It’s completely predictable but I guess it’s nowhere near as bad as it could have been. I read the Sinners and I think back to when Brubaker actually wrote real conversations. It’s like he uses Criminal‘s noir influences to excuse no one talking to each other, just at each other. This issue features nothing new,…

I’m not trying to be a jerk with the following question. Really, I’m not. Has Brubaker ever read Criminal? Because this arc, with Tracy Lawless being an honorable man among the riffraff, it really feels like Brubaker hasn’t read his comic before. It might explain why Criminal‘s quality is always so sporadic. This issue has…

Well, I figured out one major problem–besides the contrived plotting–Brubaker doesn’t have a protagonist this series. He did the first issue, because he hadn’t introduced his teen killers for God (an ex-Army Catholic priest is getting kids to kill criminals), but now he’s got nothing. The narration is awful this issue. It’s probably the worst…

Brubaker opens the issue with some terrible adjective use, so I started out ready to nitpick. Of course, he didn’t have to prove me right… but he went ahead and did so anyway. I really loathe these types of reviews, because I really do love Brubaker’s work. It’s just… fallen off since he’s gotten to…

I guess Brubaker thought Criminal was out of control too, because for the Sinners, he returns to his most solid protagonist–Tracy Lawless (from the second arc of the first series). For a while it works. We catch up with Tracy. In the year since the last story took place, he’s become a hitman with a…

Maybe I just put it out of my mind, like I didn’t want to believe Brubaker was capable of writing such a stupid reveal. I mean, I knew he was capable of stupid endings–Sleeper provided that one beyond a shadow of a doubt, but…. Really, Ed? Fight Club? That’s the best you could come up…

Okay, I’m mildly amused–back when I started reading Criminal again, I misremembered the first arc as this arc. Brubaker’s really running into some pacing issues here. What’s old hat in a film noir–around an eighty minute narrative–does not work in comic book form. Brubaker also doesn’t have enough exposition to keep the reader’s reading speed…

Ah, the five minute read. Nothing like the five minute read. For a five minute read, this comic isn’t bad. It’s got beautiful Sean Phillips art and it’s not a terrible all action issue. But it’s really light and really boring. Brubaker’s pacing here is for effect, everything is hurried to get the reader anxious.…

This arc of Criminal–I can’t remember if I’ve read it or not, I think I’ve read this issue because it seems familiar, but I’m not sure about the rest–is Brubaker’s first attempt at using a non-criminal as his protagonist. The guy used to be a criminal, but he’s since reformed. And he was never a…

I’d like to say Brubaker has some kind of magic where he’s able to escape all the traps of a guy writing female narration. But he doesn’t. It’s still a really good issue and Brubaker doesn’t make the frequent mistakes of female narration–he’s got a really good plot and he sticks to the events and…

What Brubaker does here–a sort of prequel to the second arc of Criminal and a concurrent, companion story to the previous issue–is even better than the previous issue… which I didn’t think Brubaker could do. Brubaker had a hard time working out the setting for Criminal in the first arc and wisely left it mostly…

Such a good issue…. Brubaker’s able to get more content in because he’s got an increased page count but also because he’s concentrating on doing a standalone story. It turns out it’s not exactly standalone, but the issue has a beginning, middle and end. There’s no messing around with being deceptive in the narrative, to…

Now I remember this story arc and why I didn’t have any bad memories of it–because it’s great. What Brubaker does in this arc is take a character who’d be on the periphery of another story–a bigger story–and examine him. Tracy’s a tough guy who’d be in one scene of a more traditional noir story…

It’s in film noir’s nature to have a double-cross, to have a secret inopportunely revealed and have it affect the protagonist’s plans, whether he be a good guy or a bad guy. So I’m not surprised Brubaker has both of those elements in this issue (maybe twice for each). But Criminal isn’t a film. It’s…

In some ways, this issue is the first regular one of the arc. Brubaker’s not introducing anything startling, he’s just telling a story–he’s got enough established already he has material to work through. The result is a very nice issue. The only negative thing I can think of to say about it is Phillips’s one…

Brubaker has a reasonably painless reference to the first arc here, letting that arc’s protagonist have a little cameo. Then people talk about him a bit. It’s problematic because Brubaker’s writing the character differently here, so it attracts more attention than it should. Otherwise, it’s all very solid, once again. I think my favorite part…