Criminal, Vol. 2: Lawless

Second in the Criminal series of hardboiled graphic novels, and quite good. This is the one that sets the formalist structure for the series, by emphasizing how all the stories take place in a shared city: a dank, always-rainy, claustrophobia-inducing spin on the comics tradition of the shared universe. A loose tie to the first book provides the DNA for the central character, an AWOL soldier.

Lawless tells the story of Tracy Lawless, a former criminal turned United States soldier. Upon hearing of his little brother's death, Ricky joins up with his brother's old gang in an effort to bring some justice to his killer.

Coming off some groundbreaking material with [b:Sleeper: Season One|6700070|Sleeper Season One|Ed Brubaker|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327953182s/6700070.jpg|16355928] and [b:Incognito, Volume 1|6584405|Incognito, Volume 1 (Incognito, #1)|Ed Brubaker|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1259044050s/6584405.jpg|6777898], I've decided to continue my recent Brubaker obsession with Vol. 2 of the Criminal series. I certainly liked this enough as in my opinion, it's on par with Volume 1. As always, the artwork is show more stellar and Brubaker's writing is excellent. Lots of misdirection here complete with a conclusion that makes sense and left me satisfied.

There's a great foreword written by Frank Miller here which sets up the story nicely. Getting recognized by one of the people responsible for the resurgence of the medium is certainly top-notch praise. It's certainly well deserved. Brubaker has opened me up to a whole new genre of graphic novels I hadn't realized existed. show less

http://lampbane.livejournal.com/626294.html

"From what I've seen so far, Criminal seems to focus on a group of criminals who are criminals partly because that's what their parents were, and that's how the characters are connected to each other. I could be wrong; my sample size is only two books so far. Volume 1 is about a pickpocket who's very good at not going to jail because he knows when to run away; Volume 2 is about a soldier who returns home after his brother's death to find out who in his brother's gang was responsible. The stories follow different paths, but some of the same general ideas and themes are there, like the need to stay hidden, the possibility of being double-crossed, and the tough criminal woman who can take care of show more herself, except when it's convenient to the plot that she can't/won't. Oh, and she has sex with the main character. That's not a spoiler, was it? I'm not really outraged, it's pretty much a staple of the hard-boiled genre, but you would hope that we could at least give a women a little more to do before we throw them into bed." show less

Tracy Lawless finds out his little brother Ricky was killed, and breaks out of military prison seeking vengeance. Tracy feels badly because he was not much of a role model for his brother, driving around his criminal father while his mother was dying, attended by young Ricky. Tracy manages to break in with his brother's gang and girlfriend, while learning the truth about what happened and why.

The artwork and pulp storytelling are really quite incredible...

i dropped the series after this. im sure this appeals to a lot of people and its like "pulp excellence" or something but it just kind of feels too obvious, too boring, too whatever. disappointed