|
|
Criminal Vol. 3: The Dead and The Dying
|
|
List Price: $11.99
Our Price: $9.59
Your Save: $ 2.40 ( 20% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
|
Manufacturer: Marvel Comics
Average Customer Rating:  
|
|
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 741
EAN: 9780785132271
ISBN: 0785132279
Label: Marvel Comics
Manufacturer: Marvel Comics
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 104
Publication Date: 2008-08-06
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Studio: Marvel Comics
|
|
|
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews:
|
Winner of the Eisner Award for Best New Series, and Winner of the Harvey and Eisner Awards for Best Writer! The third collection of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' critically-acclaimed noir series follows a different twist of the knife this time -- telling three interlinking stories that take place during the early 1970s and swirl around the fate of a hard-luck Femme Fatale, a boxer and a thief and killer just home from Vietnam. Each story is told from a different narrative point-of-view, so we can see the varied secrets and hidden desires that ultimately lead to a lot of murder and mayhem. Collecting Criminal Volume 2 #1-3
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating:
Summary: Volume 3 is excellent prequel of Brubaker & Phillips' gritty crime series
Comment: This third trade paperback collects three 30-page issues of the consistently outstanding "Criminal" series featuring the same creative team of writer Ed Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips. This story arc was billed as Volume 2, #1-3 of the Marvel series and serves as a prequel to the previous plotline. Back in 1972, the Undertown hosts a previous generation of thugs and miscreants, the final "N" of its neon sign still burned out. The three issues tell an overlapping story from three separate perspectives. Issue 1 centers on the pugilist past of Gnarly, the current Undertown bartender. #2 features Teeg Lawless, father of Tracy, the protagonist of the second TPB. #3 centers on hard luck Danica Briggs, pictured on the cover and deeply involved with the previous two characters. Unlike most comic book plots, the gritty, rated-R realism herein requires no leaps of faith from the reader. This book met my high expectations and is very strongly recommended for both regular fans of comics and graphic novels as well as a much wider audience.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: A Criminal Review
Comment: I didn't find vol. 3 to be as engrossing as the first two volumes in the series. Partly, I think, because of the lack of a central protagonist. Brubaker opts to tell three different interconnected stories here rather than focusing on a central character. I would still recommend The Dead and the Dying if you are a fan of the series, crime fiction, noir, Ed Brubaker's writing, or all of the above. Criminal Vol. 1: Coward, and Criminal Vol. 2: Lawless, are some of the best fiction I've read in awhile. So if you are looking for an introduction to the series, start there.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The best
Comment: The first two volumes of the Criminal were hard boiled bonanza. In third we see a story telling bonanza. The third volume has one story, from three different acters. The story starts from the middle, proceeds to the end for one charaters, then it starts again from the middle, proceeds to the end for one other character and in the third story we see the beginning. This editing trick made the story great, sure the characters are complex, drwaing and coloring are superb, but the story telling and edinting is what made this one great for me. If you want the good stuff read Parker novels, if you want the best read Criminal.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Brubaker and Phillips Deliver Violent Noir
Comment: I'm a big Ed Brubaker fan. His comics have always carried a crime and noir feeling about them that strike a resonance within me. I know we must have read the same books growing up. Probably still like the same authors, if we compared notes.
I've read his work on CAPTAIN AMERICA and DAREDEVIL, and his work on GOTHAM CENTRAL (which is finally getting the hardcover treatment those books are due). I've thrilled to SLEEPER and the undercover cop motif he worked out in that run. Still don't know why that hasn't become a movie, but maybe it's in the works.
But I'm really wowed by his CRIMINAL books. The comic series comes out irregularly, when Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips have time to put the issues out. Timeliness is a big thing in comics these days, so they make sure they're ready to rock and roll before they start releasing them.
I've reviewed the previous two CRIMINAL graphic novels and found both of them to be great reads. Each graphic novel before has stood on its own, so readers new to the series don't have to read them in any particular order. Brubaker's world of criminals and hustlers gets bigger with each new volume, though, so it's interesting to watch it grow.
However, the earlier books have to be read in order. In this latest graphic novel, CRIMINAL: THE DEAD AND THE DYING, you can read any of the three issues in any order. In fact, I'd recommend going back after you've read it the first time and mixing up the reading order just to see what new information you get out of the story.
Each of the issues is set in the 1970s and concerns itself with a different character, but all of them have lives that overlap. The book immediately reminded me of PULP FICTION in the way that it ended almost the way it began.
The first issue, "Second Chance In Hell", revolves around Jake a young black boxer with ties to a criminal past. All his life he's been best friends with Sebastian Hyde, the heir to a criminal empire. Jake's father worked for Sebastian's father and the two boys, despite being racially separate, grew up together.
While Jake and Sebastian's relationship is undergoing a strain, Jake's old flame Danica walks back into the picture. Jake is supposed to be training for the fight of his career, supposed to be focused, but he can't help getting pulled back into the fire by Danica. Regular readers of CRIMINAL have met Jake before. He's the bartender at Undertown, a place where all the bad guys congregate and plan heists and murders. In this issue, we get to see his back story as well as how he got his limp.
"A Wolf Among Wolves" reveals the history of Teeg Lawless, the father of the two boys in CRIMINAL Volume 2. Readers are treated to a returning, disillusioned war vet who went into Vietnam with all kinds of problems to begin with. He came back with even more, including a gambling problem that puts him on the wrong side of a deadly bookie.
Brubaker deftly weaves this story in with the first tale, mixing characters and revealing more of what happened during the robbery that changed things forever between Jake and Sebastian. It also reveals how much Danica had to do with things.
I admit, I was seriously stoked over this issue when I saw how neatly Brubaker had plotted everything. I had questions left over from the previous issue, and some of them were answered, but not all.
"Female Of The Species" is Danica's story. Everything we thought we knew about her gets flipped on its head and turned inside out in this issue. We find out why she made the decision that broke Jake's heart and how she got seriously messed up herself after all of that. When I saw her on the page in the first couple of issues, I didn't like her. But after reading her story, I saw her in a new light. Just as Brubaker planned.
Throughout all these issues, Brubaker's ear for street dialogue and his eye for pacing and the neon-drenched shadows that cling to the alleys commands attention. Sean Phillips's artwork brings the rough world of these career criminals into sharp focus.
I hope the pair continues turning out these stories. They've currently got a new arc underway and I can't wait to see what happens. I just have to be patient as they take their time. That's hard, though, because nobody does bad as good as they do.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Best Criminal Yet?
Comment: This volume of Criminal is arguably the best yet. While the characters aren't as immediately likeable as Leo, or desperately engrossing like Tracy, they are perfectly crafted and shoved into a delightfully broken morality tale.
I agree word for word with S. Curly in his above review, except for the deduction of one star for the lack of essays. You can't judge this product on what it lacks, but on what it presents. The essays are an incentive to the monthly readers, but they're not Criminal. The book doesn't deserve to be penalized for not reprinting them. That's like penalizing a DVD release because it doesn't have a special feature that interviews the director's friends about their favorite things about the genre. You may catch such an interview on TV, but to decide the product is worth less because they're not included is flawed thinking.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
