Comic Info
Comic Name: Crossover
Publisher: Image Comics
Writer: Donny Cate
Artist: Geoff Shaw
# of Issues: 6
Release Date: 2021
Crossover #3 Variant
Reprints Crossover #1-6 (November 2020-April 2021). An incursion has occurred in Denver. The world have comic books has merged into the natural world and the quarantined city has become the center of a battle. With the war on comic books raised, Ellipses “Ellie” Howell is crossing the lines by working in one of the few remaining comic book stores. When a little girl from the comic book world finds her way into Ellie’s comic book store, the comic book store is targeted by Orion “Ryan” Lowe at the orders of his father Reverend Lowe. Ellie and her boss Otto realize Ava is in danger and that she must return to Denver to protect her. A war is brewing and the heroes of comic books might be the heroes who can stop it.
Written by Donny Cate, Crossover Volume 1: Kids Love Chains is an Image Comics series. The comic features art by Geoff Shaw.
I love the idea of Crossover and was onboard pretty early on…but it also fell into my “purchased but not read” neverending unread pile. I finally started to wade into Crossover and found that while I liked the idea, some of the execution was a little rough.
The story has a lot going on. You have the “crossover event” and you have the whole world set-up. It tries to present it pretty quickly in the first issue, but it feels like it could and should be built up more to establish the world and the rules of the world…which would help establish the pro-comic book and anti-comic book world needed for the first issue. Here, it is all there, but it is slightly buried and underdeveloped.
Crossover #6 Variant
While you come for the idea of comic book characters crossing over with different companies, it feels like the comic underplays it to the max. The comic runs the risk of being a bit gratuitous by just throwing in random characters too often (like at the beginning of Crossover #6), but the comic unfortunately does feel gratuitous because it doesn’t incorporate them enough. Madman becomes a real player in the story, but appearances by other superheroes from Dark Horse and Image feel little more than forced appearances in this volume.
The art for the comic is good. The interesting blend of “comic book people” and real people is played well with the dot-matrix style of look for the characters. There is also the challenge of mixing different styles of characters in a world where nothing is “stylized” (aka the real world)…you get Savage Dragon interacting with characters from I Hate Fairyland…where the styles are radically different.
Crossover is almost there and more issues might help expand the themes and ideas of the series. Unfortunately for this collection by itself, it tries a bit too hard, and it misses the mark. I do want to like Crossover, and I will keep reading it, but it is a hard comic to recommend. Crossover 1: Kids Love Chains is followed by Crossover 2: The Ten Cent Plague.
