Crossed: +One Hundred vol. 2

I was very much looking forward to seeing what writer Si Spurrier would be doing with this series he inherited from Alan Moore.  After all, Spurrier is one of the few writers who has done something interesting with the “Crossed” concept beyond exploit it for purposes of gore-related shock value.  So imagine my disappointment when this turned out to be one of the most difficult reads I’ve experienced all year.  It took me multiple tries to get into this second volume of the adventures of Future Taylor as she acclimates to her new living situation in Murfreesboro after her home of Chooga was destroyed by the Crossed in the previous volume.  It’s not that her adventures in exploring the countryside or trying to wake the community up to the menace facing them were particularly uninteresting.  No, it’s because Spurrier fully commits to maintaining the future vernacular Moore cooked up for this series in the first volume and it’s just as much of a chore to get through here as it was there.

Wait, I take that back.  It’s actually MORE of a chore in vol. 2 because the first one had worldbuilding, a sense of discovery, and some genuine mystery to drive the narrative and make putting up with the language worth it in the end.  Spurrier is digging more into the world Moore created here, which means he’s telling a story with more subtleties and nuance.  These things tend to be lost when you can’t parse them through the characters’ dialogue and writings.  This makes the majority of the narrative a slog to get through until the very end.  That’s when Spurrier takes things in a dramatically different direction with a shake-up in the power structure at Murfreesboro thanks to some decisions Future makes for what she believes to be the greater good.  I’m… just about convinced this development may be worth following.  We’ll see if my interest there can overcome my antipathy towards reading more of the wretched futuristic dialogue this series takes too much pride in.