The Cross Bronx #3 & #4 (of 4)
Published by: Image
Writer: Michael Avon Oeming & Ivan Brandon
Artist: Michael Avon Oeming
Colorist: Nick Filardi
Cover: Michael Avon Oeming/Ashley Wood/David Mack
Letterer: Kristyn Ferretti

24 pages (#3), 28 pages (#4)

Rating: 4 out of 5

##

Premise: Detective Aponte continues his investigation, only to find that the truth is stranger than he could have ever imagined.

Synopsis:

Detective Aponte continues to track the mysterious girl responsible for killing these gang-bangers and drug dealers. All the while, he becomes more estranged from his wife. Detective Velez is a little too close to the action, and Aponte scares a little old lady in a Santeria shop. More people are killed, and Aponte is face to face with the killer at the end of issue three.

In issue four, the killer has eliminated all of those responsible for Marta’s predicament, but continues to kill - even targeting young children who are no more than runners in the drug dealers’ game. A final showdown on the roof of a church ends the story.

##

Review:

All in all, this was a well-done series. As I mentioned before, Oeming’s art truly compliments this hard-boiled crime stuff. He uses dark colors and heavy, yet variable inks to give the city a dark, dingy feel.

The story gets a point deduction, however. I pretty much knew what was going on after the second issue, so the urge to find out what happened was diluted. The part that I did still have questions about just got wrapped up rather suddenly, even in an extended last issue. For all of the times that Oeming decompressed scenes for mood and recompressed others to throw out a lot of information, the ending was far too fast-paced and decompressed for my taste.

When this series started, I was super-pumped. Now at the end, I feel a little bit of a let-down. Still, I don’t want it to reflect poorly on the book. I mean, even with a let-down, I’m still rating the series as a whole at a 4.

My favorite part of the series was watching Oeming experiment with his panel layout. Sure, it was sometimes confusing going from a page-by-page layout to a 2-page spread with lots of panels, but I appreciate his trying new things. I’m referring in particular to the sequence on pages 5-13 of issue #2. It’s the kind of experimentation I would have liked to have seen more of out of the new Spirit series.

Excellent work from Oeming and Brandon. I look forward to their next projects.