Cream of the Comics – 10/4/2006

Criminal #1
Written by Ed Brubaker, art by Sean Phillips

It’s tempting to pick out any number of the books coming out tomorrow (Vaughan on Dr. Strange, Wolfman on Nightwing, Incredible Hulk #99), but the book that you might not have heard of (that is, if you don’t read a lot of comics news) is also the one I’m looking forward to the most: Criminal, by Brubaker and Phillips.

We’ve talked about Brubaker a couple of times here before, referencing his current (and extremely well-executed) runs on Uncanny X-Men and Captain America, but the first time his work caught my attention, it was on the Wildstorm book Sleeper, his previous collaboration with Sean Phillips.

It was a brilliant story of subterfuge and spy games, with each issue being joyous mess of hell for the protagonist. It challenged the concepts of right and wrong; and the clever role of super-powers (in a world with super-powered individuals) was the icing on an already glorious cake, as things were regularly viewed through a different sort of lens, making every experience fresh and surprising, much like how he’s been handling Captain America.

Now, I realize that those titles all involved super-powers, and to a certain extent the spandex uniforms that go with them, and here is where Criminal differs. It’s a straight up crime book, with nothing tying into the super-hero universes that we know and love. And that’s not a bad thing – If this inspires him to such devious heights as he took us to on Sleeper, then this will be my favorite book to come out this year. Not to mention, Brubaker is reuniting with his former Sleeper co-conspirator, Sean Philips, who you may have recently seen in the Marvel Zombies title.

I guess I’ve done enough fanboyish gushing to tell you how I feel about this comic to make me feel like a chump if the book doesn’t turn out as good as I hyped it (I’m looking at you, Boys #1). But based on the glowing track record of these two creators, it’s really hard for me to believe that it will fail my expectations in the least.