by Russell Burlingame
Criminal #2
The second issue of the new, ongoing volume of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips's great, creator-owned book Criminal is that rare, beautiful thing in mainstream American comic books: a self-contained story. A dark, sad and affecting tale, this issue follows the antics of Teeg Lawless (whose son was featured in a story of the previous volume), a recent returnee from Vietnam in 1972 who flees the unfamiliar world of home and family to search the bottom of a bottle for the oblivion war had spared him.
A longtime loser, Lawless comes back from the war, and not only his family have been waiting for him during his years of service. Teeg's adventures begin in a bar that's pretty familiar to regular readers of Criminal, where he's encouraged to seek his Big Score...which as any good reader of pulp and mystery fiction knows, is hardly ever as easy as it sounds.
The standalone issues are, as in every comic, a great jumping-on point, but Criminal is different than most, in the sense that every arc is a self-contained. Pick up this issue, and maybe a trade paperback (Loveless is my favorite), and give the sad, violent world of Criminal a try.
10 Questions About Criminal #2 with Ed Brubaker
Click here to check out the Q&A tied to this issue!
Preview Criminal #2
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Marvel.com
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Page last updated on April 13, 2008