Comic Review: Crossover #5

Crossover #5

Image Comics

Writer: Donny Cates

Art: Geoff Shaw, Dee Cunniffe & John J. Hill

Donny Cates and company back with more of the story that is basically my dream world scenario as a comic fan. Except, of course, for all the violence, prejudice, and impending danger of war against super-powered beings. Still… fun as hell to read and to create, from what I can perceive.

The Paybacks have just been given Valofax, the God of Blades. With Valofax they’re able to break into the wall around the dome and Ava would be with her parents. That is if Father Lowe hadn’t infiltrated a human bomb into the powerhouse complex and helped break out a conflict between humans from our world and beings from the Crossover. With all things escalating and Ellie taking more of a front row in the action, the next issue should be pretty wild.

This chapter was obviously the first part of this arc’s climax, so not much happened other than the setup for the next one. The first time I read it the pacing felt a bit off, but revisiting it, it reads better. On the first read, the issue was over before I noticed it. But, if you think about it, that’s how wars start, at one moment everything’s tense and then everything’s broken. So the issue reads better if you already have in mind the magnitude of what’s about to happen.

Shaw’s work continues as astonishing as before. I liked this chapter best because there’s a wider range of emotions and expressions to many of the characters so the artist had some real room to shine his abilities in that regard. Not only we got more expressions but those came with more detail in close-up panels, so, yeah, it was quite satisfying getting to know these characters better.

Cunniffe’s work also presents a wider range of abilities due to the multiple environments depicted in a short span of pages. The artist’s colors normally capture the realistic lighting in those environments, but often give room to more stylistic choices such as painting the characters and background in a faded blue while Ellie glows in the foreground whilst absorbing the knowledge and experiences of every bearer of Valofax.

Hill’s work shines as well in this issue with a lot of explosions, screams, and ominous voices from God of Blades. The letters are essential in this chapter to help bring forth the chaos that has just erupted in the story and help immerse the reader into the comic by overlapping some of the sound effects.

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