Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Reminiscing About Crossgen...

Was just reading my 2 Negation trades over the weekend, and they were definitely entertaining. Pelletier's art was phenomenal, Bedard's writing was solid, the cast was cool and the overall plot twisted pleasantly. The fact that Negation didn't end because of the company difficulties SUCKED. Definitely made me shy about getting involved in new lines.

Does anyone know how far the Negation series went? I only have the trades...

Ruse was another good one.

I picked up The First and that series about the Atlantis survivors because of the art, but the writing was pretty bland on them (IMO).

Anyone else reminisce on Crossgen?

I miss it more than I realized.

Crossgen was new and fresh, and really was an important part in the focus on bringing back other genres to comics other than super-heroes.

It is soley responsible for making my two brothers read comics, which is ironic, b/c they have access to nearly every DC and Marvel comic since 1960 in our basement (Dad's collection).

I really liked the ongoing sigil story that interrelated all the comics, but how it was underplayed for a long time. That kind of inter-company continuity, at a time when it was 'not cool' according to Marvel and DC was a nice treat, and it was that that got my brothers interested.

Negation was mind-blowingly awesome. It was in my top 5 throughout its entire run, and I agree that it SUCKS!!! that we never got to see the end of the story. Great art, great writing, great characters, and one of the most 'holy shit' inducing comics I've ever read.

Sojourn was also excellent, and one of the most beautifully drawn comics I've ever read. Now I'm a Greg Land fan for life and will most likely pick up any comic that has interior art by him.

Right before the end, El Cazador was awesome, and the art blew me away.

Other titles fluctuated on how good they were: Cruz (that's the Atlantic one), Meridian (the only comic my little sister, who was then 13-14, has ever read consistently), Ruse, etc., but it was a diverse company, that's for sure.

And the first 20-25 issues of Scion are some of my favorite stories of the last five years.

Great, great company and great idea. I miss it.

CrossGen.

There was gold in them thar hills. The atmosphere the creators were working in, all kidding about "drinking the kool-aid" aside, lead to not only some great individual work, but a wonderful whole. RUSE was magical, all difficulties with Waid aside. Steve Epting developed into a superstar-caliber artist on CRUX and EL CAZADOR. And artists were getting work out on time... guys like Greg Land on SOJOURN, Steve McNiven on MERIDIAN, Jim Cheung on SCION... I have to shake my head when I hear about them blowing deadlines for Marvel. McNiven's, what? 6 months behind on ULT. SECRET WAR?! YOUNG AVENGERS #6 is HOW late??? But excepting scheduled (one issue!) fill-ins every 3-5 months or so, these guys were regular as Old Faithful under CG's system.

Which makes the collapse on the business side such a damn shame. Mark Alessi ran his mouth like Quemas Lite, and probably hurt more than helped getting a broader audience for his books. And damn the industry for not recognizing great work being done in Tampa. They poo-pooed on everything but the work, which was better than 90% of the crap out there, but all the negativity hurt CrossGen's chances of building an audience as much as Alessi's mouth. Comics -needed- a quality third company that wasn't pushing the same old crap from the Big Two. Shame on them for burying CrossGen long before it was necessary.

I treasure my complete runs of most of their titles; SIGIL was really the only book they put out that I wasn't into, and maybe some of the Code 6 stuff.

CODE 6! OMG! Ploog and DeMatteis on ABADAZAD were sheer genius! Those mere 3 issues are treasured.

NEGATION was a favorite. It ran through issue 27, 2 issues of NEGATION: The WAR, and MARK of CHARON 1-5.

I think I need to sit down with that run sometime soon.

And now that Bedard and Pelletier are reuniteing on EXILES, it'd be awesome if the Exiles somehow made their way to the Sigilverse, and we found out how the war ended...!

Dream on, I know!

I loved most of the CrossGen titles--it was the first and only time I bought issues as they came out AND trade paperback collections of the same title to share with friends.

My favorites: Scion, Mystic, Crux, and Sojourn. No capes and superheroes (though I love those too)... just lots of cool ideas and great characters.

What a damn shame it shut down.

Negation was my favorite. I discovered all the titles through their great trades. I loved the way that CrossGen collected their issues and wish that system had been adopted by other companies.

Besides Negation, Sojourn was great. Route 666 was good. And I loved Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang. Great spy stuff there.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is being converted to film, i believe

No, there is a Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang movie coming out but it isn't based on the comic. The movie is a murder mystery set in LA (Hollywood?) with Val Kilmer and Robert Downey, Jr.

There was good. I thought pound for pound they were the best publisher out there. I was very impressed with most of all the titles and the universe in general.

I hope their online subscription. I need to read my back issue darn it!

Great idea and execution early on.

ouch
i always thought they were related ... the titles and all that

I was on hiatus from comics at the time. *sniff*

The library where I used to work had the Crux Volume One TPB, so I did get to read that.

I loved it. I've been a Steve Epting fan since he was drawing Avengers back in the early 90s, but his work on Crux was the best I've seen. I heard good things about El Cazador on another board, so I'll definitely look for that.

There have actually been two or three other films using that same title, back to 1966. I, too, hoped it was the comic but most likely those rights are tied up elsewhere along with all the other CrossGen properties (that the creators didn't secure first).

Crossgen is sorely missed.

I especially liked Ruse, Meridian, Brath and Mystic. My hubby had me picking up Sigil and Negation. I liked Sigil, but Negation never did that much for me.

Mystic certainly had its ups and down, but I liked the magic, and I liked the different aspects. They were clearly defined and the last writer gave each some interesting characteristics as they travelled from country to country.

I also enjoyed Meridian because it was so different. It was nice to have a real girl doing super things -- kind of like Leave It to Chance.

Ruse suffered a little bit after Waid left. Waid did some really cool things with the character. Both writers, I was glad to see, pretty much ignored the Sigil. That book didn't need it, and I hated it when it was used because it really seemed to stick out.

Brath, well, he was hunky. What can I say?

My full runs of Ruse, Mystic, Meridian and Brath are for sale in my Gobs of comics for sale thread. Sorry for the shameless plug, but I'd rather see them in a good home than in the musty library they're getting donated to.

I almost forgot Rob Rodi's shortlived, nonsigil The Crossovers, too, a funny comic that mixed up genres. I didn't care for the art, but the story was fun. That's in my sale too.

Crossgen had alot that i really liked.

Brath- fun gladiator /braveheart series.

Sojurn- Oh my gosh..Greg Land art.

Sigil- The art in the beginning was beautiful.

Meridian- simply rocked.

Y'know, I remember Crossgen had a trivia contest about the Crossgen books. Does anyone have this quiz - either the questions or the answers?

"No, there is a Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang movie coming out but it isn't based on the comic. The movie is a murder mystery set in LA (Hollywood?) with Val Kilmer and Robert Downey, Jr."

"There have actually been two or three other films using that same title, back to 1966."


I wouldn't be surprised...

"Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" was the phrase some journalists came up with to describe James Bond (Sean Connery) back in 1964-65. The phrase became so widespread, when Kevin McClory signed his deal with Broccoli & Saltzman for a co-production of THUNDERBALL (1965), they briefly considered changing the name of the story! There WAS a song by that name written, a "demo" was recorded with Shirley Bassey and a "finished" version was recorded with Dionne Warwick-- and if you listen to the film's score, HALF of it is based on this song! But at the last minute, sanity prevailed (someone probably realized just how silly the song lyrics were) and an entirely different song was written for Tom Jones to sing (who held the last note so long he fainted dead away in the studio when he did it in one take-- the wimp!). Ever since I heard the Warwick recording, I've felt they should add it (with a video) at the end of the film, where it might have gone if end credits were as long back then as they are these days.

thanks prof! whew...

oh, and by the way, is Negation and it's follow up mini (mark of charon) worth trying to find?
anyone have an opinion?
i think i can probably get it downloaded if it is

I enjoyed reading Mark of Charon. I came late into Negation and have been picking up back issues. I sure like the sci fi nature of that series.

Andy, in my opinion Negation is worth tracking down. If you can't find it, let me know. I have most, if not all, of the CrossGen catalog available.

might have to take u up on that
been to my local shops and they don't have much in the way of back issues

let me know
i have CDisplay & adobe ... any other formats?

Did anyone read RUSE? I had never heard of it. When my comic shop owner decided he wanted to get rid of all the CrossGen trades, he gave me two RUSE tpb's. I rather liked them but I'm curious as to whether or not Emma's secret was ever uncovered.

Just give me some time while I do a recovery on an old drive. The CrossGen books were the first digitally 'shared' books I got and they are on an old drive I'll need to mount to an external drive. But I should have all titles complete or near complete in .cbr format for CDisplay.

Ruse a well done Victorian book. I really don't think there were many stinkers in the CrossGen bunch. As for Emma's secret I don't recall off-hand that it was revealed but I think it was that she was one of the Sigil bearers.