Sometimes family is all you can hope to rely on.
Creative Staff:
Story: Marko Stojanović
Art: Siniša Banović
Colors: Dorde Krajinović w/ Aljoša Tomić
Letterer: Taylor Esposito
What They Say:
Jack the Ripper was never caught because no one was looking for him in the Wild West…No one accept The Order. An organization made up of the descendants of Crusaders sworn to eradicate the unnatural, The Order will stop at nothing to fulfill the pledge their forefathers made, even if it means crossing the ocean or a line or two…
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The opening installment of Cross to Bear is a bit of a rough book because we’re dropped into things and have to pick it up along the way. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but it can make it take a while to really feel like it clicks, which for me was closer to the end of the issue. Marko Stojanović does all the right things here for this kind of structure and opening, but it just didn’t connect for me until it was almost done. Siniša Banović definitely delivers on the art department and I wonder if all artists at one time or another want to tell a tale in the Old West and play in that sandbox. His character designs are the real winner here but he does well with the locations and we get some really neat layouts that help to give it a really good flow, especially during some of the tense moments.
The premise takes some time to surface but if essentially follows a group known as The Order, which is made up of descendants of the old Knights of the Roundtable story from the Crusades. They’re dealing with darker evils in the world that escape normal men and they’ve spent years hunting down Jack the Ripper. The book opens with a team going after him in 1889 in Boston, but they fail with most of them being killed and only Simon surviving, with Jack giving him a knowing nod as he makes his escape. For Simon, this is hugely challenging as he’s lost all his superiors in his group who were vastly more talented than him. That his him going for help from the only person he knows, which means it’s time to head into the old west itself with Tombstone.
This is where most of the book plays out at Simon is looking for a rare former member of the Order, an older man named Edgar. Edgar has settled well into this area, running a saloon, importing books from Europe, enjoying being married, and largely being a solid citizen engaging with people. But Simon finally gets ahold of him and attempts to draw him back into the old ways, which he’s flatly against as the amount of time spent killing has done a number on him. There’s an engaging discussion about the whole thing that unfolds, and looking at it from the context of brothers arguing as we eventually learn definitely colors it well. There’s no resolution here, just the desire to keep going after Jack the Ripper on Simon’s part, and the exploration of this family dynamic that’s definitely intriguing in the larger context of The Order as well.
In Summary:
Cross to Bear has a lot that it’s trying to get out of the way here as an opening issue and it does it decently overall. It does take until closer to the end of the issue that things really feel like they’re coming together right but once they do it certainly flows better. The structure is solid for it but it’s just got a lot that it wants to introduce. The dialogue takes a little to adjust to as well early on but it finds its groove quickly. With solid artwork and layouts and a good sense of design overall, I’m definitely curious to see where this will go overall.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Aftershock Comics
Release Date: October 27th, 2021
MSRP: $4.99
