Writers: Michael Avon Oeming and Ivan Brandon
Artist: Michael Avon Oeming
Publisher: Image
In some ways Cross Bronx is a strange title for a comic book but the more you think about it the more meanings it might have. Cross as in all the way across. Cross as in religious icon, Cross as in to offend. Cross as in to be angry. The Bronx with its mixed ethnicity and mythic/historical associations with working class folks, immigrants and street-crime is a rich and image loaded word. Of course there is also the literal interpretation, as the Cross Bronx expressway serves as a central location to the story.
With all that in mind, it seems then that Oeming and Brandon are writing an intelligent comic book for a thoughtful reader. In a way they are, but the story is wrapped up in crime, violence, religion and despair to such an extent that one could be forgiven for thinking it little more than pulp fiction. Even if it is just pulp fiction – it’s damned good.
The story kicks off with a graphically violent attack on a group of gang members who are partying very hard indeed. Oeming’s mixture of cartoonish art and graphic/adult scenes are executed with great skill and it is testament to this skill that the mood and characters are established almost as soon as they are seen.
The main character, Detective Rafael Aponte is an archetypal world weary cop and the opening scene becomes the case he just has to crack before he can let himself quit. Despite the near cliché of this character, Oeming and Brandon render him with enough pathos to make the reader really care about him and his situation. The other focal character is the mysterious killer – is she really the vengeful spirit of a damaged girl, has the girl’s mother witchy-looking got something to do with it or are other mysterious forces at work?
Aponte becomes obsessed with the case and he, along with his rather shifty partner, witness further executions and the violence appears to spiral out of control and beyond any reasonable limits before they eventually meet the killer face to face.
The ending, when it comes, resolves matters in a satisfying and believable way that reveals more about the characters involved without appearing to contradict their earlier actions. This, again, is a sign the writers are doing a good job and that despite the clichés and the genre splicing story, there are characters at the heart of the narrative that are essentially following their own arc through the story.
There is one rather annoying error in the story on page 6 of issue 1 where the cops arrive at the crime scene and describe the murder weapon as the only gun found. Unless something very odd has happened there were several guns depicted in previous frames – and the presence of fire-arms is consistent with the fact that the victims are known to be a criminal gang. It is a small thing perhaps and a failure of editing as much as story-telling, but was enough to eject me momentarily from the narrative.
That issue apart, Cross Bronx is a damned fine book both in looks and tone and underlines once again that a) comics are about more than superheroes and b) that there is more to Michael Avon Oeming than illustrating Powers.
John Davidson Despite working in IT for the last 20 years and collecting comics for even longer, he is married, has two young daughters and lives in Scotland. Ideally he spends his spare time reading and watching movies, but this is curtailed by the calls of child-rearing and part-time study, not to mention the 'call of the internet'.