Crossing Midnight #4

Writer: Mike Carey
Pencils: Jim Fern
Inks: Mark Pennington
Colors: Jose Villarrubia
Letters: Todd Klein

Brother Sinister Head said something pretty funny prior to our crawl to the bar the other day. “I was walking around the Indie publisher section the other day and saw that Ellis, Carey, Brubaker and everybody have something or other out. Comics must pay shit if they have to write this much!” While it is plausible that this seeming landslide of work would have more to do with a desire to tell story after story – to relieve some of the pressure on their skulls mayhaps, or increase/maintain their street cred among the comic book literati – it does raise the question of pecuniary remuneration on the part of the publishers. That said, today we will consider Mike Carey's latest money-making scheme.

I jumped on board this comic more or less as soon as I heard about it; I've liked Carey's work in the past and getting in on the ground floor of a series is always fairly exciting. Since it was just starting up, I thought I'd wait to write a review until the first story arc had time to set something of a tone and acclimate the readers to this new world. So here we are on issue four and my feelings remain much the same as when I first started reading the book: mixed. Rather than address the series initially, my preference is an evaluation of this most recent issue with the hope that said commentary will go some distance towards explaining my feelings overall.

A rather tight issue, the various notions and sundry components that comprise this issue work quite well together. The character development is strong, with a focus on the twins' mother Miya throughout the majority of the 22 pages. Her fractured inner monologue is fascinating and a wonderful means of exploring this family that forms the heart of the narrative. The paneling and layout do yeoman's service in providing effective visual evidence of this. Outside of Miya's portion of the story, they, the paneling and layout that is, don't necessarily blow the roof off, but they certainly don't get in the way either. Separate from Miya their purpose is to provide the framework for the tale's progression. OK, mission accomplished on that one.

The art is fine and functional, something I've come to discover is a pretty common term in my critical repertoire. It serves the purpose of getting the story across, but doesn't exactly make the reader stand up and shout. I probably shouldn't complain or take too harsh a tack as I couldn't draw my way out of a box. Not that I hate it or anything, but it certainly isn't the engine powering the story, unlike McNiven's work on Civil War, which made that comic readable even at its most frustrating. I would suggest that many of the major images are rather reminiscent of film stills, though there remains a subtle something going on that bothers me in that can't remember a band name sort of way. The coloring doesn't exactly provide an assist, as there appears to be almost no shading with each object containing and presenting a rather flat looking hue; I'd argue that this is pretty damn disconcerting. Because of this it is perhaps easiest to say that the art is the cause of something of a disconnect between reader and comic, though it's hard to say that this is a bad thing given the book's focus and the fantastic elements employed.

I do have to commend two great images, primarily because of the subtlety employed. The first involves the scavengers that gathered to consume Miya's tattered soul. Sliced to pieces in the previous issue only to be reformed moments later, her physical appearance belies the fact that her soul has been “shredded,” as the newest character to the stable, Nidoru, describes it. The specific image that I, at least, responded to involves a memory panel being grabbed by clawed hands and torn from its place on the page. I just think this is a great way to not only reinforce the previous and subsequent panels as memories but also a great visual representation of what these Araburu are trying to do.

The other image takes place toward issue's end and involves Toshi. Her new master Aratsu uses one of his many swords to slice through her twice, cutting “away past and future.” The final unframed image on the page is of Toshi from mid-chest on up, tears streaming down her face. That alone is rather nicely done, but it's her eyes that jump out at me. The color is slightly different than in any of the other close-ups of her face and they appear to be without pupils. Maybe this doesn't represent a major change in character presentation and has solely to do with the tears, but there remains something striking about it, as though living solely in the moment without a past and future her eyes have taken on a more ephemeral, simultaneously lighter and cloudier appearance.

Insofar as Carey's textual contributions go, things are pretty shipshape. The dialogue is more or less spot on and though not much is explained about what in the hell is going on, characters are furthered and the reader continues to be drawn in. As with the art, subtlety seems to be the word of the day and, for now at least, it's working rather well. Textual representation, well that's got Todd Klein on it...probably 'nuff said. Moving away from the text alone, quite a bit takes place in the overall story, but going into it all is neither a necessary nor an easy task. Weird going-ons, strange figures with bizarre powers making deals with children and anyone who knows what's up is keeping pretty well mum: story of the story thus far.

I will say that this issue wasn't exactly my favorite thing ever upon first read-through. Dwelling on it since, it's grown on me quite a bit. I've come to appreciate J. H. Williams III's cover art as a great presentation of the issue. Miya as a cutout doll, Toshi only as a sketch and Nidoru ripping out of the middle of the page: it's a great issue-cover interchange. Similarly the first page took a couple glances before I came to appreciate its strength and beauty, as well as the tone it sets for the issue as a whole. I probably should have included that page in those little “great images” paragraphs, but eh, what can you do; it'd be like me actually giving a cover artist a shout out at the beginning of a review with the other contributors: not likely to happen anytime soon.

Digressions aside, it's the place in the series as a whole that makes this issue such fertile ground for thought. On the other hand, what with this being the fourth issue of a comic that has no connection to any other comic source material, it might be a bit unfair to judge it too harshly for relying on what has come before and the promise of the future. This is what causes me to state that my feelings are mixed on this comic overall and hesitate with my final ranking without exploring this a bit further.

Now, don't get me wrong, I like this comic quite a bit and will definitely be with it over the long haul barring some momentary relapse into insanity on my part or complete and nuclear letdown on Carey's. I can't, however, in good faith say that this is a great comic for the simple reason that I am not even sure what it is yet. The reader is still very much in the dark on most every major plot point with the introduction of most every new character somehow or other increasing the number of questions while offering a sense of direction and purpose to the story as a whole. In my book that's the mark of damn fine storytelling, but it doesn't resolve any of my questions as to what in the hell is going on. Really, I don't mind not knowing what's up – I'm pretty used to that frankly – and I certainly don't mind giving a series that I find quite interesting in its own right the time to find its way. Hell, The Sandman took, what, like eight issues before things really started rolling. As in the case of that particular cultural landmark, Crossing Midnight has all the potential in the world to tell a sprawling tale that manages to evoke a sense of the epic and the intimate from one issue to the next, and sometimes even both at once. Thing is, I'd like to think that I'd've reserved a showering of golden praise – um...ew; i feel dirty for having even written that and if you don't know what I'm talking about, you clearly don't hang out in the textbook aisle enough – or even acerbic criticism in The Sandman's early going until that first issue involving Death, which in my mind blew the doors off of what was already a damn fine series. Even as I write this, I can see where I think Crossing Midnight is headed and acknowledge the sheer potential it contains, but I also think that a certain critical distance might not be such a bad thing either.

Ranking: Starting as a Gimli, moving towards a Snake-eyes. Nothing quite like the product of hot ninja-dwarf unions.