Polite Dissent

In this final installment of my recap of CrossGen titles, I touch on two mini-series in the “sigil-verse”, and two non-sigil continuing stories. The remarks are very brief this time out.
Part 1 can be found here, part 2 here, and part 3 here.

Mark of Charon
This mini-series took place as an offshoot of the Negation series. It deals with Javi, a character from Negation who had been killed, but now was ressurected by Charon, the evil “god” of the negation universe. Javi was teamed with 4 super-powered beings who were ceated by Charon in his own attempt to bestow sigil-like powers. Together this team travels the negation universe, putting down rebellion, and eventually meeting up with Appolyon, Charon’s arch-nemesis. The art was fair, and the first several issues were good, full of good dramatic and ethical tensions. However, the last issue ruined it all. The ending just did not make sense, either from a character standpoint, or from the direction the story had been leading. Not recommended.

Chimera
This tale takes place in the far future, on a frigid ice planet. The main character has some special abilites that she is not even sure of (and a sigil, of course). She also has a giant robot left from an ancient civilization. Eventually, the all powerful Emperor sends some of his “children” (i.e. other super-powered beings) to retrieve her, and chaos results. The mini-series is quite good, if a bit stretched out — it would have been perfect as a 3 issue series, instead of 4. The art is good, if a bit to “good girl” style in some instances. A sequel to this series would be welcome.

El CazadorChuck Dixon writes a tale of pirates on the Spanish Main. And no sigils! A good series, with good art. A few minor editorial mistakes with the first issue (i.e. calling it a “holy sea” instead of “holy see”) suggest it was a bit rushed. The female lead character is a nice change. My only real quibble concerns the slow pacing, but that seems to be typical for CrossGen books.

Abadazad
Another good non-sigil book. This one starts in the real world, but switches over to Abadazad, a fairy world like Oz or Narnia. The characters have been believable, the art beautiful, and the scripting tight. In the running for the best CrossGen book ever.

Well, that’s it for my CrossGen recap. Looking back I realize I missed Solus, but let’s just say that not even George Perez’s art could make that anything other than CrossGen’s worst book. Bleah…