TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN

Wednesday, April 22, 2026

It's a World's Greatest Detective Wednesday

As some may have guessed by my not so subtle hint in our last CROSSGEN WEEK post Today's case is Jackson Guice's brilliant RUSE series written by Mark Waid and Scott Beatty which - like many other series by CrossGen Comics - was terminated before it could reach its natural conclusion.

Like I mentioned previously this post has been a long time coming even before I got an itch after writing my latest Jackson Guice spotlight posts, bust as with other CrossGen posts the question is always how much I can reveal as there is a fine balance to be struck between giving the readers enough to get them interested to pick up the series but not spoil reveals nor give away important plot points. Of which there are dozens in this.

Of which there are also dozens are double page spreads, in fact most of the pages in these issues are and it is an amazing feat by Jackson Guice and Mike Perkins ( let's not forget the inker of this excellent series who also pencilled such CrossGen series like the RUSE connected ARCHARD'S AGENTS and the british super spy spoof KISS KISS BANG BANG ) that it does get neither boring nor confusing as anybody who ever read Brian Michael Bendis POWERS can attest where artist Michael Avon Oeming was not capable to make it clear which pages are single pages and which ones are double page spreads so that you are never sure in which order you should read them and end up going back and forth - the entire time.

Speaking of these double page spreads, they pose a problem since it means that if I include them this early in the post I either have to make them so small that you can't see much or post them a bigger but have them run over the blog archive and the blog roll which doesn't look very good. I mean, I could do it but I just don't like the look of it and while there are a lot of things about writing these posts with blogger that I can't change and just have to accept thankfully this is not one of them.

So the only alternative is to bridge the space with some additional info about the series which is something that I can absolutely do. Now I don't want to repeat myself and I am sure that I must have written something about RUSE before since it is one of my favourite comicbook series but going over my old posts I couldn't find anything to that effect so for the sake of new blog visitors and long time followers with a bad memory we are starting with this from zero. So what is a comicbook and how do we read them ? Relax, I'm only kidding. As some of you may have garnered from the pictures I have posted from RUSE so far as well as from the title of this post the book is set in victorian times and the similarities with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's world famous crime novel series about the world's greatest - fictional - detective Sherlock Holmes are quite intentionally because it helps to put the readers in the right mindset right of the bat.

Now there is CrossGen's unique twist on that dynamic because while being an entertaining rip - off of Sherlock Holmes in itself would be enough for other publishers - and they are a dime a dozen - CrossGen always embraced the variety and diversity in all of its different worlds.

I have mentioned a few times that one of the things that set CrossGen apart from other publishers was that they featured female characters in prominent roles when that was not the norm ( which I didn't mind much because a lot of them were very attractive and unlike other publishers CrossGen was not afraid to put artists on those books that could portray them accordingly ) so it won't come as a surprise that Emma Bishop, aide to the world's greatest detective Simon Archard is not just a sidekick in the style of Doctor Watson who often only seems to exist to give readers some expositionary dialogue but a partner and a great detective in her own right even if the majority of characters have trouble accepting that.

What is the same as in the Sherlock Holmes novels ( I know that most people know him most from the countless adaptions into movies and tv series but since I have read most of the books - and listened to audio dramas from the radio that were also wine commercials which made for a unique listening experience - that is what I am basing this post on ) is that Simon Archard is the most - or second most - brilliant mind on the planet and that he not only solves cases out of a sense for justice but also to keep his overactive mind active and stimulated. He also is very arrogant, egoistic and abrasive and rude when dealing with other people which is where Emma Bishop comes in. Also like Sherlock Holmes Simon Archard has his network of society's undesirables, young street urchins and talented never do wells who provide him with intel and support if the case requires it. For a bit of monetary compensation of course.

Now some of you may have noticed that I hinted at the possibility that Simon Archard may only be the second most brilliant detective on this world and while Emma Bishop might well be the reason for that in this case I am referring to Malcolm Lightbourne his erstwhile crime fighting partner in the vein of Batman and Robin and I am not going to say more about the nature of their partnership nor the reason for their falling out because that could ruin your reading experience. Trust me on this one.

The last thing I want to mention before leaving you with those wonderful Jackson Guice double pages spreads is that while CrossGen's RUSE was never finished ( and you can find an outline of the direction in which the story would have gone had it continued on Scott Beatty's blog DIALOGUE TO FOLLOW ) there was a four issue series published by Marvel Comics in 2011 ( who had obtained the rights to all CrossGen properties at that point ) that continued the story and while there was no mention of the sigils or negation characters references were made to characters and events from the CrossGen series. Sadly Jackson Guice only provided cover art for the series but it was written by original writer Mark Waid.