Bigger Than Capes

Story: Donny Cates
Art: Geoff Shaw
Colours: Dee Cunniffe
Letters & Design: John J. Hill
Story Edits: Mark Waid
Publisher: Image

Last issue Ellie and Ryan were arrested by Christian Walker and Deena Pilgrim (y’know the protagonists from Powers). It was a neat way of introducing two well known indie comics characters to the series, but also served to show that some of the comic book characters who are loose in the real world are working alongside the authorities.

This issue picks up with our protagonists in custody, with Ryan tasked to speak with his father to try to gather information about his illegal activities and Ellie being interviewed by Walker and Pilgrim in the hopes of learning where she fits into everything.

Both Ryan and Ellie’s portions of this issue do plenty to keep the plot moving forward while expanding on the mystery of who it is that’s been killing comic book creators and their motivations. This mystery has been at the core of the second arc of Crossover and the creative team are all doing a great job to make it a really interesting mystery to unravel. Cates’ writing is really balanced between the characters, and splitting up Ellie and Ryan for this issue creates the opportunity for them to build on what we already know in different ways.

Equally, Geoff Shaw’s artwork continues to shine. He does a great job of melding together the comic book characters with the ‘real’ people and there’s no shortage of comic book characters knocking about in the background of panels. I’ve said it before, but Shaw always does a great job conveying emotion and it’s forever a highlight of his work. Equally, Dee Cunniffe’s colouring always perfectly fits the scene he’s setting, whether it’s recreating Powers or the gritty ‘real world’ pages.

Actually now that I’ve mentioned it, the whole creative team does a great job of creating a scene from Powers in the middle of this issue; writing, art, colouring, John J. Hill’s lettering, it all looks and feels like Powers, which is an impressive thing to behold.

As always, there’s some twists to this issue and I don’t want to give too much away. I’ll simply leave you with this: Crossover #9 reminded me what it is that I love about this series, immediately after reading it I wanted to recommend it to more people just so I have more people to talk about it with.