Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Mark Waid's Ruse and Crossgen

This thread will probably sink like a stone, but I just bought about a dozen issues of a Crossgen comic called Ruse from the half-price bin basically because it was written by Waid. It follows the adventures of a Sherlock Holmes type in a fictional English-type Victorian setting. It's really pretty good (beautiful art by Butch Guice) and I find myself wondering what happened. I have some vague recollections of some controversy involved with Crossgen--anybody with too much time on their hands want to fill me in? I'll be forever grateful.

I really enjoyed Waid's run on Ruse. The series sort of fizzled for me after he left. I don't have the issues anymore, but recall being disappointed that Emma never really came into her own; she never really unleashed her powers. It was a good Victorian adventure, though. It wrapped up before the Crossgen bankruptcy, so the loose ends were tied up.

A few more details from the Ruse entry at Wikipedia.
The URL code wouldn't allow the exact link because of some parentheses , so just click on the "Ruse -(comics)" entry at that Wikipedia link.

I wasn't sure if you're asking just about Ruse or Crossgen also - here are a couple of threads about Crossgen closing:

Crossgen Chapter 11 details

Reminiscing about Crossgen

I loved this series and it's what got me into Crossgen. I'm a big Holmes fan and this was very good.

I miss Ruse. Crossgen was actually pretty darn good. And most of the creators (especially artists) seem to have really flourished after. They may have hated it there but I think they all got better as well. It was a long drawn out hardcore military style basic training...they hated it when they came out but were in amazing shape.

Did that make sense?

Read the threads. Sounds like a sad story. So what was Emma's power, anyhoo?

Can't really answer your question AFOB, but I miss Ruse too, and Crossgen in particular.

Ruse was a great series with a great lead. Crossgen actually had LOTS of great comics that you should check out. Chief among them Negation, Sojourn, the Path and a few others.

Once Waid left Ruse, I also kind of stopped following it...

Emma could freeze time and she had other magical powers which she was very reluctant to use. IIRC, she had to keep her true nature secret. There was a big showdown with Lightbourne near the end and Emma seemed to spend a lot of time in a perilous situation agonizing over whether or not she should use her power(s) to save the day - and in the end, didn't need to. (Again, as I recall.)

For anybody interested in checking out Ruse, Checker Books is soliciting an omnibus-style collection:

Ruse: The Collected Works

SRP $35, DCBS special $19.22. It collects issues 1-17. There were 9 more issues of Ruse as well as three Archard's Agents oneshots.

Waid did a good job on the Ruse revival. Emma was a star, although we still don't know anything about her mysterious past. Maybe it went a bit over the top with <span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text">Queen Victoria as one of Simon's agents</span></span> but it's an outrageous story anyways. I hope we get a follow-up.

Yeah, I hope it did well enough saleswise for Misney to see a demand for further adventures