| Title | : | Criminal, Vol. 2: Lawless |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0785128166 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780785128168 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 128 |
| Publication | : | First published December 1, 2007 |
| Awards | : | Gran Guinigi Best comic series (2008) |
Criminal, Vol. 2: Lawless Reviews
-
Fast cars, dangerous women, bullets flying, big stashes of illicit money, revenge, murder, betrayal, rage, passion - an inescapable cycle of violence that Tracy Lawless has inherited from his small-time robber father, a world he thought he left behind two decades ago when he was forced to join the army or go to prison, a heritage that has just claimed the life of his younger brother Ricky in a heist gone wrong. Now, Tracy Lawless is going AWOL from his special-op unit and heading back home, hell bent on getting the guys who killed his brother. The army has taught Tracy how to kill at a professional level, but it was unable to make him follow orders or to control his explosive temper. Tracy Lawless (appropriate name, innit?) makes his own laws, and the result is not a pretty picture. It’s dark, it’s hopeless, it’s the second episode of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips series Criminal .
For the first one, Coward the authors received to well-deserved Eisner Awards. The present storyline, a mostly stand-alone plot set in the same city, maintains the same high standards of careful characterization, suspenseful developments and stark, edgy artwork. I find the term “graphic novel” much more appropriate than comic book. The classic pulp story takes precedence over the cheap thrills or flashy graphics that many readers associate with the Marvel or DC universes. There are no superheroes to save the day in this rundown city, only people like Tracy Lawless who carve a bloody path through the criminal underworld.
The merit of Brubaker comes mostly from the layered personality of his main character, who is not a simple killing machine, but a complex and troubled individual, struggling with feelings of guilt over the way he mistreated and abandoned his younger brother, with resentments over the brutal upbringing he received from his father, with rage and insubordination in his military deployments in Bosnia and Iraq. Numerous flashbbacks are used to fill in the gaps in Tracy Lawless’ background. A risque affair with the former girlfriend of his dead brother complicate his revenge plans even further, as does his careless attack on the goons of a local Mob boss. There’s plenty action and plenty surprises in this five issue album to satisfy the most exigent fan of noir and pulp stories.
An added incentive to check this out can be found in the message boards at the end of each issue, where the authors use the letters and comments space to explain more about the sources of inspiration and about the status of the genre today. Books, movies, similar graphic novels are mentioned and analyzed in very educational essays and suggestions of further reading. As the best example, I have the glowing reference Brubaker makes about “The Name of the Game is Death”, a book I read and liked only a couple of weeks ago.
Good stuff! I will continue with the series. -
Tracy Lawless, the son of brutal criminal Teeg Lawless, and brother of Ricky, escaped the streets to become a soldier in Bosnia and Iraq. He returned to the states to discover that his brother was left dead in an alley; to determine what happened, who was at fault, he infiltrates Ricky’s gang and even develops a relationship with one of its members, Mallory, in the process of becoming a driver for one of its heists.
I thought this was a good but somewhat weaker volume when I first read it, but on second read I liked it better than I had expected. I like it for the emotional resonances for Tracy to his complicated family, to Mallory, and some links to the rest of the series. One of the short vignettes in the volume reveals that Tracy, at a very young age, after his mother died, was enlisted as a driver on the road with his father, primarily knocking off gas stations. That Tracy returns to the criminal life as a driver is a nice touch. It’s also a nice touch that Brubaker and Phillips come back to this growing up story as the basis for the final volume.
It isn’t particularly original, but that’s not the concern for this love letter to crime novels and movies and (especially) comics. It is just so good, from Phillips's dark art--an homage to and update of pulpy crime comics--to the dialogue and the deep exploration of character and family even in a violent--criminal--setting. -
Tracy Lawless is on the hunt for his brother’s killer. But his brother, Rick, was mixed up with some ne’er do wells who are planning a Christmas heist. Tracy’s got to infiltrate the group and figure out who offed his little brother - and make them pay!
Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ Criminal is my favourite title from among their many collaborations (Sleeper, Incognito, Fatale) but I think this second volume is the least in the series. It’s definitely hard-boiled noir, kind of like a more realistic version of Frank Miller’s hyper-stylised Sin City, but the story isn’t as gripping.
Tracy’s hunt for his brother’s killer feels like a subplot instead of the main, and his search is very slow and unfocused. He gets into his brother’s old gang and then basically goes along with their plans. His “search” doesn’t feel in the least bit urgent and it’s almost surprising when he does discover his brother’s killer at the end. Compare it to Sin City: The Hard Goodbye where Marv is relentlessly killing his way to the truth, and it’s like Tracy barely has any drive at all!
Meanwhile, Tracy’s just going with the gang’s plan, a storyline which isn’t all that great to read. Sure there’s a car chase here, knocking over an ATM there, sleeping with the femme fatale, but it seems rote and it’s not a whole lot for a full-length story. It doesn’t help that the characters feel like cliches and Tracy himself, despite the numerous flashbacks to a troubled youth, isn’t that interesting a protagonist. Brubaker tries though, making him this tough guy who also occasionally does some kinda good things, eg. killing bad guys. Like a lot of Criminal’s cast, Tracy’s a little bit of good and bad so there’s a frisson of unpredictability to all of his actions.
I’m always impressed with the ease with which Brubaker’s created the Criminal world. In just a few pages the Undertow bar feels very lived in, Brubaker focusing on a child waitress who has the run of the bar to draw us into the atmosphere of the place. That authorial confidence and originality, along with Sean Phillips’ ink-heavy artwork, is why the series is so well-regarded. And Phillips’ realistic art style is certainly good in this one. The snowy Christmas backdrop mixes with the noir for a very moody setting which is perfect for the book.
Lawless isn’t a terrible comic by any stretch but for a revenge story it’s surprisingly slow and plodding, and doesn’t grab you like other Criminal books do. I did like that the ending is counter-intuitive to the standard revenge arc, which usually ends with the killer getting theirs, but you can see the twist coming after the childhood flashbacks start coming thick and fast towards the end, asking the reader to wonder about Rick’s character, who is largely unknown for much of the book - was he a good guy or a bad guy and, if the latter, do you want him to be avenged?
The Criminal books are great because Brubaker spins some great stories with the most unpleasant cast, and the series as a whole is definitely worth checking out. It’s especially a good time now as it’s being republished by Image after being out of print for a while. Lawless though ain’t flawless. -
I'm very excited about Ed Brubaker's Criminal series, so I was excited to quickly jump into the second installment, Lawless. Think of this series as a more grounded, realistic version of Sin City, where Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips tell a set of loosely interconnected noir tales that all center around the fictional Central City, the Undertow Bar, and the unfortunate losers that are stuck in this place.
This new installment stars Tracy Lawless, a soldier who goes AWOL from his unit in the Middle East, after getting the news that his little brother has been murdered. He travels back home to Center City to find the person responsible and make it right.
This book was a great follow-up to the first volume and I began to see how the different stories would relate to one another. And this one had an even more morose atmosphere due to the constant snowing, and that mood provided an interesting contrast to the fact that it's Christmas in the story. Seems like Christmas is never merry in Center City. Although dead, Tracy's brother Ricky becomes an ever-present character because while Tracy is on the hunt for vengeance, he's also coming to terms with the regrets and missed opportunities that he feels with his relationship to his lost brother. The book has a slightly different feel than the first volume but it definitely exists not only in the same physical place, but also in the same thematic universe as well. And plus, any book that has a pistol packing nun should automatically earn it at least three stars!
-
God help me. I think I like Criminal more than I like Sin City. And I fucking love Sin City....
-
Tracy Lawless breaks out of military prison once discovering his little brother was murdered during his incarceration. Now he's going to infiltrate Ricky's gang to find out what happened to him.
Not the strongest of Brubaker / Phillips collaborations. Once Tracy gets in the gang he just cools his heels and goes on heists with them and kind of forgets about Ricky except for some cliched flashbacks. The story just meanders until the last issue where we get a rushed version of what happened to Ricky because Brubaker has other plans for Tracy and his soldiering skills. -
Lawless tells the story of Tracy Lawless, a former criminal turned United States soldier. Upon hearing of his little brother's death, Ricky joins up with his brother's old gang in an effort to bring some justice to his killer.
Coming off some groundbreaking material with
Sleeper: Season One and
Incognito, Volume 1, I've decided to continue my recent Brubaker obsession with Vol. 2 of the Criminal series. I certainly liked this enough as in my opinion, it's on par with Volume 1. As always, the artwork is stellar and Brubaker's writing is excellent. Lots of misdirection here complete with a conclusion that makes sense and left me satisfied.
There's a great foreword written by Frank Miller here which sets up the story nicely. Getting recognized by one of the people responsible for the resurgence of the medium is certainly top-notch praise. It's certainly well deserved. Brubaker has opened me up to a whole new genre of graphic novels I hadn't realized existed. -
The notion that comics are just for kids has been pretty well discredited these days, but if someone ever tried that line on me, I’d probably use Ed Brubaker’s Criminal series for my rebuttal. Not because of the language, violence and nudity it contains, but because they really are top notch hard boiled stories. This is crime fiction enhanced by art, not a funny book with guys drawn with trench coats and guns to make it look like crime fiction.
Each volume has its own self-contained story. In this one, Tracy Lawless got busted right after becoming an adult and took a deal to join the army instead of going to prison. However, he always feels guilty for leaving his younger brother Ricky behind with their abusive lowlife criminal father. When Tracy gets word that Ricky was murdered, he returns home under a false identity to hook up with his brother’s crew of thieves to find out who killed him and get his revenge.
Brubaker is one of the most consistently solid writers in comics, and the artwork by Sean Phillips creates a brooding atmosphere of a seedy underworld. The obvious comparison would be to Frank Miller’s Sin City series, but this is a much more grounded and realistic series than that one. The story goes off in several unexpected directions and Tracy is a great anti-hero character.
Good fun for fans of old school crime fiction. -
Not as good as volume one, but volume one was special. I could say the story is 3stars but I always add at least a star when you've got Phillips drawing like this.
It is a continuation from vol 1 but some different characters and an unrelated story. It's nice that it all fits into the same city and I can see (hopefully) further down the line in the second deluxe book that they all come together as one story. -
A solid continuation of the stories begun in the...um...I guess we can call it 'Criminalverse'?
Tracy Lawless is a career military man who returns home after many years upon receiving some unwelcome news about the death of his younger brother. Things go just about as you'd expect, and the bodies pile up as Tracy learns what really went down and also comes to a reckoning with the Lawless legacy that made him and his dead brother who and what they are. -
A superb five-chapter entry in the Criminal saga. Great writing and artwork, and special recognition to colorist Val Staples whose subdued palettes and shadows really bring the dark and grimy settings to life.
-
Well this was a lot better than the first for me. Maybe because of the ending or maybe because I like Tracy a lot more. Either way let's get into it!
Tracy Lawless is a conflicted character. His life is actually pretty sad. You see glimpses into his childhood with his brother Ricky and his father. The life of a criminal and how he wound up the way he did. Flash forward and you're in present time, and Ricky, his brother, is dead. Now it's Tracy turn to go around his old town to find out what happened.
When Tracy joins the crew, the one Ricky was apart of, it becomes so interesting for me. I want to know about each character. Want to know what they do. All the ins and outs of their schemes and how the fuck they got away with it so long. I was more into Tracy and how he ran his life than finding out what happened to Ricky.
The art is still top notch and very much worth checking out for that alone. I recommend Criminal Volume 2 even more than 1 and so far the best part of these is you can read each separate as they have nothing to do with each other. Check this series out! -
So... Criminal is more of a serialized story wherein each arc stands on its own, yet there are elements which are connected with the other chapters. The modern noir elements are there, ideal for this heist story.
This is the story of Tracy Lawless and his ill-fated revenge on the death of his brother Rick. He knows who to kill, who to seek help and what exactly he needs to do. What he does not know is if his brother deserved to be avenged. The answer is scattered in bits throughout the story, saving it for a full reveal at the end. The story is predictable though, but it is not the plot that shines here, it is Tracy's birth as a true Lawless.
I am starting to love the series! -
A hardcore modern Noir story that read like Richard Stark's Parker novel series. Heist stories are rarely as well done as Brubaker wrote this story.You can see Brubaker have read Richard Stark books.Tracy Lawless is a great tough,noir hero.
One of the best crime stories in comics if not the best. To me Criminal is easily his best work in his career. When i read the writing, the dialogue i think of the best noir novels. Often this genre in comics are more action, very shallow when it comes to characters. This story writing of characters was literary almost like a great noir novel.
I have after this arc,story read the second Tracy Lawless story and Brubaker must write another story about Lawless in the near future. Oh how i wish Brubaker wrote Parker graphic novel adaptation..... -
Τέλη Σεπτεμβρίου διάβασα τον πρώτο τόμο της σειράς, με τον τίτλο "Coward", ο οποίος με ξετρέλανε με την πλοκή, την μαυρίλα και το σχέδιο του. Του έβαλα πέντε αστεράκια δίχως δεύτερη σκέψη. Ε, δεν μπορούσα να κρατηθώ περισσότερο μακριά από το σκοτεινό και βρόμικο κόσμο που δημιούργησαν οι Brubaker και Phillips, έτσι αποφάσισα να διαβάσω επιτέλους τον δεύτερο τόμο που περίμενε τόσο καιρό υπομονετικά. Και, φίλε, πόσο τον ευχαριστήθηκα και αυτόν!
Λοιπόν, ο Tracy Lawless γυρίζει στην πόλη του, μετά από πολλά χρόνια. Ήταν στον στρατό, πολέμησε σε Βοσνία και Ιράκ, είδε και έκανε φριχτά πράγματα... Τώρα έμαθε ότι ο μικρός του αδερφός δολοφονήθηκε. Νιώθει υπεύθυνος για το χάλι στο οποίο κατάντησε ο αδερφός του: Ένας σκληρός εγκληματίας, ίδιος με τον αυταρχικό και βίαιο πατέρα τους. Θέλοντας κατά κάποιο τρόπο να εξιλεωθεί, προσπαθεί να βρει τον δολοφόνο του. Να είναι, άραγε, κάποιος από την συμμορία ληστών στην οποία ήταν μέλος ο αδερφός του; Ο Tracy θα μπλέξει σε μια περίπλοκη ιστορία, όπου πολλά πράγματα δεν είναι όπως φαίνονται. Όμως μιλάμε για έναν πρώην στρατιωτικό, με πολλή οργή μέσα του...
Όπως και στον πρώτο τόμο, έτσι και εδώ έχουμε έναν αντιήρωα στον πρωταγωνιστικό ρόλο, που είναι όμως τόσο εξαιρετικά σκιαγραφημένος και με βάθος, με τόσα προβλήματα στην ζωή του, που κάλλιστα μπορείς να τον συμπαθήσεις και να κατανοήσεις τις πράξεις του. Όσον αφορά την ιστορία, είναι εξαιρετικά καλογραμμένη, με μυστήριο, δράση, μπόλικη βία και αρκετές εκπλήξεις. Ο όλος κόσμος του εγκλήματος -ο υπόκοσμος δηλαδή-, είναι εξαιρετικά σκιαγραφημένος. Το σχέδιο είναι τρομερό, η αποτύπωση των προσώπων και των κινήσεων των χαρακτήρων, των δρόμων και των διαφόρων κτιρίων, άκρως ρεαλιστική, με τα χρώματα να κάνουν την ατμόσφαιρα ακόμα πιο σκοτεινή.
Και αυτός ο τόμος έχει όλο το πακέτο που αποζητά κάθε φανατικός οπαδός των σκληρών νουάρ ιστοριών: Πολύ δυνατή και άκρως καλογραμμένη ιστορία, γεμάτη βία και εκπλήξεις, εξαιρετικά σκιαγραφημένους χαρακτήρες, τρομερό σχέδιο και πιο-νουάρ-πεθαίνεις ατμόσφαιρα. Έχω όλους τους τόμους των σειρών Fatale και The Fade Out, όμως μόνο έναν ακόμα της σειράς Criminal. Ελπίζω να βρω άμεσα και τους υπόλοιπους. -
A hard-boiled, gritty, noir story about methodical and ruthless revenge – sign me up.
What’s it about?
Tracy lawless returns home—after an extended leave of absence in the military—to investigate his brother’s murder. In search of the truth, he decides to go undercover and infiltrate his late brother Ricky’s gang, signing up to be a part of their latest heist.
However, things prove complicated as Tracy must navigate the dangers of his nefarious new crew as well as evade detection from another criminal enterprise who seek to hunt him down for money he stole (to finance his new identity—forged documents ain’t cheap).
Ultimately, Tracy must come to terms with the fact that a lot has changed over the last 15 years and Ricky may not be the man he thought he was.
Who is this Tracy guy?
Whilst not exactly the best conversationalist, he’s a good friend to have if you plan on getting into a gunfight. He’s as morally ambiguous as they come, whilst not an outright “bad” guy, he won’t hesitate to throw you from a roof if it suits him. So yeah, best to not get on his bad side.
Painful flashbacks to his childhood serve to humanize him and underscore the differences between the brothers, even as children—Ricky seeking to emulate their selfish crook of a father and Tracy searching for a way out. After rejecting his father’s way of life and following a straight path, it’s interesting to see how easily Tracy falls back into the criminality he was brought up in.
[image error] -
This second story is set around the same time as the previous Vol, however a completely different cast. Tracy has returned from prison and is seeking revenge for his baby brothers death. Joins a crew, follows leads to find the killer. Intriguing to a degree but I found Vol 1 did flow alot better. Artwork is great, I love how this was mainly set ay nightime, and Phillips did a great job of depciting that.
-
Brilliant still. Was a bit hard to pick up at first, but the story is so good and so well-written it just dragged me in by the second chapter. Brubaker is such a great writer! And the artwork is beautiful and atmospheric, even if not Phillips's best work. All in all, a great read. Highly recommended series.
-
Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips are the masters of noir. These pages drip with atmosphere, and the storytelling is spot on perfect.
Tracy Lawless returns from the military seeking to find out who killed his younger brother. Through flashbacks, we see the life they had growing up, a life he escaped by joining up. But family ties draw him back, and the question is: how far will he go to find the truth?
Structurally, this book is more complex than the first Criminal volume (it's probably just me, but I hear Fiona Apple singing every time I see that title.) Brubaker likes to throw us into the action, and then use flashbacks to show how we got there. And there are moments of foreshadowing, but you won't recognize them until you hit the end and realize that everything was leading to that one moment.
The individual volumes of Criminal are meant to stand alone, although we do get a brief glimpse of at least one character's life since volume 1. One of the best crime/mystery comics ever! Highly recommended! -
I must say that Tracy Lawless suited me better both in story and art. The art just worked for me somehow better than with the first (or fourth) book. And I started to enjoy how things are connected, how we meet other characters in minor/major parts here. Brubaker both creates noir stories from the criminal underworld and the world where they are set into. And I enjoy it more and more. And I enjoyed Lawless with a great deal. The mix of old criminal stories naivety/simplicity, noir aspects and engaging story is spot on here. The mindset of the (anti)hero works perfectly. This is some fine reading.
-
Re-reading this series is fun. I vaguely recall how some of the stories interconnect and I like seeing characters and events pop up seemingly in passing that I know get paid off later.
A heist, revenge and mystery. What more could you want from a Brubaker/Phillips team up?
Tracy Lawless goes AWOL after discovering his little brother Ricky was killed and attempts to figure out how and why. Over the course of the story we see just how messed up Tracy's relationship was with his father and brother, and how easy it is for him to slip out of the military and into the criminal underworld.
This feels like a very classic crime story from the 1940s with heists and femme fatales and mysterious deaths. Once again the protagonist isn't particularly noble, but there's something sympathetic about him trying to make amends for what a shitty brother he was.
Sean Phillips' makes great use of shadow here, it seems everyone is always wreathed in darkness, just clawing at them while they valiantly attempt to remain the light. -
A hardass soldier goes AWOL to find out who killed his POS little brother the year before, runing afoul of the city's crime boss in the process. He infiltrates the kid's old robbery crew, hooks up with the kid's girlfriend, and gets the answers he wants and others he doesn't want.
Tonally flawless. -
Tracy Lawless finds out his little brother Ricky was killed, and breaks out of military prison seeking vengeance. Tracy feels badly because he was not much of a role model for his brother, driving around his criminal father while his mother was dying, attended by young Ricky. Tracy manages to break in with his brother's gang and girlfriend, while learning the truth about what happened and why.
-
Almost immediately, this second arc of Criminal is worlds better than the first.
It is both inventive and derivative in just the right balance. For those of us who know detective fiction, film noir, roman noir, and other similar genres, reading this is a game of “spot the reference.” But at the same time, the core story is compelling on its own merits. The entire arc is built around an absent character whose notable absence gives the missing character a different, more haunting kind of life. It’s one of my favorite tropes of dark crime genres, and it’s done to great effect here too. It creates a fragmentary backstory every bit as compelling as the story unfolding in the present.
And the art, the characters, and the narrator seem each to be productively “competing” with one another—forcing me to pay even closer attention than usual to each individual component of each individual panel. It’s clear that the creative team is working in this second volume as a trio of equals and that each of their respective creative disciplines is in conversation with the others (both in terms of the plot and in terms of commanding my attention). Knowing which character to sympathize with is like knowing which of this comic’s creators to credit most for its outcome.
It’s masterful work done masterfully... all without a master! -
Loved this. Best noir writing I've read this year. Brubaker intermixes present action and backstory effortlessly. Character development is superb. Art and story are beautifully in sync. Great series. Looking forward to reading the rest of them.
-
This award winning noir was supposed to be one of the the best crime comics but sadly it was a disappointment. The gritty setting, the sordid atmosphere, the tortured morally bankrupt protagonist, the vapid vixen and every other noir stereotype is present. The trouble is it's all style no substance with zero depth. Still it is a comic and depth is not always a major requisite. So if it managed to be generic fun I would have given it a 3/5 but the ending spoils even that. The ending made no sense to me.
The protagonist infiltrates a gang of thieves to collect information on his dead brother because the brute force approach was supposedly riskier. In the end he beats it out of a random baddie and walks away from a lot of money and revenge. Essentially the ending proved everything the protagonist wanted could have been accomplished with half the hassle. So this is much weaker than the first volume of Criminal in all respects. The first volume also added a retrospective on old film noirs at the end of each issue. Here the quantity and quality of those articles are lower with the focus being on advertising other authors.
If this was a regular book, it would not have been so hyped or highly rated. Maybe this is good by comic standards, but by regular crime fiction standards this is a rehash of plotlines I have seen done better by numerous authors. Rating - 2/5.
PS. No comments on the artwork because I am incapable of even drawing a circle or a straight line. I liked it but I don't trust my own opinion on the subject. 😅 -
Lawless is my super-favorite of the interconnected Criminal series of noir graphic novels, and it can be read as a standalone. The main character, Tracy Lawless, returns from Iraq determined to find out who killed his brother. That means working his way into his brother's old criminal colleague network, which means being connected to some very bad people. Lawless is not a good guy either, but you end up hoping he gets out of this okay... while watching him slowly lose himself, and wondering if he'll be able to stop that slide. Me, while reading: "Tracy! Don't do it! Come on, man, save yourself!" Brubaker and Phillips don't pull any punches, though, so be warned. Great atmosphere, writing, and art by two comics rock stars.
-
Tracy's little brother is dead, and he wants to know why. That'll mean taking on a false identity and infilitrating his brother's crew on a heist, so he can find out what really happened. And he does, though it's almost certainly not the answer he wanted or expected to find.
Lawless is a companion to Coward, but they're not related enough that you need to have read the first volume to enjoy the second. They share a common theme (a heist from the perspective of fairly realistic, and thus flawed and not terribly likable criminals). And they're both classic Brubaker, which is, of course, a good thing. He knows how to write these gritty crime stories. -
"Criminal volume two: Lawless"
Tracy Lawless was in military prison for eighteen months, isolated from the outside world. When he's released he discovers that his brother, Ricky was killed nine months earlier and he immediately goes to find out who killed him, how and why. To be able to find the information he wants, he needs to hide his identity and create a fake one. He also needs money, so in the way to the city, in the docks, he robs two men carrying a briefcase full of cash. When he gets to the city, Tracy goes to the house of an old friend of his and he pays him to make him a fake ID and a fake driver's license. Then he is able to start stalking his brother's old crew so that he can find an opportunity to infiltrate it. The opportunity arrives when they are planning on doing a big heist. But, to be able to become a member of the crew he needs to create a position himself, so he kills the crew's driver. Shortly he becomes the crew's driver himself and they all together work on the upcoming heist.
This is an masterful comic about regret, childhood trauma, family and the pointlessness of revenge. Ed Brubaker's writing is incredible. He is very good at world building and the world of "criminal" is surely very well written, but my favorite aspect of his writing is his characters and the way he uses narration in his comics. All the characters in this story are very well written, full rounded, flawed and relatable. The story is also very interesting and full of tension. Sean Phillips' artwork isn't as good as in more recent works, but it's better that in the first volume of the series and generally it's very good. Fortunately the coloring by Val Staples is much better than in the first volume. It's not perfect, but it's quite good. -
So Ricky’s older brother Tracy, has got word almost a year later that his Ricky is dead. He comes back home and learns Ricky had been running with a crew and figures one of them killed him. Since Tracy has been away in the Army for so long and no one one recognizes him, he figures he will use that to his advantage, go undercover, infiltrate the crew and get answers. Brubaker is really good writing these criminal stories. It was so entertaining watching Tracy come up with his plan and execute it. A nice touch as well seeing some of the characters from the last book. Bring on the next volume!
