Crossgen Comics appreciation and memories thread.

[manga4life]

Lately I've been trying to scoop up as many Crossgen books I can to try to complete the Sigil-verse as it was originally produced, meaning just titles that connected into the universe as a whole. Its been fun and I don't have many left, luckily I found a ton in a $.50 bin at one of my local comic stores.

[Magnus9178]

My first love will always be with Valiant, however Crossgen holds second! Also, need I say Ron Marz!!! It was nice to see another universe grow the way it did and sad to see it go due to mismanagement.

[Phantom]

I liked CrossGen - my store was a premiere store and we did really well with them! Ruse and Sojourn were probably my favorites, though I liked most of the line. I have a quote on the cover of one of the issues of Scion, from an article I wrote in my newspaper job. That was pretty excellent.

ruse and sojourn
I have yet to complete the comics, but have most of the trades.
Great Universe. Realy enjoy reading the trades.

[Phantom]

specifically love scion, fantastic.
Of to bring out for a re read cool thread.

Shame it when bankrupt so quickly.
Loss of faith by customers of the day, I only read it as a DU.

[String]

I've never read any CrossGen books but had always planned to buy some of the trades. Reading over this thread tells me it's time to go back to that plan.

[Chiclo]

I've never read any CrossGen books but had always planned to buy some of the trades. Reading over this thread tells me it's time to go back to that plan.

Pretty much any CrossGen title is worth reading.

[retrovideogameaddict]

I'm glad I found this thread as I too was a huge fan of Crossgen during their publishing days. I came across the books by accident when I saw Sigil and Scion on a new release rack at my comic book store and I was si impressed with the art inside of Scion that I picked both books up, a week or two later I nabbed Mystic and fell in love with that book too. Before I knew it about 8 months had gone by and I noticed I was buying almost all of the Crossgen output and then I went back and read everything multiple times over and decided that Crossgen was now my favorite comic book publisher, this happened probably sometime in 2001. Then more and more titles came out and I was snatching up everything I could off the racks at my local comic book store and I was enthralled and engrossed into the CGU, it was such a fun time to be a comic book fan and collector and I was really amazed at titles like Scion, Sojourn, Crux, and The First, but I loved the entire line as a whole and even got into some of the non-Sigilverse titles like He-Man and stuff like that they were producing. I was devastated when they ceased publishing and still am to a certain extent.

[Knightt]

retro, did you get a chance to check out the (relatively recent) Marvel/Crossgen mini-series; Sigil, Ruse, and Mystic ?

[retrovideogameaddict]

retro, did you get a chance to check out the (relatively recent) Marvel/Crossgen mini-series; Sigil, Ruse, and Mystic ?

I did and it wasn't really something I enjoyed and it strengthens my notion that these characters are now lost to the sands of time forever.

[Knightt]

Well, as we have seen with the recent Valiant relaunch... things can never be as they were. But, that is not always a bad thing. People change, views change, ideas change. Sometimes the past is best left in the past.

[obijuan]

I recently bought complete runs of Ruse, Sojourn, The Way of the Rat, and some of the Forge TPBs. I must say, I am really enjoying these books more than what the Big 2 are putting out. As a father of 2 girls it's nice to see a company that had so many heroines as the main characters throughout the universe. I think that I'll finish collecting this universe. It seems really interesting and fun.

[obijuan]

If anybody can tell me how many Customer review issue there were that would be really nice..and which ones of course. I know of five so far.

[Chiclo]

If anybody can tell me how many Customer review issue there were that would be really nice..and which ones of course. I know of five so far.

According to the checklist in the Dead Universe Checklist section (found here), there are six:

"Customer Review Copies" (previews of the mentioned titles but have the words "Customer Review Copies" along the bottom of the covers)
Crossgen Chronicles
Meridian
Mystic
Scion
Sigil
The First

[obijuan]

Thank you very much. I didn't know about the Scion issue.

[obijuan]

You are one of my faves on the podcast Chiclo.

[Chiclo]

You are one of my faves on the podcast Chiclo.

Thanks. I figure that I have to be in at least most folks' top 5.

[obijuan]

Lol. Top two for sure.

[newt138]

I was out of comics through out most of Crossgen's run. But 2 years ago got a bunch of the Forge and Edge trades for $2 each. Read them and really enjoyed them. Been slowly grabbing the other trades and some singles cheaply. So far there doesn't seem to be any real expensive issues.

[Elveen]

There is not really any expensive crossgen books.
Sojourn #1 is prob the most expensive.
Some of the retailer reviews can be more difficult to find, but should not be that expensive.

Some of the rarer items are the mini trades, I forget what they call them but the are physically smaller.
And the DVDs can be hard-ish to track down.

[newt138]

There is not really any expensive crossgen books.
Sojourn #1 is prob the most expensive.
Some of the retailer reviews can be more difficult to find, but should not be that expensive.

Some of the rarer items are the mini trades, I forget what they call them but the are physically smaller.
And the DVDs can be hard-ish to track down.

I got two of the Negation DVDS a year or so ago cheap off Amazon.I am trying for a complete reading set. So reprints,trades,etc will take care of the hard to find singles. Actually thanks to Dollar Tree I have scored lots of Crossgen stuff. For over 2 years they have had these bags with 2 comics and a random trading card for a buck. I have gotten at least 30 Crossgen comics out of those bags.

[String]

Okay, delving into Crossgen for the first time, I just finished Crux Vol. 1, from what I gather, the closest 'superhero'-type book that the company produced. The story and characters were definitely appealing and Epting's art is amazing (especially the spreads of Atlantis then and now). The dynamic between the group is interesting and how they continually underestimate the Negation provides for a lot of action. I particularly enjoyed #5, showing how their inability to revive the other Atlanteans personally affected each of them. A great read so far...

Up next, Scion Vol. 1

[Magnus9178]

Okay, delving into Crossgen for the first time, I just finished Crux Vol. 1, from what I gather, the closest 'superhero'-type book that the company produced. The story and characters were definitely appealing and Epting's art is amazing (especially the spreads of Atlantis then and now). The dynamic between the group is interesting and how they continually underestimate the Negation provides for a lot of action. I particularly enjoyed #5, showing how their inability to revive the other Atlanteans personally affected each of them. A great read so far...

Up next, Scion Vol. 1

You're going to love Scion!

[SwiftMann]

My monthly orders have been getting smaller lately, so I've been going through my backlog of books I haven't read. The last month has been some of the CrossGen stuff I didn't read when it originally came out.

When it was publishing, I read (alphabetically)...

Abadazad, CrossGen Chronicles, Crux, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Mark of Charon, Negation, Route 666, Scion, and Sojourn and dabbled with the first couple issues of The First, Meridian, Mystic, The Path, Ruse, Sigil.

I bailed on the whole line shortly before the bankruptcy, so now I have picked up every issue published and started cranking through what I missed back in the day.

End of Scion - This was the fantasy book of the original four titles. Jimmy Cheung's art on this was phenomenal and I enjoyed Ron Marz's stories as it originally came out. I got tired of the Jim Fern (whose art I hate) fill-ins, so missed the finale of Marz/Cheung. Those issues were glorious. There was a brief four(?) issue continuation before the book was cancelled for Negation War, but it should be dismissed completely as it misses the tone of the rest of the series.

End of Crux - This book was the one set on Earth and there were Atlantians that were revived long after all the humans left. It was heavily tied into CrossGen continuity and the original run started really well with Mark Waid, but when Chuck Dixon came on after the first year, I tapped out. Trying to jump into this towards the end was difficult without all the context of the set-up and all the machinations of the connected universe.

End of Sojourn - I switched from single issues to trades on these not long before CrossGen folded. Oops. While Greg Land's photoshopped/lightboxed art is noticeable, it's nowhere near as annoying as it becomes later in his career. At times it's downright pretty and shows he does have some layout skills (despite everything his X-Men run indicates). This series was one of the main victims of the bankruptcy as it wasn't going into Negation War and the final issue ends with about three cliffhangers.

El Cazador - This was the Chuck Dixon/Steve Epting pirate book that only made it to six issues and a one-shot. It doesn't seem to be connected to the larger CrossGen universe or if it was supposed to, it never got there. I remember it getting crazy praise when it originally came out. I found it tedious. There's an entire issue of Danish pirate gibberish as dialogue.

Sigil - This was the sci-fi book of the four original series. Barbara Kesel and the Lai brothers (remember the five minutes they were famous) launched the series and I could immediately see why I didn't care. Both art and story were boring. By #6 there was new artists. By #10 Mark Waid came on for a short run. It helped slightly. But, really, it was basically making the Kirk/Gorn episode of TOS into a season-long plot. The Negation finally show up in #36 and the book gets good, but only lasts another six issues before rolling into Negation War.

Mystic - This was the magic book of the four original series. Again, I can see why I bailed on it after just three issues at the time. Now I'm far more interested in the story even though the lead character is a bit too boyfriend-chasing and Brandon Peterson's artwork has moments of 90s cheesecake for no reason. It's enjoyable, but once both Marz & Peterson leave, it falls off pretty badly. It's basically 43 issues to tell one story that at the most should have been the first year of stories.

Like all of these titles, it's an incredibly slow burn with CrossGen. The whole line seemed to be steeped in decompressed storytelling. I've cranked through somewhere around 140 issues in the last month and a half with little effort. That's about the same number of unread issues I have to go. And there's just over 450 connected universe issues. Ah, the early aughts, when decompression was the biggest fanboy complaint.

[ComicAficionado]

Devastated isn't a strong enough term to use to describe how I felt when Crossgen ceased publishing but it's the only word I can think of as I write this. Crossgen was heaven sent to me, the books they published was everything I wanted from comics at that time and I was searching for a new "universe" of UNIQUE characters to follow that didn't have decades of convoluted and confusing continuity behind it. I fell in love with these characters and the stories in these books and month after month I purchased Crossgen books with ravenous excitement and passion. It was my favorite time to be a comic book collector and fan.

My favorite titles were Scion, Crux, Mystic, Sigil, The First, Negation, and Brath, but I pretty much bought anything that was contained within the "sigil verse". Today I own almost every TPB Crossgen ever released and re-visit those stories every couple of years or so, and until I die I don't think I'll ever look back at any line of comics with the amount of love and respect I had for Crossgen. If only someone would revive the line and bring these characters back into the limelight. But honestly, I'd rather see the line remain dead than see Marvel try to ruin it like they did some years back.

[SwiftMann]

That's awesome! The specific series you mention were really great reading.

On my path to finishing the CrossGen universe reading*, I followed up my previous post by reading The First, Meridian and then Ruse. The First was pretty fascinating. Until, like Scion and others, it was killed abruptly before Negation. Meridian was pretty great stuff for a while, but then just went on too long without and substantive story movement. And then there was Ruse. It was a struggle for me to get through; as in I actively hated it once Waid left.

Ruse took so much of the wind out of my CrossGen re-reading sails, I moved onto starting Valiant from the beginning and been pouring over that for the last couple months.


*Brath, The Path, Way of the Rat, and Solus to go.