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Saturday 12 January 2019

Criminal #1 Review (Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips)


Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips recently completed their five year exclusive deal with Image and - tremendous news for everyone - they’ve re-upped for another five! And what better way to start their second five years at Image than with a new arc of their signature series, Criminal, featuring their recurring character, Teeg Lawless! 

Teeg’s son Ricky rips off an old wrestler for his pop’s bail money - not realising who the man is or what he’s stolen. Now, to pay for this transgression, Teeg has to raise $25k in two weeks or his son’s dead. But for a perpetually broke lowlife like Teeg, where’s he gonna get that kinda cash so quick? 

Criminal #1 is about as flawless a comic as you can get. I can’t poke holes in the writing or the art. The characters are brilliant, the story is great fun and the mini-stories about the characters’ dark pasts are exciting and compelling. It’s Brubaker/Phillips at their finest, producing crime comics of the highest calibre, and showing why they’re not just one of the best creative teams working in comics today but one of the best of all time. 

Their first five years at Image produced The Fade Out, Kill or Be Killed and Criminal Volume 7; if this issue is anything to go by, we’ve got even more amazing stuff to come in the following years - and I can’t wait! Brubaker and Phillips absolutely kill it in this very welcome return. Criminal #1 is a must-read for fans of this genre and creative team.

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