"Lawless" Trade, Back In Stores Today!

Along with other sites, Image Comics' official site confirms today's re-release of "Lawless," the second volume of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' Criminal.

This chapter introduces Tracy Lawless, who has been the main character in two arcs so far -- this arc and "The Sinners" -- and in the short story "emission" titled "No One Rides for Free."  This focused and violent man is so self-contained that the narration is in the third person, which is unusual for the series.

This chapter also clarifies the series' overall format:  each story focuses on a single character, but all the stories occur in a shared universe.

• Leo has a cameo, letting us discover his fate from the end of "Coward.
• Sebastian Hyde was referenced in that first story, and he makes his first appearance here.
• We are introduced to the comic-strip creator Jacob, whose detective comic was introduced in Criminal #1 and who has the starring role in the fourth arc, "Bad Night."
• And we first meet Tracy's monstrous father Teeg Lawless in flashback:  perhaps the linchpin character in the series, Teeg features in the next chapter, "The Dead and the Dying" and in the upcoming Special Edition one-shot, and his death was a crucial event in the back-story of "Coward."

This chapter also features a narrative device where there was a heist in every monthly issue.  The tension rises as Tracy Lawless becomes both the hunter and the quarry, returning to the criminal underworld to avenge the murder of his younger brother Ricky -- whose funeral was first referenced in the previous chapter, "Coward."