March 2015 Comic Book Reviews

Criminal, Volume 1: Coward
Ed Brubaker
Image Comics
Street Date: 01.28
This April, Image Comics is rereleasing the Criminal serialization. There is nothing terribly special in this run, just new covers with some pages of old cover artwork. Criminal’s concept evolves by following separate characters within the same universe through individual story lines. The first volume, Coward, follows Leo and his failing attempt to break free from the world of crime. Orchestrated in true noir style, Leo has a reputation that’s going to be used to set him up. The true grittiness of Criminal comes from the traditionalism it holds within its genre, which is certainly something of an acquired taste. I personally found the entire volume to be dry and slow paced for its medium. Ed Brubaker’s characters still hold depth and dimension, though Leo’s flashbacks to his childhood help further develop his character flaws, including “the rules” he’s slowly beginning to break after a lifetime of obedience to them.  Character development and genre loyalty are the draws for the Criminal series. –Andrea Silva

Curse
Michael Moreci, Tim Daniel
Boom! Studios
Street: 01.13
Curse embraces some extremes in this four issue mini-series about Laney Griffin, a man determined to do anything to save his son from dying from terminal leukemia. Griffin plans to get the necessary money by playing bounty hunter and capturing whoever or whatever is murdering people in the woods, which, unbeknownst to the general population, is a werewolf. Michael Moreci (Roche Limit) and Tim Daniel (Enormous) on story, with Riley Rossmo (Drumhellar) and Colin Larimer (Harvest) on art, make for a top notch horror team that saves what could’ve been a total cliché and turns it into a haunting little book. There’s nothing particularly new to the concepts, and the end is basically a rehashed “Tale of Two Wolves,” but it’s still a striking book overall. There’s a shortage of good, current werewolf stories out there that aren’t gross teen romances, but luckily, horror fans can pick this one up to get at least a small sense of scary. I was engaged during all the lycanthropic torturing, family drama and police investigations, and though the pacing seemed a bit slow, it had a healthy amount of cathartic pay-off.  –Taylor Hoffman

Judge Dredd: City Limits Volume 1
Duane Scwierzinsky, Nelson Daniel
IDW Comics
Street: 11.25.14
Metro City One is yet again putting our favorite black-and-white lawman to the test. This time, an insider with knowledge of the Judges is tampering with the automated robots of the city. With these events in motion, the gritty world of Dredd lets the reader once again see what the extreme settings of a post-apocalyptic world can do. While this story is a little more cliché than some of the other Dredd scenarios, reading through the characters and seeing the odd sci-fi/mystical twists taken still keep you turning the pages as rapidly as you can. The art is staying with that same Sunday morning cartoon look, and the stark brown, grey and blue color palette helps get across the bleak message for most citizens. While the over-the-top violence is still present, the deeper, darker story is also diggable. This comic is a great comment on the social divide in our country, even if it is a bit extreme. –Thomas Winkley