CROSSED
VOL. 8 (Avatar
Press, 2014; Hardcover)
Collects
Crossed:
Badlands
Nos. 37-43 and Crossed
2013 Annual (cover
dates January- November, 2013)
Writers:
Simon Spurrier and David Hine
Artists:
Rafael Oritz, German Erramouspe, Fernando Heinz, and Gabriel Andrade
Colorist:
Digikore Studios
The
beauty of the Crossed “universe” is that they can jump
back and forth at various points in time, leading up to and after the
event. Unlike The Walking Dead, which deals with an ongoing
cast of characters in a linear continuity, Crossed jumps from
scenario to scenario with each new arc.
This
book has three arcs: American Quitters (#37-39), a tale of
Erroll and Frank, a stoner hippie and a biker who run into each other
on the highway and decide to pair up and go out in a blaze of glory.
I guess that when the world goes to Hell you should be happy to have
something to keep you going.
The
second arc is Gore Angels (#40-43), which takes place at the
zero hour of the Crossed outbreak in Japan. Three college-aged
friends are taking in a Buddhist temple when it hits the fan. Without
giving too much away, this arc is a riff on It's A Small World
After All, with rape, revenge, and underground Manga (of all
things) factoring in to make this the most offbeat Crossed
tale yet.
The
final story is from the 2013 Annual. Th' Big Yin was almost a
colossal disappointment. I thought that they were spelling out the
entire thing, how the Crossed came to be, so on and so forth. I hope
that we never find out. The best stories leave the readers with
questions and not answers. Look at Y: The Last Man. We never
did find out exactly why things happened, and it made the ending all
the more powerful. Luckily this story banked hard at the end and was
fabulous.
I
am now numb to the blood, gore, and carnage of Crossed. I am
not sure what that says about me, but I hardly wince at it any more
and instead wind up cackling like Bart and Lisa Simpson at the end of
an episode of The Itchy And Scratchy Show. I find myself
enjoying all of the violent mayhem in this series, and that saddens
me. I once was a human being with a heart...now there is no hope, no
escape, nowhere for me to run or hide. There is only the Crossed.
Junk
Food For Thought rating: 3.75 out of 5.
The
OCD zone- Avatar Press releases a maddening number of variants,
and they do not list the issues where they are from on them in the
book. Praise be www.comicbookdb.com for their invaluable assistance
in helping me identify the covers. Not all of the variants are
included, and one can only hope that Avatar Press issues some deluxe
hardcover collection down the road featuring all five thousand
variants.
DVD-style
Extras included in this book: #37 Torture
Cover variant. (1 page)
#39
Torture Cover variant. (1 page)
#40
Torture Cover variant. (1 page)
#41
Torture Cover variant. (1 page)
#43
Torture Cover variant. (1 page)
Annual
2013 Grizzly Cover variant (1 page)
Annual
2013 Torture Cover variant. (1 page)
Annual
2013 Wraparound Cover, split across two pages, not as a center spread
(2 pages).
Paper
rating: 4.5 out of 5. Excellent weight glossy coated stock paper.
Binding
rating: 4.5 out of 5. While the book definitely has sewn binding,
I cannot see any stitches. It is stiff at first but loosens up as you
read it.
Hardback
cover coating rating: 5 out of 5. Avatar Press' thick waxlike
casewrap coating remains the one to beat in my opinion. It is
seemingly indestructible.
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