Donny Cates has a love and knowledge of the world of comics. This modern mythology accompanied him throughout his life, even helping him to overcome the accidents of life. It is therefore with passion and talent that he began his work as comic book authors. Working first for the Maison des Idées, he quickly began a career as an independent creator. His series The Paybacks, published this month by Urban, revealed all the richness of a universe made of references, tributes, irreverence and invention. With Crossover, Donny Cates and fellow cartoonist Geoff Shaw decide to explode the boundaries of the multiverse and create the ultimate crossover.
Multiversal crisis
Denver, 2017. The metropolis of Colorado becomes the scene of a cosmic shock. The superheroes and villains of the comic book world are indeed landing in the real world. Their arrival triggers an unspeakable catastrophe: the city is devastated, the dead number in the thousands. To stop the contamination, a protective dome covers the city. But the damage is done. Comics have become an object of hatred. Readers and writers become suspects and victims of popular condemnation cleverly exploited by populist leaders. Against all odds, Ellie works in one of the last comic shops in the country. Frequently exposed to fanatics of all stripes, she tries to keep this island of freedom alive. But when she discovers in her shop a little girl from a comic, her life turns upside down. Determined to help the unknown, she decides to return to Denver and unravel the mysteries of the dome and the incursion. Without knowing that she will plunge into a world where fiction and reality are very linked. 
Crossover : The Love Letter to Comics
Donny Cates summons for his first volume the entire superhero universe. Admittedly, he cannot use them directly (except the characters of his own series The Paybacks) but he quotes them constantly. Thus, the reader easily recognizes his idols, their nemesis gathered in a festival of colors and action. Because history opens onto a world without limits. The one where fiction collides with reality. The one where the power of the huts meets human fragility. He then questions our fascination about these quasi Gods who out of Olympus become mortal threats. Crossover therefore looks a lot towards the questions of Alan Moore, especially those developed in The Tempest, the last act of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Faced with the world of the fantastic, Moore's real universe carries little weight. Humanity is then forced to go into exile in order to survive. Donny Cates, however, offers a different response to this confrontation. The humanity of Crossover closes in on itself, monitors, puts under bell.
She is suspicious of metahumans because, as Lex Luthor rightly says in Batman vs. Superman, "If God was almighty, He couldn't be good. And that if He was good, He could not be all-powerful."
A very political series
The Paybacks , Donny Cates' previous series, was already full of a dense subtext critical of capitalism and the law of the market. Crossover goes even further. The first pages indeed fire red balls on the puritanical America of the Trump era. Without naming the former president, this first volume mocks the fears of a certain America bent around a so-called moral order. Everything then goes there: extremist movements reminiscent of ultra-religious groups; supremacists; the moralizing gurus inspired by Frédéric Wertham; the construction of the wall and the hunt for fugitives. Crossover explores even more deeply into the depths of the human soul. The Denver disaster leads the population to exclude the Other as a whole. Lovers of comics-books, cartoonists become scapegoats accused of being the fifth column of an unknown enemy. Faced with the inexplicable, the irrational takes over. And only Ellie seems to retain a part of humanity in her quest for answers. But the story is far from Manichean. She also questions our fascination about her exceptional beings. Can they really be trusted? 
Crossover : a reflection on the history of comics
This volume distills quotations that shed light on the scope of this story. One of the first to appear is the words of Frédéric Wertham. This psychologist born in Germany becomes very influential in the E.U.A in the mid-1950s with the publication of his study Seduction of the Innocent. In this analysis, he criticizes comics accused of pushing young people towards drugs, violence and crime. But his book comes out at a time when Congress is working on juvenile delinquency. It will give grain to grind to the offensive of the censors and scare the publishers who will adopt a Comics Code Authority to avoid any sanction. The consequence on the production is direct: the stories are watered down, characters like Wonder Woman considered too "feminine" and "avant-garde" are rewritten. All this history, sometimes unknown to the general public, emerges at various points in the story. With a lot of intelligence Crossover puts this endless debate into perspective. Is the image responsible for the violence? Donny Cates refers to our own perception by recalling that drawing is a game, a metaphor. Like the words that can lead as much to the Light as to the Darkness. This led him not to demonize Wertham's work, some of whom have pointed to the harmful effects of racial segregation in schools on school development. In the end, it's all about choice, reason and hindsight. Urban comics by publishing Crossover offers the reader a strong, intelligent and beautifully illustrated work. Its author questions the strength of our beliefs and the dangers of omnipotence. Only one certainty, we will look forward to the release of the second volume
