Review of Crossed (Volume 1)

This week I’m looking at the first story arc of Crossed, by Garth Ennis and art by Jacen Burrows, originally published by Avatar Press in a ten issue run (with an issue #0) in 2008, and collected in a trade paperback (Crossed Volume 1) in 2010.

Crossed goes beyond the typical apocalyptic fiction. It embraces the darkest most horrific part of human nature combining it with the viral zombie outbreak concept that appears in films like 28 Days Later. Like 28 Days Later the infection is passed through bodily fluids. Those infected only seek to inflict pain, both physical and psychological, and experience pleasure, typically of an extremely sadistic nature. Rape, murder, mutilation, cannibalism: all of these things, and more are part and parcel of the infected arsenal. But this isn’t simple horrific instinct. The Crossed do all these things with the willful knowledge that all they do is cruel, disgusting and evil. Unlike typical zombies, the Crossed are self aware. However this does not mean that they have self control or even the sense of self that they had before they became infected.

The story follows a small group of survivors trying to make their way to Alaska and cope with the bizarre terrifying world they now live in. It’s told with constant flashbacks showing how the narrator, named Patrick, meet the various individuals in his party, and how the group changed over the months since the outbreak started. The first issue, issue 0, is all flashback. Patrick relates his first night, the very first night of the infected. He’s eating at a diner when an infected comes in. There’s a tense moment where the infected stands, covered in blood, gawking at the cook and waitress. He’s finally told to “fuck off” by the cook, after the cook attempts, several times, to talk to the him. The infected grabs the cook and proceeds to bite his face off.

The panel before this moment is the first instance we get a decent look at the face of an infected, depicting the strange rash that runs down the center of the face from forehead to chin across the bridge of the nose, and across the eyes. This is the eponymous cross shaped rash that gives the comics it’s title. It’s an effective identifier for the infected, making it easy to pick them out on a page or in a panel at a glance. Not that this is ever necessary, as most panels with the infected on them give a clear indication of who they are by their positioning as the tormentor in the scenes.

After the infected bites off the cook’s face all hell breaks lose. A cop car crashes into the diner, ejecting the infected police officer who was driving. An explosion occurs engulfing other infected and uninfected. Our narrator staggers out into the street where he witnesses more insanity. Soon the cook, now infected due to the saliva of the original Crossed, is stabbing and raping nearby innocents, spitting vile epitaphs while he does.

These extreme moments in issue 0 pale in comparison of what’s to come in later issues. The survivors trying to understand why. Their coping mechanism is simply to focus on survival, watching the infected from a distance, trying to predict where they might go next or what they might do. For a large part of the early issues the Crossed only seemed interested doing whatever horrible things they are able to do immediately. The survivors, after encountering another survivor, discover that when there are no uninfected around the Crossed will inflict their horrors on each other. The infected victims laughing and groaning with pleasure while the others tear and mutilate them.

I could go on and on about the horrors that Ennis and Burrows bring to the page. But I’ll give one of the most telling examples of the nihilism that exists in this world: The survivors come across a teacher who has managed to keep a small group of young five and six year olds alive. After she kills one of the group(mistaking them for an infected initially) she invites them to stay with her small group for a short period. The survivors see what the teacher has accomplished but convince her that she’s likely to be discovered by the infected eventually, primarily due to her hide-out being in the center of the city. They opt to kill the kids, shooting them in their sleep. And as horrific as that moment is, it makes absolute sense to the reader, concluding that the survivors are right, the fate of the children in the hands of the Crossed is bad enough that killing them in their sleep seems like the best option.

While Garth Ennis is known for creating intentionally offensive works, Crossed is darker than any of his other works. The art by Jacen Burrows is sharp, and graphic. He doesn’t give a dark moody portrayal of the world, but a fairly realistic one. The plot is straightforward, the party dynamics is the primary focus, as well as the struggle for survival. The ultimate goal of the survivors is to go to Alaska, where the low population would likely mean very few Crossed. Towards the end of the story the survivors discover a group of Crossed that are able to show self restraint, using tactics and planning to stalk and hunt their victims, which is a major turnaround from the opportunistic Crossed earlier in the story.

Crossed is not an easy comic to read. The world behind the story is so bleak that there’s nothing for the reader to grasp and be hopeful for. The artwork is gorgeous in a horrifying way. The dialogue and plotting feels genuine. It’s not terrible by any means, but I can’t recommend this comic to any but the most die-hard fan of zombies/post-apocalyptic fiction. The story, world and situation is just too nihilistic, and worst of all, feels like it could be genuine. Of all the worst things we see in the real world, a world like the one depicted in Crossed, while fantastical doesn’t really seem outside the realm of possibility.