Dark Rage

Colère Noire #1-3

by Thierry Smolderen, Philippe Marcelé

Two young women lose their families in a grisly holdup. Heartbroken and vengeful, they decide to take matters into their own hands. Together they track down the murderers and make them pay (a high price) for the wreckage they left behind. A violent and thrilling feminist tale, freely inspired by the affair of the mad killers of Walloon Brabant, which hit the Belgiancrime chronicles of the early 1980s.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Comic Book, Fiction, Crime, Bande Dessinée

144 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1990

About the author

Thierry Smolderen (born 25 November 1954) is an essay writer, as well as a script writer of Belgian comic strips.

Smolderen is a teacher at École des Beaux-Arts of Angoulême, France. As a comic books historian, he wrote Naissances de la bande dessinée (2009), about the "platinum age" of comics. This book has been published in English by the University Press of Mississippi in 2014, under the title The Origins of Comics: From William Hogarth to Winsor McCay (Eisner Award nominee of 2015 in the Best Scholarly/Academic Work category).

Reviews

[Sooraya Evans · Rating 1 out of 5]

Two women go on a rampage to track down a group of criminals in the attempt to avenge their loved ones. Not bad to begin with. Along the way, they started to bond. A bond that ridiculously evolved into lesbianism, which to me doesn't serve the plot. It was just an excuse to throw in weird spontaneous sex scenes. Other twists were merely introduced for convenience sake. Like Stella's secret past life and the bad guy's look alike.
Overall, a lame story.

[Manfred Moonlight Ackermann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un acte terroriste d'une froideur sans nom. Deux femmes victimes se retrouvent et s'allient pour une vengeance contre ces meurtres de masse sanglants et aveugles.

C'est brut, le dessin brut convient bien à ce scénario.

Un thriller violent, dense, "old-school" car on sent bien qu'on n'est pas dans les années 2000. Et c'est très bien comme ça (les voitures ça ne trompe pas 😉 )

C'est l'intégrale d'une histoire découpée en 3 tomes. C'est bien mené, sombre, vengeance etc …

[Roybot · Rating 2 out of 5]

In Colere Noire, Marielle, a recently divorced woman living with her teen son, and Stella, an enigmatic South American visiting with her husband, are strangers doing their daily shopping when the senseless violence of a grocery store robbery leaves their loved ones dead. The pain and anger that follows, and their desire for justice, creates a bond that forever links the two women, despite their very different life experiences. When the police prove to be ineffective at helping bring the killer to justice, the two women begin to plot revenge on the man who pulled the trigger.

Thierry Smolderen seems to be interested in exploring the minds and relationships of women in this middle of the road crime comic, but, ultimately, falls into the tired cliche of making two ostensibly straight women suddenly gay for each other for the benefit of the fan service. The criminals are largely forgettable, except for the primary antagonist, which doesn't help. The crime itself does have a somewhat interesting motivation, but that's not enough to save what is otherwise a fairly mediocre work.

[Parallax]

I had a mixed reaction to this comic. The good: the gritty moody revenge atmosphere, the women preparing for revenge and grieving, the women bonding, the revelation of one woman's background as a guerrilla assassin operative. The bad: the sexual relationship between the women felt like something out of a straight male fantasy about two hot chicks together, the tepid antagonists, what might be some squicky gender stuff about women being defined by motherhood that may or may not be counterbalanced by the active role the women took in trying to find the bad guys.

[Lionel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thriller basé sur des affaires réelles similaires. C'est pas spécialement bien dessiné, c'est pas spécialement haletant, mais ça donne envie de voir ce qui va suivre

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty forgettable, but not wholly unredeemable, riff on a devastated woman looking for revenge after her son is murdered in a mass shooting crime.