Journey to the strange, magical land of Colorado as our intrepid team of heroes searches for a way to shatter the dome and expose the truth behind The Event. It’s Image’s Crossover #4 by Donny Cates, Geoff Shaw, Dee Cunniffe and John J. Hill.
Zachary Jenkins: Once more into the fray, Dano?
Dan McMahon: Let’s cross our beams, Boss.
Mad World
ZJ: While we got the reveal in the last issue, this one properly introduces us to Madman as part of the cast. I’ve not yet gotten a chance to catch up with that series, but Madman’s appearance in this was a bit of a mixed bag for me. When Geoff Shaw explodes in a zany, fun, double page spread where Frank whips out his signature yo-yo to dispense some guards, I got excited. While Shaw is pretty far stylistically from the Kirby-inspired pop art of Mike Allred, he injects that sequence with the same joyful energy that makes Allred so charming. I’m almost willing to overlook Donny Cates dropping caption boxes in that spread that tell the reader just how cool this is. Unfortunately, Madman is mostly used for exposition here and could just be anyone else.
DM: I full-heartedly agree. Shaw’s style sings in that spread, which is just so wicked to look at. Fighting with a yo-yo has such an Allred flair to it that I think I am actually going to read Madman for the first time. That excitement of seeing the character is there, but when I stopped and thought about it, I couldn’t help but think about why it even matters. Other than the obnoxious text boxes telling me how cool it is, I don’t see how Madman is this big hero that I should be like jumping out of my seat for. It just doesn’t feel like the payoff I was hoping for. If it was like Spawn or actually the bait, which was Superman, I would be more willing to swallow the pill that this is meaningful. Madman is rad, but that’s sort of it.
ZJ: That’s the weird rub of this whole thing. We are four issues into this thing that built a head of steam through promising a massive crossover. It was supposed to harken to the comics of the ’90s, specifically the Image Revolution where it felt like anything could happen and anyone could show up. Not to talk ill about Madman, but he’s no Spawn; he’s not even a Shadowhawk. [Grote’s note: Oh snap!] What we have so far is Cates parodying Suicide Squad (a group who I’m not convinced has actually all had speaking lines), Madman and a very big talking sword. When you talk a big game, you better deliver, and so far Crossover hasn’t on the actual crossover front.
DM: The issue does end with Combo Man though, just a bunch of superheroes Frankensteined together. Jokes aside, if it at least had a story and weight to back up the lack of big crossover stuff, I’d be more willing to give it a pass. It is just trying to do too many things and can’t commit to one being done well.
In God’s Country
ZJ: Dan, we’ve both talked about how God’s Country is our favorite Cates & Shaw comic. It’s just enough of their signature “epic” style without diving into parody. It achieves this by having a resonating emotional core in a story about generational trauma and the pain of memory. So we should be happy that it’s smack dab in the middle of this crossover right?
DM: God’s Country is a must read. The emotional beats, the action and every piece of it fires on all cylinders from start to finish. Self-cannibalizing your best work in a big book centered on a sort of satire on the idea of crossover events just isn’t what I was looking for. I think Cates almost poking fun at himself with how he talks about his characters, as he did last issue, is something I like, but this just felt like cashing in. Which they literally do by dropping some pages from God’s Country right into the comic, which ends with an ad for the book. How’d you feel about that?
ZJ: I was a bit shocked by how brazen it was. Cates & Shaw just drop in an excerpt, with some updated coloring, of God’s Country to explain who this new character was. This comes after a big splash reveal that feels like a last page cliffhanger. Savvy comics readers would expect this to function as backmatter, and ending that section with an advertisement seems to hammer that home. So when the comic just picks back up and keeps going? Dan, I lost it.
We’ve talked about the AdvoCates Cult before; its existence is just something you have to accept when reading this book. If a creator wants to spend page space in a book they are financing to advertise their other work, I can’t blame them; comics isn’t exactly the most lucrative business for creators. However, when someone intentionally disrupts the narrative to run a piece of product placement? It feels crass and takes you out of the book. It almost makes you wonder if this whole thing isn’t an elaborate ploy to move some old trades out of a warehouse.
DM: It’s such a weird thing. Like if you don’t trust that the sword is a big enough icon to sell itself, why put it in at all? It’s as if they were worried not enough people would get it, so they’re just spoon feeding it to you. If it was another book doing this to help readers, I’d be into it for the sake of accessibility to the story. But here it’s just an ad for another book. It’s a weird loss of story for just ad space. It rubbed me the wrong way, and I have been actively hoping this sword showed up. Just feels cheap at the end of the day.
ZJ: I think Donny and Geoff have given us plenty of reasons to assume the most crass, commercial reason is the real one.
Livin’ On A Prayer
ZJ: The one piece of this story that’s still not clear to me is the role Pastor Lowe is playing. You might have thought it was just to add a dark background for Nick, but there’s something bigger at play. We get a scene in this issue where the our Baptist minister, drinking and swearing, rants and raves at a man in a makeshift superhero costume chained up in the basement of his compound. This is someone from “our world,” not a fictional character, and he’s being beaten with a bloody bat while Lowe speaks ominously about accelerating the schedule for some unknown plan. It’s foreshadowing a bigger role but not giving us any clue beyond hypocritical bigot.
DM: I am on record multiple times as saying that I love dark-and-gritty superhero content. This sort of breaks the rest of the issue for me. I cannot find a tone that goes across the board in this book. Does it want to be this commentary on superheroes and the comics industry, or does it want to take a look at how cool comics are with these easter eggs? Tonally it is so jarring for me to go from a yo-yo fight to a scene of sadistic torture like this. I am not saying any media has to pick one lane, but this needs to at least show me the road we are on. There is no motivation that we know of for the pastor other than being a bigot.
ZJ: It’s easily the most dissonant part of this series as a whole. As we have gotten deeper into these last couple of issues, El’s arc has gotten lighter, wackier and embraced the weirdness of this all much more. That’s in direct opposition with say, issue #1, where the overarching theme was the “oppression of superhero fans.” Even comparing Lowe’s torture with the goverment’s hilarious plan, which involves making their own Combo Man, I am not sure what this book wants me to feel. You can do a serious book about how the religious right persecutes pop culture or you can do a book making jokes about Amalgam comics, but you cannot possibly do both.
DM: It just feels like the book is splintered. You’ve got the pop culture pop-up piece, you’ve got El’s story, you’ve got this comics-fan oppression bit, and so many other things battling for the spotlight. It splinters the core of the book so much that I’m having a hard time figuring out what it even wants to be anymore.
ZJ: Crossover wants to be all things to all people. Most of all, it wants to be talked about, and at that goal, it’s succeeding.
Zachary Jenkins runs ComicsXF and is a co-host on the podcast “Battle of the Atom.” Shocking everyone, he has a full and vibrant life outside of all this.
