Slipping into Fanboy status

I think I am becoming a Ed Brubaker fanboy. I know because I just bought issue 4 of the new Criminal Tale, The Sinners, even though I have purchased, but still not read issues 1 through 3. Why am I doing this? I want to be able to sit down with all of them and read them all at once? I made a mistake with Incognito, where I went back for more and they were sold out!

I read the first issue of Incognito when it came out and it didn't quite click. I then went back for number two and it sat on my shelf for months. Then I read and loved it! That's when they were all sold out. Fortunately the trade just came out.

The story in this one is great. A supervillain is put into a witness protection program, but he finds he can't stop kicking people's asses. He tries to be covert by stopping criminals and finds he likes it. This gets the ire of his former employers, a none too nice group of folks and he also manages to piss off the a secret superhero-staffed version of the FBI. Bad times all around.

The book is great because it infuses the superhero story, with its constant, but generally nonconsequential violence, with the depth of a crime story with its very consequential violence. People die in this story and they tend to die badly. Now in a realistic crime book, there would be one or two terrible acts, but this is a superhero book so the chaos is constant.

The only reason I was happy it ended was the hint that there is more to come. Now I have to get a hold of his Gotham Central which tells story's of Batman's city from the perspective of the town's cops.