Behold the cautionary tale oh readers, of the company that once was, filled with mostly big talents that thrived for awhile… then fell flat and crashed and burned from my understanding of the situation.

Yes, people, you really don’t need to be just a small start up comic company to suffer the slings and arrows of bad fortune. Even when you got a stacked deck of talent you can still fail to hit the mark. Take the case of CrossGen Comics, please.

When they first came out (and I was still fresh at the whole reviewing game) they sounded abit too good to be true (advertising in such things as WIZARD : The Guide to Comics) looking for talent to move to Florida to find work… too bad I tried out only to find that the call for work wasn’t really for joe everyday but for the BIG GUNS, the small fry would only get menial duties and nothing more.

False advertising aside CrossGen went out there and took the industry by storm when they launched way back when some years ago… then the industry rose up like a tsunami and wiped them out. I am pretty certain CrossGen has gone the way of many a flash in the pan company (faded away)… but their work lives on. In Graphic Novels that are still out there, floating in second hand bookstores, the back issue pile of your better stocked stores like Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, as well as the book inventories of people working such book swapping clubs as the now famous BookMooch.com. Yes, the place I personally frequent for my mooches for review purposes. That place.

It is here I found this copy of Way of the Rat… and, for once, unlike previous attempts to review CrossGen (my last two efforts must be gathering dust about here somewhere) I actually found myself liking this one.

Set in an Ancient China like setting, if not actually in Ancient China, we find that the fate of an entire kingdom may lie in the hands of a kinda skilled thief who’d rather not be the savior of his people (if he could so help it). Meet Boon Sai Hong, aka the Jade Rat. He’s a thief of fair prospects and talents who, upon his latest job, has found himself cursed with three items. 1) A ring that is, in fact, a powerful artifact called the Ring of Staffs, 2) A “book” (scroll) that depicts an image of hell inhabited by soul ravenous dragons -- only it’s NOT a image, it’s an actual “looking glass” into a real hell -- and perhaps, in the right hands, a gateway into said hell… or out of said hell for said “Hungry Dragons” that the hell is named for. And 3) A talking monkey with a Mr. Miyagi mentoring complex and a bit of an attitude…. Which could be seen as good news except what Mr. Hong really needed as his third pick-me-up wasn’t a talking monkey but a glowing artifact called the Phoenix Heart (which he does pick up later in the story).

Too bad once he makes his original theft he becomes the most wanted man in the city.
Apparently these artifacts (once in the hands of a known scholar) are now coveted by a jerk of a judge who has sold his soul (and the city it seems) to a powerful Khan who, now that he isn’t getting the three artifacts listed above, is about to invade the city and take everything he wants by force. And yes, the Judge really does end up regretting his own greed and thirst for power as the Khan’s forces march upon the city with what I assume is the local friendly neighborhood Russian arms dealer and his mystical weapon known as a “Mouth of God” (aka a cannon).

So if it’s not bad enough that Hong is already not getting this whole be a hero thing, he has to learn his job on the fly first from avoiding capture by the forces of the city sent against him by the crooked Judge, then as he becomes caught between the city’s forces and the invading armies of the Khan (who he ends up fighting in Mortal Kombat).

But, even as the volume ends, you find out… wow… you actually want to read more.
Chuck Dixon (writer), Jeff Johnson (at pencils), Tom Ryder (inks), Chris Garcia (colorist) and Dave Lanphear (lettering) all play a role in crafting this gem, one of the few gems of the CrossGen lineup that I can ever say I enjoyed reading (or enjoy recommending).
The story is nicely crafted, with lovable (and despicable) characters throughout that make you want to read this, the artwork is lovely on all levels, and by the time you get to the end you really do want to read more (and you can since you can probably find this and other volumes at any discount bargain bin after the amount of time that has passed between it’s original launch and today). I am not one to praise the CrossGen line since I really didn’t like most of the line, but this time… I do have to admit if I can get ahold of more of The Way of the Rat I think I will… this is one of the few reads from CrossGen worth raving about, so let’s do it.

The Way of the Rat : The Walls of Zhumar gets 4 thumbs up out of 5.
Now let’s see if I ever review anything else from CrossGen in the future that gets that kind of buzz from me.