Current Crime Comics

100 Bullets is a crime comic with a novel concept but it expands the concept to something much more epic, in fact, I don't think the original idea is part of the current story now.

I'd also recommend Stray Bullets, which is and isn't a crime comic, if I could only find the rest of the series after volume 2, it's out of print which pisses me off to no end.

Brubaker's Gotham Central.

Darwyn Cooke is starting a highly anticipated series based on Richard Stark's Parker novels pretty soon.

The Max Punisher run pretty much abandoned capes for all of Garth Ennis' run in exchange for hard-core crime stories.

Ennis's run is so uneven, it's like riding a roller coaster. Be warned about that one. I'll second Gotham Central.

What Rath said about Ennis' Max. Some are great, some are god-awful. Glad you like Scalped, it's a really solid, underrated little comic (that I need to catch up on, badly).

It's been so long since I've touched an issue of 100 Bullets that I have absolutely no idea what's going on, but I thought it sort of lost the plot a while back.

Ennis' pre-Max run tilted from hilarity to the grotesque, but once he hit Punisher Max, it was all business. The Slavers, Mother Russia, Barracuda, Up is Down and Black is White, Valley Forge, Valley Forge, Kitchen Irish, From First to Last - all gold. Not a weak link in there.

Scalped is one of the top 5 comics published today, crime or no. All praises to Jason Aaron. Also right up there in crime fic is Unknown Soldier, created by Joshua Dysart last year, a follow-up to Ennis' US-mini 10 years back. Set in Uganda, definitely adults only.

Punisher Max is the one that starts with him being offered to kill Bin Laden, right? Enough said.

Not to derail, but I'm surprised Dysart is still writing. That guy dropped off the radar after doing Violent Messiahs and Demon.

Well, it ended a month ago, for one thing. The final collection comes out in a month or two. I'm eagerly awaiting that. I have the penultimate TPB, unread, but I'm saving it to read with the last one.

I've been a pretty vocal fan of CRIMINAL around here. Casey, if you haven't already bought all the trades, you can actually get the singles at or below cover price in most cases. I was looking into that for a friend lately. They do have some great material in the back.

Brubaker's other current ICON book, INCOGNITO, is interesting stuff so far. It's about a former supervillain forced into a sort of witness protection program, and his past creeping back around him. Four issues out so far, as CRIMINAL is on a hiatus.

Another book that I really, really enjoyed this spring was GI JOE: COBRA. Yes, yes, GI JOE. Settle down. It's all about Chuckles, the undercover agent from the team. He's infiltrating an unknown criminal organization (they've reset the Joe universe to before anyone knows what Cobra is, exactly), and ends up as a hired gun, slowly working his way up the food chain. Mostly set in Europe. Some surprising violence, and a couple of treats for GI Joe nerds (that is, ME). The four-issue mini ended a couple of weeks ago. Recommended when/if they collect it. Christos Gage wrote this.

You're right, although DMZ is not a crime comic. It's still a great story. And it's a really angry book, from what I can tell.

Thanks for the heads-up, Gray. And yeah, Criminal is aces, as are the editorials written for each issue.

Not sure what your beef with that scene is, but I remember that conversation between Punisher and Microchip, and it represents the entire game-changing approach which Ennis brought to Max Punny. "Yes or fuck you? Fuck You."

And one more plug: Ennis' & Palmiotti's Back to Brooklyn, an early Scorsese-esque take on a button man who turns rat on the Family. The catch? His wife and son are in their clutches.

Because it's a stupid scene, number one, and number two, for all your talk about "game-changing", I seem to remember there being absolutely nothing game-changing about that arc except it had the Punisher killing people in more creative ways.

And yeah, I have the first two volumes of Criminal, and it's amazing. I need to get the rest.

Still have to disagree about that scene being so terrible, Rath. The offer to kill Bin Ladin may seem melodramatic; but in any case, it's moot. The offer is a red herring. The company has no interest in having the Punisher even try to capture or kill him. They're trying to convince Castle to join the home team, to train and lead the same wetworks teams we see appear later on in the arc, in Iraq and Afghanistan, Blackwater, etc. Because, in this Max universe, the two guys who know how to take care of shit are Frank Castle and Shield-less Nick Fury. And Fury's already in their pocket, to an extent. But they're dialing the wrong number. (Later, in Mother Russia, when these two guys team up, it is really something to see).

It's here that Ennis - who has always worn his literary references on his sleeve, whether it's McMurtry or McCarthy, shows that Castle's motivations evoke sentiments expressed in Ellroy. Ennis uses the Punisher as a tool to shine illuminate and condemn, from the ineffectual laws of the street to criminal foreign policy. He brings the Punisher a long way from the Chuck Dixon/Jim Lee Punisher of 20 years ago, where at one point the Punisher wished he could take his new machine gun to Congress to take care of the liberals.

Sounds like we'll agree to disagree on this one, Rath, but in any case but the praise for Max Punisher is pretty solid. Whether people get what Ennis is trying to say is another point; in any case, the themes expressed here are recurring themes throughout his work, whether it's Street of Glory, Dan Dare, or Preacher.

But hey, if for nothing else, get it for those awesome Tim Bradstreet covers. And Gregg Hurwitz picked up the title after Ennis, so at that point I recommend you stay clear.

Okay, since I didn't read beyond that arc and I think the next one, I might have to check it out again. I was reading it during a period when I was outgrowing Ennis and found his stuff repetitive and juvenile, for the most part. But if you describe it as a mature work, you and I have enough similar tastes that I'll take another crack at it.

The next arc, "Kitchen Irish" is kinda more in the Preacher tone, but out of all 10 volumes of his run I'd say only that and the "Barracuda" arc are done like that.

"The Slavers" is good shit though.

To be fair, he passes that job along to Batman.

A couple of terrific crime comics, OGNs actually - Capote in Kansas by Ande Parks and Chris Samnee. Focuses on Capote's research work leading up to the creation of In Cold Blood. Haunting.

And just republished - Joe Casey's Codeflesh. His decade-old collaboration with Charlie Adlard. Casey himself described it as Taxi Driver meets Spider-Man. Since the main character is a bounty hunter, some folks may think Midnight Run is a better choice for the former, but when you delve into the story and pick up on these twisted, torn characters, you can see the parallels between these protagonists and Scorsese's. The book itself is very interesting - a collection of indie comics published around the millennium, may seem rough for those used to seeing Adlard's work in Walking Dead, collected, with a new story.

I wasn't terrible impressed with Scars; some people were fond of it, but not one of Ellis' stronger efforts, 'cop on the edge' with a perfunctory attempt at addressing some societal issues. Only for Ellis completists or hard-core cop comic buyers, imo.