine with the content warnings.

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doubleberger's review

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dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

Sometimes sad boy shit is good

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perthalus's review against another edition

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dark reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

Why couldn't she just get revenge for herself? Why did he have to get revenge for her? She succumbed to a fate like that just for someone else to get revenge for her? Well hey, at least the art style was incredible, just a shame the writing was that of a high school edge-lord's.

Edit: I watched the film after reading this and honestly, I prefer the graphic novel to the film. I still stand by my criticisms of the book, but it really fits for what it is. It’s an honest and raw response to the scum of the world. It’s flawed and blinded by its anger, which is what makes it unique, even if it’s not amazing.

Like I said, the art is beautiful and helps create the bleak landscape of the city and the depraved lives of the characters. One thing I preferred to the film was how Fun Boy’s character was written. In the film he dies in the bedroom scene pretty quickly, but in the book you get an incredibly dark though admittedly quite edgy scene that adds a layer of introspection, like a thought breaking through all that mindless anger.

Another thing I liked that I surprisingly didn’t at first was how there were no stakes. In the film, the stakes help it be a film, but in the book it makes it feel more like a statement than a struggle, but I think both stand on their own.

A pretty cool, but unfortunately quite edgy explosion of emotions and anger. It’s slightly juvenile yet beautifully flawed and gothic.

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sinisterbeard's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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colombian_gothic's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

While "The Crow" takes a path way counter to most hero journeys, in doing this it creates a much more interesting story because of its complexities. The story of the crow doesn't follow the heroes journey of a man facing a difficult obstacle he must overcome to get to his goal, (without giving too much away) Eric's goal in this story is pretty much unobstructed and completely attainable. At first this bothered me because this means no one is a threat to him or his journey, but throughout the book you realize that's not true, the person most a danger to him is himself. As a result, "The Crow" is less so about a revenge spree, but about the anger and hurt that you have to keep alive to stay motivated to do these things in the first place. Over all it's a beautifully all be it dark story about letting go of pain, processing grief and what that does to a person.

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