REVIEW: Criminal-Coward

Crime: Coward

By Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

First published in 2007

Crime: Coward

·         The comic dives into the crime genre, a genre that was a major contributor to the Comics Code Authority back in the 1960’s which created censorship in comics due to the media being called as the source of corruption in America during the time.

·         As this comic was published in 2007, several years before the Comics Code Authority was debunked and no longer prevalent in Comics censorship, this being allowed to be published by Marvel comics is noted of the CCA’s dropping authority to comics.

·         This tale is somewhat like a noire story, only from the perspective of a criminal as opposed to a private eye or a cop.

·         Like a Noire story, the major part of the plot centered on contraband, heists, mystery murder and a woman who is nothing but trouble. However, this is centered on the criminal element.

·         Leo, the protagonist, comes from a crime family. As this is the first in the Crime series, it is not made prevalent that the stories told later are intertwined with the concept and that they all happen to hang out in the same speakeasy. He only takes jobs he knows he can succeed in.

·         Close to everyone dies in the cast by the end: including the two corrupt cops, the single mother, the grandmother, the father of Leo, the thugs, and Leo himself. Only an acquaintance of Leo, a black woman who is also of a crime family and the mother’s daughter survive by the end.

·         They interplay the story with clippings of Frank Kafka, which serves as a story within a story. Incidentally, the plot elements for the detective in Kafka match with the ‘real’ situations of Leo as the plot moves along.

·         It is not clear to whether the cops set up Leo or were just incompetent at the heist by the end, even with the same goal being that they take the contraband to the drug lord anyway.

·         Child prostitution and child rape are noted in the plot, even when they are not acted on let alone shown thank goodness.

·         Though the narration is supposed to be focused on Leo, there are moments where Leo as the narrator doesn’t make sense as with the experiences with the single mother and the cops being shown regardless of Leo’s presence.

·         It is left unclear by the end of the comic if Leo survived however.

·         Overall, I thought that “Criminal” was a good read though somewhat bleak by the end. Given that this is a noire story that is supposed to be the case. It being published during the dying CCA’s Authority over comics shows that censorship in comics was being drowned by the desensitization that people are now experiencing as opposed to comics years ago.

Bibliography

Brubaker, Ed, Sean Phillips, and Tom Fontana. Coward. New York: Marvel, 2007. Print.