Sweet F.A.
Two nights ago, in preparation for the inevitable disappointment of the new movie of The Crow, I stayed up way too late reading the original comic. Golly, you can tell it was written by a guy who was grieving his fiancée’s death.
A huge amount of the comic, amidst Eric’s quest for vengeance upon those who killed him and his fiancée Shelly, is focused on his grief for her. There are flashbacks to their Christmas together, the domestic life they had, even like really mundane stuff like painting the house. Shelly is also given a personality and isn’t just a flat character whose only purpose for the plot was dying.
And that grief for that person that she was is what lets Eric hold onto his humanity: it’s what drives him to do things like adopting the cat Gabriel after its owner is killed by thugs, and then make sure Gabriel has a home when it’s time for him to leave this world for good; it’s what leads to him giving Shelly’s ring to young Sherri as the first gift she’s ever received, treat Sherri gently, urge her mom to get clean, and let Officer Albrecht know that she needs protection. Even when Funboy, one of the members of the gang, talks with Eric and tells him he doesn’t know why he is the way he is, doesn’t see the way to be better, and thinks resisting Eric pointless, he lets him take drugs to overdose and have a relatively peaceful end instead of killing him himself. Not only because of Eric’s own personality buried under layers of rage and depression, but also because of Shelly’s retained influence on him beyond the grave.
The film leaves a lot of this out, and Shelly’s passing is more of just the backdrop and driving force of his quest for revenge; however, there are some aspects of the film that I like better. Specifically, I like how much more it fleshes out both Albrecht and Sarah’s characters, while in the comic they’re mostly confined to the background. Especially Sarah (Sherri in the comics), who I feel there’s even more of a reason for Eric to care about, given that Shelly had cared for Sarah during her life.
I also love the graphic stylized nature of the comic, which was carried over to the film.