Crossed: Psychopath #7 Review
Lorre insane quest for revenge finally ends in death and violence. Today I will be reviewing Crossed:Psychopath #7. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think.
Crossed: Psychopath #7
So let’s talk about the book. First a quick recap of issue #6 which I didn’t have a chance to review. While Amanda waits in the safehouse for Lorre to arrive after the Crossed war is over, Lorre is hiding out in an abandoned house playing with his recovered prize, Lori’s severed boob. Unfortunately, he gets lazy and makes some noise which attracts the attention of a passing Crossed. He manages to fight it off and kill it. Then he heads to the checkpoint and meets up with Amanda. He debates about abandoning his plan for revenge to just be with Amanda, but in the end decides to keep seeking it. Onto this issue. Harold and Amanda are having a last supper together when Harold serves her something that makes her throw up. Booby soup, to be exact. Disoriented, Amanda is unable to resists as Harold ties her up to a chair and gags her. He explains his final plan to her. He wants Amanda to ingest Lori so she can turn into her. Amanda explains reality to Harold. He gets angry and slaps her to the ground. She feigns weakness to draw him in and then surprises him by ripping off his lips. The two fight it out but Amanda manages to escape. With a broken foot, and no chance of catching her, Harold has no choice but to get up, sew his lips back on, and continue his search for a replacement for Lori. And that’s the book.
So let’s talk opinions. Well the series is over and honestly, I was not impressed at all. I’m sorry to say this because I am a huge fan of the Crossed series and absolutely loved the last two minis, but this one just fell completely short of the carnage and gore that the preceded it. The whole point of Crossed, to me at least, is to actually have the Crossed involved in the action. We really only had one or two instances of Crossed involvement in the entire series. Those issues were awesome. The others were so so. Now I do understand that this story arc was all about a man who was just as bad as the Crossed but not actually turned. I get that. However, once you accept that the man is mentally insane, all of the shocking thinks he does becomes completely tame. He shows fear when the Crossed show none. He shows regard for personal safety and mercy where the Crossed would sacrifice every part of themselves in order to accomplish carnage. I find that Amanda was just as violent and devious as Harold in the end and came out as the superior character. Also, Harold’s superhuman resistance to pain was just absurd. (Seriously, he sewed his own lips back on. And they stopped bleeding. Really?) In general, I was just expecting more. Artistically, the book was a huge success. The blood, gore and violence was clearly on display and all of the fear and emotions were easy to read. I pray that when the new regular series begins in the coming months that the stories get more vicious, the violence gets more insane, and the Crossed actually become part of the story. Because this one, without their involvement, was no that interesting. At least not for me. That’s my opinion folks. Take it or leave it.
A COMIC BOOK BLOG RATING
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| decent story. great art. lots of blood and gore | completely tame as compared to the previous two minis. weak ending. |
| Rating |
More Crossed @ acomicbookblog.com/tag/crossed
9 Comments
I tend to agree. This series had some potential, but this last book that wrapped everything up was such a cop out. This was his master plan? Meh. I also was not too impressed with the girl cutting through her own wrist (bone and all) in the way she did. Really, really silly.
Psychopath wasn’t a bad story overall, the main character whose world that wasn’t really turned upside down was a change of pace. It showed that not all the horrors were committed by the scarred infected, I enjoyed the desperation of the victims who fell for Harold’s tales hook, line and sinker. The one thing that confusing was the convenient victims that turned up in issue 5 for Amanda to shoot.
Thanks for the comments guys. It was an all right story and I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more if it hadn’t been called Crossed:Psychopath. I expect Crossed to be part of the action then. That was my biggest disappointment. Other than that, I agree that it was a nice story about a psychotic maniac whose life just kept on going even through the most horrific world catastrophe imaginable. Everything just seemed to fall too conveniently into place for him though. Also, the visuals were not as impressively shocking as the prior issues. I really pray Badlands gets back to the heart of this series which is humans trying to survive the Crossed, and not other humans.
In response to Victor’s last sentence, I would really hate for the series to collapse with Badlands. I mean, I haven’t read Psychopath yet (not until Vol. 3 comes out on May), but since Garth Ennis is writing it–I have a terrible feeling in my gut the violence level will dramatically decrease. And I mean bad.
The original Crossed focused way too much time on character development and not the grisly acts of human nature without moral bounds. It contained countless panels of dialogue, unlike Family Values, which had a fair share of violence, gore AND character development. Something we all want with the future of Crossed.
Having just read Vol. 1, I fear that the future of Crossed led by Garth Ennis and NOT David Lapham will definately decrease the violence value of the Crossed universe.
Thanks for the comment Akiba. Now if your comment is serious, then all I have to say is that the Original Crossed series had plenty of violence and great visuals to back it up. It also had great dialogue as well. It wasn’t just “let’s see what weird and insane ways we can show people get killed”. There was a story behind the killing. Family Values ramped that up by ten. Psychopath, took it down to negative five. The book dragged. There was no real tension throughout the entire series. No fear of being randomly killed in a brutal fashion by Crossed. The reason was because the Crossed were not really involved. I knew right away that Harold would kill or try to kill them all. There were no surprises. No shocks. Nothing to make this story stand out at all. Like I said in my review, if this book was titled just Psychopath, and not Crossed:Psychopath, I would have liked it just the way it was. But when you add Crossed to the title, and do not include any in the book, then you are lying to the fans. However, if you are trying to be sarcastic, then I’m afraid you don’t get the point of the book itself. It’s meant to be violent. It’s meant to be visually insane. Otherwise, it would not stand apart. It would just be another random horror comic. The visual violence is what makes it unique. That’s just how I feel about it.
No, no. I am very serious about Crossed. I found it to be the greatest violent comic (aside from Ennis’ original issues) ever created. And I really hope it stays that way. As a self-proclaimed gorehound I go out of my way to buy comics that were deemed “extremely violent” and are very graphic in nature. The original Crossed just didn’t deliver that. I saw countless panels of dialogue, which was okay for a few pages, but to me it dragged on and on and on… and ended up as more of a drama than a horror comic.
The panels that DID contain violence in the original Crossed were good, but as I said before, there remained too few panels for any enjoyment.
If that’s the case, then you will definitely not like Psychopath, in my opinion. Hopefully, Badlands will be more like Family Values. That mini redefined torture and gore and shock as far as I’m concerned.
If there’s lots of gore and violence in Psychopath, I’m sure I’d like it! I haven’t seen much of it yet, but does it contain as much graphic violence equivilent to Family Values or far less?
Far less. And the Crossed are barely an issue at all. The real threat in this book is the human. Which isn’t really a spoiler since you will figure that out almost immediately.