History Fridge / Crossed

* In Crossed #8, Patrick and Cindy bed down in a crashed Chinook chopper. There's a skeleton in there, with an ApocalypticLog; he was part of a unit that shuttled engineers around, shutting down nuclear power plants so the Crossed couldn't blow them up. That's pretty smart. However, once they shut down all the plants, ''they killed all the engineers.'' The justification from their superiors was that if they could shut the plants down, they could re-activate them again, and the [=PTBs=] didn't want that kind of knowledge floating around. '''''THE MOTHERFUCKERS [[LostTechnology KILLED NUCLEAR POWER]].''''' An entire field of science will have to be ''re-invented'', and it took decades and billions of dollars for the greatest minds in human history to do it the first time. Thanks a whole lot for condemning countless generations to freezing in the dark, you stupid robots.

* In Crossed #8, Patrick and Cindy bed down in a crashed Chinook chopper. There's a skeleton in there, with an ApocalypticLog; he was part of a unit that shuttled engineers around, shutting down nuclear power plants so the Crossed couldn't blow them up. That's pretty smart. However, once they shut down all the plants, ''they killed all the engineers.'' The justification from their superiors was that if they could shut the plants down, they could re-activate them again, and the PTBs didn't want that kind of knowledge floating around. '''''THE MOTHERFUCKERS [[LostTechnology KILLED NUCLEAR POWER]].''''' An entire field of science will have to be ''re-invented'', and it took decades and billions of dollars for the greatest minds in human history to do it the first time. Thanks a whole lot for condemning countless generations to freezing in the dark, you stupid robots.

!!FridgeHorror: Invoked. What happens when the people we trust the most--our parents, our children, people we depend on for safety--go completely off the rails?
* In another sense, a comment near the end that what the Crossed do isn't anything that ordinary humans aren't capable of. That's ''scary as hell''.
** In fact, that could be considered a running theme throughout the Crossed saga. In all the story arcs one can see non-Crossed characters engage in Crossed-like behavior. Some examples are obvious, eg. Harold Lorre & Addy's father, while others are more subtle. This of course reinforces the concept that all the Crossed virus really does (apart from the facial rash) is strip its victims of all norms and concepts of civilization, society and morality, with some people already being like the Crossed even without the virus.

* From ''Wish You Were Here'': The revelation that the Crossed virus [[spoiler: is not only capable of being transmitted through the flesh of carrion eaters ([[ParanoiaFuel when's the last time you had some fish lately?]]), but is also apparently mutating into something even ''worse''.]]
* In ''Volume One'', a flashback details how Cindy's group met a policeman at the start of the outbreak who had a Crossed locked in the back of his police car. The cop claimed the Crossed had said things about his wife that the Crossed had no way of knowing, and wanted to interrogate him further. Cindy claims that the Crossed hasn't said anything that he couldn't have deduced from a cold read of the cop and they discount the cop's theory. Flash-forward to "The Thin Red Line" arc, where the initial Crossed infectee in Britain ''does'' gain access to information that he couldn't possibly know, and it paints a more disturbing picture. Are first-generation Crossed actually, in some strange way, clairvoyant?

!!FridgeLogic: If Creator/GarthEnnis meant this as a TakeThat (see below) to people who believe they could survive a ZombieApocalypse, why didn't he use actual zombies? The Crossed aren't any kind of zombie at all, but something completely different.
* Because the average Garth Ennis protagonist, i.e. Cindy, would be in about as much danger during an actual zombie apocalypse as you are during a particularly rowdy soccer game. She'd hand out two thousand clean headshots and go put Patrick down for a nap.
* Because those type of survivalists generally take into account only one kind of zombie, the slow-moving hungry-for-flesh type, and boast about how well they would do against them. Ennis just gives them a foe they have no chance against, and no amount of bug-out-bag preparation or choosing the right kind of machete will save you.
** But the point is that the crossed aren't zombies, so the lesson(You couldn't survive in a zombie apocalypse) still doesn't apply- the survivalists aren't saying "I could survive psychotic attacks by beings capable of thought in huge numbers" they're saying "I could survive a ZOMBIE attack, by ZOMBIES,", which the crossed ARE NOT.
** They are, though. [[OurZombiesAreDifferent Just a different type of zombie.]] In fact, being [[TechnicallyLivingZombie alive and merely berserk]], they're probably much more realistic and likely zombies than what all the "shoot 'em in the head" nerds are prepared to face. The lesson isn't "you couldn't possibly survive in a zombie apocalypse", it's actually "you couldn't possibly survive in a zombie apocalypse if you automatically assume that the zombies you're facing are going to be or act in a certain way", which is most certainly true.

** Well, 'ZombieApocalypse' is used as a bit of an short-hand umbrella term these days -- it's used, with strict accuracy or otherwise, to describe everything from classic Romero-style zombies to ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater''-style rage-psychos and more. The premise has evolved beyond referring strictly and solely to shambling living-dead to any kind of scenario wherein people are reverted to some kind of savage, uncivilised state where they hunt, kill and convert those who are unaffected, pretty much leading to the collapse of civilisation in the process (whether this is strictly accurate is another matter -- but then, it can often be argued that the differences between a lot of these are often so minor that it's sheer pedantry to quibble). ''Crossed'' doesn't strictly count as the living dead, true, but the overall ''narrative'' it follows is definitely that of the latter. What Ennis is basically suggesting is that the 'zombies' that show up aren't necessarily going to be the zombies that you've been planning for.

* FridgeHorror: Invoked. What happens when the people we trust the most--our parents, our children, people we depend on for safety--go completely off the rails?
** In another sense, a comment near the end that what the Crossed do isn't anything that ordinary humans aren't capable of. That's ''scary as hell''.
*** In fact, that could be considered a running theme throughout the Crossed saga. In all the story arcs one can see non-Crossed characters engage in Crossed-like behavior. Some examples are obvious, eg. Harold Lorre & Addy's father, while others are more subtle. This of course reinforces the concept that all the Crossed virus really does (apart from the facial rash) is strip its victims of all norms and concepts of civilization, society and morality, with some people already being like the Crossed even without the virus.
*** ''+100'' makes it explicitly clear with Beau Salt, an individual so vile and insane, the virus did little else than giving him the cross rash. Even if they may be rare, there are humans who are already crossed-like without the help of the infection.
** From ''Wish You Were Here'': The revelation that the Crossed virus [[spoiler: is not only capable of being transmitted through the flesh of carrion eaters ([[ParanoiaFuel when's the last time you had some fish lately?]]), but is also apparently mutating into something even ''worse''.]]
** In ''Volume One'', a flashback details how Cindy's group met a policeman at the start of the outbreak who had a Crossed locked in the back of his police car. The cop claimed the Crossed had said things about his wife that the Crossed had no way of knowing, and wanted to interrogate him further. Cindy claims that the Crossed hasn't said anything that he couldn't have deduced from a cold read of the cop and they discount the cop's theory. Flash-forward to "The Thin Red Line" arc, where the initial Crossed infectee in Britain ''does'' gain access to information that he couldn't possibly know, and it paints a more disturbing picture. Are first-generation Crossed actually, in some strange way, clairvoyant?
** Arguably the darkest example is in Gore Angels. Many people watched Emiko's gang-rape video online....just how many people now think that she's a slut, not knowing that she was actually drugged and raped!?!?
** Did anyone stop to consider that Boss Yamada may have abused his daughter!?
* FridgeLogic: If Creator/GarthEnnis meant this as a TakeThat (see below) to people who believe they could survive a ZombieApocalypse, why didn't he use actual zombies? The Crossed aren't any kind of zombie at all, but something completely different.
** Because the average Garth Ennis protagonist, i.e. Cindy, would be in about as much danger during an actual zombie apocalypse as you are during a particularly rowdy soccer game. She'd hand out two thousand clean headshots and go put Patrick down for a nap.
** Because those type of survivalists generally take into account only one kind of zombie, the slow-moving hungry-for-flesh type, and boast about how well they would do against them. Ennis just gives them a foe they have no chance against, and no amount of bug-out-bag preparation or choosing the right kind of machete will save you.

** An arguably mild example in Gore Angels. Many people watched Emiko's gang-rape video online....just how many people now think that she's a slut, not knowing that she was actually drugged and raped!?!?

**** Except that the reader would have almost no expectation of it being any other kind of story. Zombie fiction, in any media, generally ends on no less hopeful a note than "A few of them survived." There's almost never a comeback of any sort beyond overcoming the hordes to manage to survive, possibly finding a way to wait out the apocalypse. Even the power-fantasy cannon fodder is less to do with "Wow, we want the world to end so we can kill zombies!" and is more that people would be free to shoot and kill without any sort of remorse since it's, ya know, undead and not people. Something that could be examined in a far less over the top, ridiculous and strawman way while trying to tear away that fairly silly image. But this seemingly isn't within the authors abilities so he builds a strawman character in the comic to take a pot shot at a mostly imagined "irritating brand of fan" without having any real point to the issue and it serves no purpose other than to be a pot shot at the exact people who would waste their money on the comic he's trying to sell. It's not even a deconstruction, it's just bad writing. It's about the same quality of writing you get whenever an internet user is depicted as a fat, slovenly middle-aged man living in his mothers basement and trolling on internet forums.

* FridgeLogic: If GarthEnnis meant this as a TakeThat (see below) to people who believe they could survive a ZombieApocalypse, why didn't he use actual zombies? The Crossed aren't any kind of zombie at all, but something completely different.

**** Except that the reader would have almost no expectation of it being any other kind of story. Zombie fiction, in any media, generally ends on no less hopeful a note than "A few of them survived." There's almost never a comeback of any sort beyond overcoming the hordes to manage to survive, possibly finding a way to wait out the apocalypse. Even the power-fantasy cannon fodder is less to do with "Wow, we want the world to end so we can kill zombies!" and more "This is how I would try to survive if things went to hell in a fictional apocalyptic scenario." So he builds a strawman character in the comic to take a pot shot at a mostly imagined "irritating brand of fan" without having any real context of the issue and it serves no purpose other than to be a pot shot at the exact people who would waste their money on the comic he's trying to sell. It's not even a deconstruction, it's just bad writing.

*** It's probably more accurate to say that the "zombie apocalypse" angle comes up in that issue as more of an immediate indicator to the reader that this is not that kind of story, where the first reel begins with our heroes on the ropes and they're going to make their comeback soon. The one guy who actually mentions taking the world back from the Crossed is a moron who's steeped in science-fiction tropes and who dies for it. The Crossed are thus established as something other than power-fantasy cannon fodder, and it doesn't hurt that he got to thumb his nose at a particularly irritating brand of fan while he was at it.

** From ''Wish You Were Here'': The revelation that the Crossed virus [[spoiler: is not only capable of being transmitted through the flesh of carrion eaters([[ParanoiaFuel when's the last time you had some fish lately?]]), but is also apparently mutating into something even ''worse''.]]

** Because, frankly, Creator/GarthEnnis is ''not'' above writing {{Author Tract}}s or using TheWarOnStraw as part of that. He can't find a viable counter-argument for those who make arguments for "classic" Romero-style {{Zombie Apocalypse}}s, so instead he moves the goalposts by replacing the iconic mindless shamblers with a literal HatePlague that turns the infected into AxeCrazy killers ''without'' robbing them of their human intelligence.

** Because, frankly, CreatorGarthEnnis is ''not'' above writing {{Author Tract}}s or using TheWarOnStraw as part of that. He can't find a viable counter-argument for those who make arguments for "classic" Romero-style {{Zombie Apocalypse}}s, so instead he moves the goalposts by replacing the iconic mindless shamblers with a literal HatePlague that turns the infected into AxeCrazy killers ''without'' robbing them of their human intelligence.

** They are, though. [[OurZombiesAreDifferent Just a different type of zombie.]] In fact, being [[TechnicallyLivingZombie alive and merely berserk]], they're probably much more realistic and likely zombies than what all the "shoot 'em in the head" nerds are prepared to face. The lesson isn't just "you couldn't possibly survive in a zombie apocalypse", it's actually "you couldn't possibly survive in a zombie apocalypse if you automatically assume that the zombies you're facing are going to be or act in a certain way", which is most certainly true.

** But the point is that the crossed aren't zombies, so the lesson(You couldn't survive in a zombie apocalypse) still doesn't apply- the survivalists aren't saying "I could survive psychotic attacks by beings capable of thought in huge numbers" they're saying "I could survive a ZOMBIE attack, by ZOMBIES,", which the crossed ARE NOT.

** Because those type of survivalists generally take into account only one kind of zombie, the slow-moving hungry-for-flesh type, and boast about how well they would do against them. Ennis just gives them a foe they have no chance against, and no amount of bug-out-bag preparation or choosing the right kind of machete will save you.

** Because the average Garth Ennis protagonist, i.e. Cindy, would be in about as much danger during an actual zombie apocalypse as you are during a particularly rowdy soccer game. She'd hand out two thousand clean headshots and go put Patrick down for a nap.

*** In fact, that could be considered a running theme throughout the Crossed saga. In all the story arcs one can see non-Crossed characters engage in Crossed-like behavior. Some examples are obvious, eg. Harold Lorre & Addy's father, while others are more subtle. This of course reinforces the concept that all the Crossed virus really does (apart from the facial rash) is strip its victims of all norms and concepts of civilization and society, with some people already being like the Crossed even without the virus.

** From ''Wish You Were Here'': The fact that the Crossed virus [[spoiler: is not only capable of being transmitted through the flesh of carrion eaters([[ParanoiaFuel when's the last time you had some fish lately?]]), but is also apparently mutating into something even ''worse''.]]

* FridgeLogic: If Garth Ennis meant this as a TakeThat (see below) to people who believe they could survive a ZombieApocalypse, why didn't he use actual zombies? The Crossed aren't any kind of zombie at all, but something completely different.

* FridgeLogic: If Garth Ennis meant this as a TakeThat (see below) to people who believe they could survive a zombie apocalypse, why didn't he use actual zombies? The Crossed aren't any kind of zombie at all, but something completely different.