I’ve been a Brubaker fan for a long time. I’ve spent hundreds of dollars on his comics. But even though I appreciate his decision to branch out with more experimental stuff in recent years, none of it resonated with me. This new Criminal installment isn’t just a return to form — it’s one of the best stories he’s ever written. As I get a little older, I hold back on rereading a lot of his stuff because it’s dark and tragic to the point that it puts me in a bad mood. His dialogue is always realistic and his storylines are always engrossing, but he doesn’t use his sense of humor enough or offer much mercy to his characters. That changes here. This is a Brubaker story: high stakes, brutal, always centering human foibles. But it made me laugh and smile more than anything he’s done, and it’s some of his best writing to date. Hopefully we get more Criminal from him and Phillips soon.

Gratuitous.

My favorite issue of the series so far.

Poor characterization with soap opera writing.

As gripping as the best slasher films. I never really have the urge to “skip ahead” when reading comics, but this arc has had me jumping to the bottom of the right page just to see what happens. Jacob Phillips is at least as good as his dad, and the art gets a lot of room to breathe thanks to Chris Condon’s brevity and frequent use of silent panels. Condon is a strong writer who doesn’t need to cram a bunch of dialogue into every page to tell a good story.

The only disappointing thing about reading this issue was finishing it and realizing I have to wait another month for more. The whole series has been strong, but Condon has been really hitting his stride in the past couple issues.

I bought this because I’m a fan of limited series, one-shots, and self-contained graphic novels. I like to avoid stories that require you to keep up with series X or Y to figure out what’s going on. This was advertised as a self-contained Huntress story, but was actually a part of whatever is going on in Detective Comics. Not much happens, and you don’t learn anything about the character. This went in the trash because I’m running out of room in my comic boxes and will never have a reason to reread it. The art was solid.