Resurrectionists volume 1: Near Death Experienced


By Fred Van Lente, Maurizio Rosenzweig & Moreno DiNisio (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-760-7

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Undying Action Adventure… 8/10

Surely everybody loves a cool crime caper yarn and here scripter Fred Van Lente (Action Philosophers, Cowboys & Aliens, X-Men: Noir, Brainboy) has conceived another riotously cracking big-picture concept that will astound fans of films and funnybooks alike.

Illustrated by Italian art émigrés Maurizio Rosenzweig (Laida Odius, Davide Golia, Clown Fatale) and colourist Moreno DiNisio (Dead Body Road), the tale is both frighteningly simple and terrifyingly complex…

Once upon a time 3000 years ago in ancient Egypt an architect named Tao finished a tomb for a dangerously ambitious priest. Unfortunately, the august cleric Herihor wanted to be Pharaoh instead of the Pharaoh and felt that the necessary precautions to ensure his ambitions in this life and the next should necessarily involve killing everyone who worked on the project, including Tao’s pregnant wife Maya…

Meanwhile in the now, former architect and current major thief Jericho Way is stealing relics to order for a mysterious client with big pockets and extremely fixed tastes. Way has no idea why the mystery man only wants Egyptian stuff or that the so-shy client is technically someone he’s known for many centuries…

With brother-thief Mac Jericho is planning to boost some scrolls from a museum, but has become annoyingly distracted by dreams of himself in another time and place. The master planner is blithely unaware that a lot of very strange and dangerous people are somehow cognizant of the changes he’s going through – after all they’ve been there before innumerable times – and are now extremely concerned about the life-decisions he’s going to be making over the next few days…

The first inkling that something is up comes after a particularly intense “dream” as Jericho realises that he can now read the ancient Egyptian scrawl on the scroll he’s just swiped…

Long ago in Herihor’s tomb, Tao, having escaped his pursuers but now hopelessly lost, settles down to die but is soon astounded to see another face. Tomb robbers – also called “Resurrectionists” – have already broken into his impregnable design but now offer him a way out and an opportunity for revenge…

And as Jericho shares his memories of those robbers with Mac, and he notes the recurring resemblances to recent acquaintances, it all becomes clear that he and his new co-crew have been working on that revenge and this robbery for a very long time indeed…

Incorporating a mystic vendetta than spans millennia and an undying love affair, this supremely engaging supernatural saga sees a gang of archetypal thieves locked in an eternal duel of wits and wills against a monster who has co-opted the Afterlife through the most devious and patient methods ever conceived.

However since the ragtag band of rogues can call upon the experiences of every person thy have been, maybe this time they’re going to pull off the Crime of the Ages and finally get vengeance and peace in equal measure…

A delicious melange of reincarnation yarn, conspiracy-thriller and all-action buddy-movie come heist-caper, this is a brilliantly conceived and executed tale with plenty of plot twists you don’t want me to reveal but which will intoxicate and astound all lovers of devious and deranged dark fantasy.
Resurrectionists © 2014, 2015 Fred Van Lente and Maurizio Rosenzweig. All rights reserved.