Okay, I’m entering this arc of Criminal enthusiastic. Brubaker either grew up on a Navy base or an Army base–amazing how little biographical information is available about him, even though I know he’s talked about it in at least two interviews–and this arc’s protagonist is an AWOL soldier out to avenge his brother. I don’t…

Turns out some of my major assumptions about the plot and its twists and turns were wrong. Unfortunately, just because the girl doesn’t double-cross the hero, Criminal doesn’t retroactively make intelligible sense. After spending almost five entire issues glamorizing crime–in the most negative way of course–Brubaker ends with a really pat “crime doesn’t pay” message.…

Finally, a good issue. Maybe if Brubaker had opened with this issue–with some structural editing, of course–I’d feel a little different about Criminal. For the first time, in issue four of five, he shows the reader something about the likely unreliable narrator instead of telling the reader all about him. As much as I hate…

Well, there certainly are a lot of developments here. There’s a super villain introduced and he’s, no shock, a psychotic. The girl seduces the brainiac protagonist, who’s spent the first part of the issue thinking he needs to think things through better. Oh, and the cute old man the protagonist looks after–he’s got alzheimer’s and…

I’m still not enthusiastic. Even though I don’t remember the specifics of the events, even though I’m sort of fresh reading it, I don’t really care at all. I remember it ends terribly so going through the issue, I’m finding myself concentrating on things besides the story. First and foremost, the artwork. Phillips is mostly…

I remember thinking about early seventies Springsteen the first time I read Criminal and I did again this time. Brubaker’s opening narration makes some pretty clear references to Springsteen and then it disappears. I don’t think it ever comes back, but it’s right there on the second page. I always get hung up on whether…