Captain Marvel 2 page 11 splash by Chriss Cross

A great page from an artist I love and whose work is too scarce nowadays from a series that I really enjoyed back when, for the great art and fun writing of Peter David.

Let's take some time to underline that Chriss Cross's art on Captain Marvel was among the very few artists Marvel choose to shot the art directly from their meticulous pencils (Salvador Larroca was another one for his work on the IMHO unreadable Extreme X-Men before he went fully digital. You can find an example of his art in his dedicated gallery). The process had been used before of course (Gene Colan comes to mind) but those two really repopularized the process at the big two again.

What attracted me to this page was the half or two thirds splash obviously.

It is nicely set up by the first three panels with the victim being overshadowed by Captain Marvel who slowly puts his menacing hand on his head (again with the decompressed storytelling). Then the close up in the third panel in which you can tell the hero is done with playing. It really shows Chriss Cross being incredibly good at portraying emotions as well.

Then BLAST ! I believe it the art speaks for itself. The force of the blast is exceptionally rendered, shattering the ground beneath the poor victim evaporating. An incredibly violent and shilling scene, even for a modern comic I find.

That particular scene was truly burned (...) in my mind and prompted me to buy this page and the other one. I literally had been eyeballing those two pages for years before pulling the trigger and I'm so glad I did.

PS : no offense to the color version but you will all agree that the art has much more impact in b&w.