Comic Review - Crossed Badlands #16

            There are a few comics in the Crossed universe, and lucky for us, one of them came out this week.  Really, what would a monster/zombie themed month of comic reviews be without including at least one Crossed title?  That being said, this week I am taking a look at Crossed Badlands #16 by David Hine (writer), Eduardo Vienna (pencils) and Nelson Pereira (inks).

Cover:

            The cover (by Raulo Caceras) itself does not have anything to do with the story, but it does give a clue as to what the book will be like.  This book will apparently be full of sex and violence, most of it ridiculous and over the top.  It will be reasonably well drawn (as the cover is) but will lean towards the silly in terms of its subject matter and shock value. 

            The art is good, not anything special, but well executed in terms of the lineart.  The little nuances that they throw in to the art brings it from morbid and creepy to cheesy, however.  Writing “to hell” in blood on the front of the oncoming train, one of the train numbers being “69”, that kind of stuff is high-school level thinking.  That’s what kids doodle in the back of their notebooks next to poorly drawn representations of “Spawn”, not something that employers should be paying good money for.

The color on the cover is ok, but incredibly dark for a cover that should be trying to grab your attention on the shelf. 

“But it’s on a subway train underground, it has to be dark.”

In that case, change the setting or find some way to make things less muddy.  It’s a pretty simple fix to ensure that your product is seen.  Hell, the logo is a darker red that, even with the black outline around it, still blends into the background. 

3/10 – This is decent cover done in by cheese and poor coloring choices. 

Story:

            In the story itself, not a whole hell of a lot happens.  But it does at least tell the people reading it about the epidemic.  This is somewhat like a zombie plague, except the “crossed” are more mobile and less brain dead than regular zombies.  Sure, they are still driven by carnal desire, but they can actually express what they want, or want to do to you.  Gone are the monotone groans for brains, and in its place is a guy laying on the ground asking someone to “fuck him in the face”.  Seriously, that happened. 

           

            Whether you like this amount of sex and violence or not (and honestly I was kind of surprised by the amount of sex in there) you have to admit that at least the whole zombie pandemic trope has been turned on its head right?  Wrong.  Although I am not well versed in the Crossed universe, from reading this issue it seems as though the idea for making the infected more mobile and vocal had more to do with the ability to be incredibly vulgar than to actually drive the story along.  It is this kind of “shock value writing” that drove me away from the likes of Mark Millar and most mainstream comics in general.  Writing something that is shocking should not take the place of good writing, and in too many places here it does just that. 

            That being said, there are still a few bright spots.  Hine, even in issue sixteen does a decent job of not only telling us how the plague started, but also how it spreads, giving us the basics so we know about the universe.  He doesn’t do a great job introducing all the characters, but the one that he does, Welles (who isn’t actually named until much later in the book) gets an extensive origin story.  The comic does move right along at a decent pace, but it was not a page-turner by any means.

4/10 – If over the top sex and violence for the sake of sex and violence is your thing, you will love this.  I would have liked a little more substance, or at least an explanation as to why things were happening.  The big orgy at the end of the book, for example, I get that the guy was getting back to a more primitive way of thinking when people just had sex for the sake of having sex, because he stated that openly, but what does that have to do with anything?

Art:

            Vienna’s art is decent.  It is no where near as expressive or effective in telling a story as Adlard’s (from last week’s Walking Dead review) but it does its job.  He does a decent job with the subject matter, especially the reactions and facial expressions that he gives to not only the crossed, but the normal people effected by them.  The art itself definitely feels plain though.  Maybe it is the lack of hatching or blacks throughout the art, or the generic look of the people, I’m not sure.  Everything is fairly technically precise though and his backgrounds are there in abundance, which is always a great sign. 

4/10 – The art is ok, but aside from the facial expressions, it lacks personality as a whole. 

Overall: 4/10 – I expected violence, hell just looking at covers for Avatar Comics in general I would expect that.  The amount of sex and the sensationalized “shock” storytelling was unexpected and unfortunate.  The inability to get me to care about any of the characters involved is also a shame.