The events are articulated, developed, twisted on themselves in a forge of thoughts, moods made of beliefs, fears that are giving life to that chain effect, among the various protagonists, called the Apocalypse.
The Samuel Stern book “Il Cavallo Rosso” with script by Marco Savegnago and Massimiliano Filadoro with drawings by Leonardo Marcello Grassi and the cover by Valerio Piccioni, Maurizio Di Vincenzo and Emiliano Tanzillo, published by Bugs Comics, takes us back to Father Ducan, the who is experiencing a profound crisis of faith, in which many of his beliefs waver and the limit between good and evil seems to have become much thinner, making him walk on a path fraught with doubts.
Father Ducan, summoned to Rome, is shown a video in which, after the events of Abisko, this has given life to a new cult, without churches and prophets, emerging from the depths of the soul to which anyone can be part of this black ecclesia. This is to convince him to become an Inquisitor.
The Father is rather shocked at this request, as it would mean fighting evil with the same methods as the devil and he expresses all these expressions to a mysterious individual hooded in an overcoat.
Together with the Jesuit David, he asks him what this internal apocalypse consists of, the answer is that Samuel has accumulated so much evil and Ducan will have to be closest to him, proving to be the witness of the seal. The Father, however, rebels as he does not want to harm Red. The Jesuit tries to reassure him, because in the right moment he will be at his friend’s side to advise him or to stop the darkness that guides him.
Mysterious figures, coming from an ancient past, observe Father Ducan among atrocious doubts that are leading him on the road to madness, when one of these invites him to enter the Capuchin crypt, here he finds himself immersed in visions and shadow plays and finds wait for Father Cornelius. This reveals to him that Samuel was destined to become a dark consecrated, to save him he had entrusted him to Kismet and he should have led a quiet life on the Isle of Lewis but Kismet convinced him to endorse his training: to make Samuel a man capable to not only exorcise demons but to redeem them. Now the boy is experiencing his apocalypse and Father Ducan will be his witness, while the same Father, in the Roman underground, is about to experience a clash in which good and evil are intertwined…
A story in which reality and visions are confused, where everything is wrapped in a thick blanket of cloudy doubts about what is good and what is evil, but everything is leading towards a single final point: the Apocalypse.
An engaging read, with a very theological aspect that is fully thanks to a design that seems to take the reader to paintings from centuries ago created by artists such as Negretti Jacopo or Gambara Lattanzio who gave life to works linked to the Apocalypse.