History ComicBook / Crossed

** Though a couple of covers show what happens in Jerusalem and Giza before that. [[UnderStatement It ain't pretty.]] So the Middle East getting nuked may be considered a mercy kill.

The fourth series, ''Badlands'', started in February 2012, as a bi-monthly ongoing with different writers and artists scheduled for every arc. The first arc was written by Garth Ennis, and the second written by Jamie Delano (Hellblazer). A weekly webcomic, [[http://www.crossedcomic.com/category/the-webcomic/ ''Wish You Were Here'']], written by Si Spurrier, was launched at the same time.

** The franchise in general is like this, with the various series taking place during different times in the Crossed plague, ranging from the initial outbreak to a few years later. The latest ''Badlands'' arc, starting in issue number 10, starts on the very first night of the outbreak.

** In Crossed Volume 1 the survivors come across the journal of a soldier who'd had a rather chilling theory on how the virus had seemingly appeared everyone in equal measure and at the same time, with no apparent points of origin to have spread out from: "Maybe they were there from the beginning, a strategically triggered infection designed to ripple out and take us all."

* PaintingTheFourthWall: All Crossed talk in a red, jagged font. One poor bastard develops the font before developing the rash.

* NiceJobBreakingitHero: One of the characters, convinced that salt will kill the Crossed, attempts to stand against them by putting a ring of salt around himself and his family when his wife twists her ankle running from a pack of Crossed. It *really* doesn't go well.

* SequelEscalation: Each series in the universe, from the Ennis original to ''Family Values'' to ''Psychopath'', tries its damned hardest to be more [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel shocking]], [[{{Gorn}} gorny]] and full of DeadBabyComedy than the one that came before it.

Set a year after a mysterious infection sweeps across the globe, ''Crossed'' follows a small band of survivors attempting to escape to Alaska, as they try to avoid the eponymous infected persons, all of whom bear the same distinctive facial rash. Oh, and a desire to murder, rape, set aflame, desecrate and rape again any non-Crossed they come across, in a manner similar to [[{{Firefly}} Reavers]].

A ten-issue limited series (September, 2008-February, 2010), ''Crossed'' is largely devoid of Ennis' trademark black humor, and is one of the most stunningly unpleasant comic books ever written. Rest assured, this is a book that will prove an endurance test to most readers; even fans of works like TheBoys will find something they wish they could unsee.

A second series, ''Family Values'', started up in April, 2010, written by David Lapham. It focuses on a large family of survivors, lead by their religious patriarch. [[ItGotWorse Things don't go well.]] It lasted for 7 issues, ending in January, 2011.

A third series, ''Psychopath,'' started in February 2011, once again written by Lapham. Centered around a group of survivors, they pick up Harold, an unhinged man manipulating the group for his own (psychotic) ends. An unrelated-to-anything one-shot, ''Crossed 3D'', was published in May 2011.

The fourth series, ''Badlands'' started in February 2012, as a bi-monthly ongoing having diffrent writers and artists every arc. The first arc was written by Garth Ennis, and the second written by Jamie Delano (Hellblazer). A webcomic called ''Wish You Where Here'' was launched at the same time.

* {{Determinator}}: Our protagonists slogging from Kansas to Alaska, pursued all the way. The Crossed will also go to absurd lengths if they see something they want to abuse.

* DownerEnding: Everyone but [[spoiler:Cindy and Stan]] are dead. Although the last survivors go down fighting hard, they do go down. The trio who wind up dying are also the three most sympathetic characters in the entire damned story.

** ''Badlands'' first arc ends with [[spoiler: everybody dead or infected.]]
* FollowTheLeader: Intentional or not, "Crossed" shares enough similarities with Warren Ellis' "BlackGas" to raise an eyebrow or two.

* HatePlague: The Crossed have absolutely no inhibitions and a cruel intelligence-when there aren't uninfected to hunt, they turn on each other.

* InfantImmortality: Let's put it this way - the cover for one issue has the Crossed putting kids on a playground slide. At the bottom of the playground slide is a wood chipper.
* InsaneTrollLogic: [[spoiler: Harold believes that the Crossed virus absorbs and locks away the good part, the soul, of a person and locks it away, leaving only evil impulses behind. By this logic be believes that if he feeds the infected flesh of his dead stalker crush to Amanda (whom he believes is a pure and untainted innocent) the virus will have no evil to absorb and will release Loris soul into Amandas body, allowing Lori to be reborn. Luckily he never gets to test the theory.]]

** Badlands first arc [[spoiler: is the first to completely kill off or infect its cast]]

* NuclearPhysicsGoof: The prologue ends with a mushroom cloud in the distance, and Stan stating that he later found out that someone pulled the control rods out of Wolf Creek power station. Nuclear power plants do ''not'' malfunction that way -- the two worst nuclear disasters in human history, Chernobyl and Fukushima-Daiichi, resulted in fires and explosions that spread radiation, but nothing on the order of a full-scale atomic bomb-style explosion.

* KillEmAll: Don't expect any more then a handful of the characters to survive.

* [[spoiler: ParentalIncest: Joseph Pratt.]]

Set a year after a mysterious infection sweeps across the globe, ''Crossed'' follows a small band of survivors attempting to escape to Alaska, as they try to avoid the eponymous infected persons, all of whom bear the same distinctive facial rash.

Oh, and a desire to murder, rape, set aflame, desecrate and rape again any non-Crossed they come across, in a manner similar to [[{{Firefly}} Reavers]].

* CompleteMonster: Harold, the protagonist of ''Psychopath''. And every Crossed, of course.

* HeelRealization: Harold has somewhat lucid moments throughout ''Psychopath'' where he realizes what a CompleteMonster he really is, they don't last long, unfortunately.

* TraumaCongaLine: [[spoiler: Any hope that any particular character has for a happy ending get gutted and raped, respectively.]]

A ten-issue limited series (September, 2008-February, 2010), ''Crossed'' is largely devoid of Ennis' trademark black humor, and is one of the more graphic books on earth right now.

* {{Deconstruction}}: The purpose of the series-according to Ennis-was to deconstruct the typical ZombieApocalypse story by showing just how bad things would be for the survivors.

* CompleteMonster: Harold, the protagonist of ''Psychopath''

* WhamLine: "Mommy, [[spoiler: YOU FUCKING CUNT!"]]

* ZombieInfectee: Generally not a problem, as becoming Crossed happens in a matter of minutes, if not seconds. However, [[spoiler: getting shot with a bullet soaked in Crossed blood... or [[{{Squick}} other fluids]] gives the infection enough time to creep up on one.

Oh, and a desire to murder, rape, set aflame, desecrate and rape again any non-Crossed they come across, in a manner that makes [[{{Firefly}} Reavers]] look positively welcoming.

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: This series makes it home on the cynical end of the scale.

* ZombieInfectee: Generally not a problem, as becoming Crossed happens in a matter of minutes, if not seconds. However, [[spoiler:getting shot with a bullet soaked in Crossed blood... or [[{{Squick}} other fluids]] gives the infection enough time to creep up on one.

* InsaneTrollLogic: [[spoiler: Harold believes that the Crossed virus absorbs and locks away the good part, the soul, of a person and locks it away, leaving only evil impulses behind. By this logic be believes that if he feeds the infected flesh of his dead stalker crush to Amanda (whom he believes is a pure and untainted innocent) the virus will have no evil to absorb and will realease Loris soul into her body, allowing her to be reborn. Luckily he never gets to test the theory.]]