Captain Marvel 2 page 9 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 (more economic) process at the big two again.

What attracted me to this page was the fantastic mood it conveys. We have a John Carpenter thick fog in which our « hero » dangerously emerges. In this arc, he is in a crazy phase and this page is a perfect example of it.

Just look at that first panel. You can hear the creepy footsteps in that eerie back alley.

I love how all 3 characters pause and look worried in the second panel, even the supposed victim.

The in the third, as Captain Marvel is coming closer, you can tell he is full of confidence and that he has nothing to fear from being involved here. He looks truly frightening here.

But not as close (pun intended) as in the last panel with that purely evil grin. You wouldn't want to cross path with such a grin in a creepy and foggy back alley, would you ?

Such great art and (decompressed) storytelling.

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

I literally had been eyeballing those two pages for years before pulling the trigger and I'm so glad I did.