title: Ion Antonescu

text: According to Oldson, by the final stage of the war Romania rejected "all extreme measures against Jews who could not be proven to be communists." The planned transports to Palestine, the prospect of which irritated Nazi German observers, implied a hope that the Allies' focus would shift away from the regime's previous guilt and, at the same time, looked forward to payments to be made in exchange for each person saved. The contrary implications of Romanian nationalism, manifested as reluctance to obey German commands and discomfort with drastic change in general, are occasionally offered as further explanations of the phenomenon. While reflecting upon the issue of emigration to Palestine, Antonescu also yielded to pleas of Jewish community leaders, and allowed safe passage through Romania for various Northern Transylvanian Jews fleeing the Holocaust in Hungary. He was doing the same for certain Northern Transylvanian Romani communities who had escaped southwards. In that context, Nazi German ideologues began objecting to Antonescu's supposed leniency. Antonescu nevertheless alternated tolerance of illegal immigration with drastic measures. In early 1944, he issued an order to shoot illegal immigrants, which was probably never enforced by the Border Police (who occasionally turned in Jewish refugees to the German authorities). The Antonescu regime allowed the extermination of the Romanian Jewish diaspora in other parts of Europe, formally opposing their deportation in some cases where it appeared Germany was impinging upon Romania's sovereignty.


title: Ion Antonescu

text: The circumstances of wartime accounted for cautious and ambivalent approaches to Antonescu's rule from among the Romanian political mainstream, which grouped advocates of liberal democracy and anti-fascism. According to Gledhill and King: "Romanian liberals had been critical of their government's warm relationship with Hitler, which had been developing throughout the 1930s, but the [1940] Soviet attack on Romanian territory left them with little chance but to support Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union." Other authors also cite the Greater Romanian agenda of the Antonescu executive as a reason behind the widespread acquiescence. The tendency was illustrated by Dinu Brătianu, who, in late January 1941, told his National Liberal colleagues that the new "government of generals" was "the best solution possible to the current crisis", urging the group to provide Antonescu with "all the support we can give him." An early point of contention between Antonescu and the National Peasants' Party came in spring 1941, when Antonescu's support for the Balkans Campaign and Romania's claim to parts of Vojvodina were met with a letter of protest from Iuliu Maniu, which Antonescu dismissed. Maniu and Brătianu also issued several condemnations of Antonescu's decision to continue the war beyond the Dniester. One such letter, signed by both, claimed that, while earlier steps had been "legitimized by the entire soul of the nation, the Romanian people will never consent to the continuation of the struggle beyond our national borders." Maniu specifically mentioned the possibility of Allied victory, accused Antonescu of diverting attention from the goal of Greater Romania (Northern Transylvania included), and stressed that Romania's ongoing participation in the Axis was "troubling enough".


title: Ion Antonescu

text: Antonescu is known to have publicly admonished opposition leaders for their disobedience, which he equated with obstruction, and to have monitored their activities through the Special Intelligence Service. However, some early communiqués he addressed to Brătianu also feature offers of resignation, which their recipient reluctantly rejected. The Germans objected to such ambiguities, and Hitler once advised Antonescu to have Maniu killed, an option which the "Conducător" rejected because of the PNȚ leader's popularity with the peasants. While tolerating contacts between Maniu and the Allies, Antonescu arrested the clandestine British envoys to Romania, thus putting a stop to the 1943 "Operation Autonomous". In parallel, his relationship with Queen Mother Helen and Michael rapidly deteriorated after he began advising the royal family on how to conduct its affairs. Dissent from Antonescu's policies sometimes came from inside his own camp. Both the officer corps and the General Staff were divided on the issue of war beyond the Dniester, although it is possible that the majority agreed it would bring Northern Transylvania back to Romania. A prominent case was that of Iosif Iacobici, the Chief of the Romanian General Staff, whose objection to the massive transfer of Romanian troops to the Eastern Front resulted in his demotion and replacement with Ilie Șteflea (January 1942). Șteflea issued similar calls, and Antonescu's eventually agreed to preserve a home army just before the Battle of Stalingrad. Various other military men extended their protection to persecuted Jews. Overall, Antonescu met significant challenges in exercising control over the politicized sectors in the armed forces.


title: Ion Antonescu

text: Antonescu's racial discrimination laws and Romania's participation in the Holocaust earned significant objections from various individuals and groups in Romanian society. One noted opponent was Queen Mother Helen, who actively intervened to save Jews from being deported. The Mayor of Cernăuți, Traian Popovici, publicly objected to the deportation of Jews, as did Gherman Pântea, his counterpart in Odessa. The appeals of Queen Helen, King Michael, the Orthodox Metropolitan of Transylvania Nicolae Bălan, Apostolic Nuncio Andrea Cassulo and Swiss Ambassador René de Weck are credited with having helped avert the full application of the Final Solution in Antonescu's Romania. Cassulo and Bălan together pleaded for the fate of certain Jews, including all who had converted to Christianity, and the former publicly protested against deportations. While Romania and the United States were still at peace, American Minister Plenipotentiary Franklin Mott Gunther repeatedly attempted to make his superiors aware of Romanian actions against the Jews, and Turkish diplomats unsuccessfully sought American approval for transferring Romanian Jews to safe passage through Anatolia and into Palestine. Dinu Brătianu also condemned antisemitic measures, prompting Antonescu to accuse him of being an ally of "the Yid in London". Together with Maniu and Ion Mihalache, Brătianu signed statements condemning the isolation, persecution and expulsion of Jews, which prompted Antonescu to threaten to clamp down on them. However, both parties were occasionally ambiguous on racial issues, and themselves produced antisemitic messages. Brătianu is also known for publicly defending the cause of Romani people, opposing their deportation on grounds that it would "turn back the clock on several centuries of history", a stance which drew support from his civilian peers. In parallel, some regular Romanians such as nurse Viorica Agarici intervened to save Jewish lives, while, from inside the Jewish community, Chief Rabbi Alexandru Șafran and activist Mișu Benvenisti rallied with Wilhelm Filderman in public protests against Antonescu's decisions, being occasionally joined by A. L. Zissu. In 1943, Filderman himself was deported to Mohyliv-Podilskyi, but eventually allowed to return.


title: Ion Antonescu

text: Organized resistance movements in Antonescu's Romania were comparatively small-scale and marginal. In addition to a Zionist underground which aided Jews to pass through or flee the country, the regime was confronted with local political movements of contrasting shades. One of them comprised far left and left-wing elements, which Antonescu's rise to power had caught in an unusual position. The minor Romanian Communist Party, outlawed since the rule of Ferdinand I for its Cominternist national policies, had been rendered virtually inactive by the German-Soviet non-aggression pact. Once reanimated by Operation Barbarossa, the PCR was unable to create an actual armed resistance movement, although it was able to coordinate the policies of several other small leftist groups. Speaking shortly before the invasion of the Soviet Union, and adopting the "Jewish Bolshevism" position, Antonescu ordered authorities to compile lists comprising "the names of all Jewish and communist agents", who were to be kept under close surveillance. Among people arrested on suspicion of communism, Jews were sent to Transnistrian sites such as Vapniarka and Rîbnița, while others were interned in regular facilities such as those in Caransebeș and Târgu Jiu. In all, some 2,000 Jewish Romanian deportees to the region had been accused of political crimes (the category also included those who had tried to escape forced labor). According to one estimate, people held on charges of being communists accounted for just under 2,000 people, of whom some 1,200 were jailed in Romania proper. Capital punishment was used against various partisan-like activists, while the vast majority of communist prisoners in Rîbnița were massacred in March 1944. At the other end of the political spectrum, after the Legionary Rebellion and the Iron Guard's decapitation, many Legionaries who opposed the regime, and whom Antonescu himself believed were "communists in [Legionary] green shirts", were killed or imprisoned. An Iron Guardist underground was nevertheless formed locally, and probably numbered in thousands. Some of Antonescu's political prisoners from both camps were given a chance to redeem themselves by joining units on the Eastern Front.


title: Ion Antonescu

text: Although repressed, divided and weak, the PCR capitalized on the Soviet victories, being integrated into the mainstream opposition. At the same time, a "prison faction" emerged around Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, opposing both the formal leadership and the so-called "Muscovite" communists who had taken refuge in the Soviet Union before the war. While maneuvering for control within the PCR during and after 1944, "prison" communists destroyed a third group, formed around the PCR's nominal leader Ștefan Foriș (whom they kidnapped and eventually killed). The PCR leadership was still suffering from a crisis of legitimacy after beginning talks with the larger parties. The Soviets and "Muscovite" communists campaigned among Romanian prisoners of war in order to have them switch sides in the war, and eventually managed to set up the Tudor Vladimirescu Division.


title: Ion Antonescu

text: Measures enforced by the Ion Antonescu regime had contradictory effects on the Romanian cultural scene. According to Romanian literary historians Letiția Guran and Alexandru Ștefan, "the Antonescu regime [...] did not affect negatively cultural modernity. The Romanian cultural elite regarded Antonescu's policies for the most part with sympathy." Nevertheless, other researchers record the dissent of several cultural environments: the classic liberalism and cosmopolitanism of aging literary theorist Eugen Lovinescu, the "Lovinescian" Sibiu Literary Circle, and the rebellious counterculture of young avant-garde writers (Ion Caraion, Geo Dumitrescu, Dimitrie Stelaru, Constant Tonegaru). Prominent left-wing writers Tudor Arghezi, Victor Eftimiu and Zaharia Stancu were political prisoners during the Antonescu years. Author George Călinescu also stood out against the official guidelines, and, in 1941, took a risk by publishing a synthesis of Romanian literature which emphasized Jewish contributions, while composer George Enescu pleaded with Antonescu personally for the fate of Romani musicians. Similar acts of solidarity were performed by various prominent intellectuals and artists. In August 1942, King Michael received a manifesto endorsed by intellectuals from various fields, deploring the murders in Transnistria, and calling for a realignment of policies. Another such document of April 1944 called for an immediate peace with the Soviet Union. On a more intimate level, a diary kept by philosopher and art critic Alice Voinescu expresses her indignation over the antisemitic measures and massacres.


title: Ion Antonescu

text: A special aspect of political repression and cultural hegemony was Antonescu's persecution of Evangelical or Restorationist Christian denominations, first outlawed under the National Legionary regime. Several thousand adherents of the Pentecostal Union and the Baptist Union were reportedly jailed in compliance with his orders. Persecution targeted groups of religiously motivated conscientious objectors. In addition to the Inochentist movement, these groups included the Pentecostal Union, the Seventh-day Adventist Conference and the Jehovah's Witnesses Association. Antonescu himself recounted having contemplated using the death penalty against "sects" who would not allow military service, and ultimately deciding in favor of deporting "recalcitrant" ones.


title: Ion Antonescu

text: The period following Antonescu's fall returned Romania to a democratic regime and the 1923 Constitution, as well as its participation in the war alongside the Allies. However, it also saw the early stages of a communist takeover—which culminated with King Michael's forced abdication on 30 December 1947 and the subsequent establishment of Communist Romania. The Antonescu trial thus fit into a long series of similar procedures and political purges on charges of collaborationism, instrumented by the Romanian People's Tribunals and various other institutions. During the rigged general election of 1946 and for years after Ion Antonescu's execution, the Romanian Communist Party and its allies began using the implications of his trial as an abusive means of compromising some of their political opponents. One such early example was Iuliu Maniu, by then one of the country's prominent anti-communists, who was accused of being a fascist and an Antonescu sympathizer, mainly for having shaken his hand during the trial. The enlistment of ethnic Germans into Nazi German units, as approved by Antonescu, was used as a pretext for a Soviet-led expulsion of Germans from Romania. On similar grounds, the Soviet occupation forces organized the capture of certain Romanian citizens, as well as the return of war refugees from Romania proper into Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. Both the arrestees and the returnees were often deported deeper into the Soviet Union. As part of its deteriorating relationship with Romanian Roman Catholics, and urged on by the Soviets, the communist cabinet of Petru Groza also deemed Apostolic Nuncio Andrea Cassulo a collaborator of Antonescu and a "persona non grata", based on transcripts of the Cassulo-Antonescu conversations. It also used such allegations to pressure several Greek-Catholic clergymen into accepting union with the Romanian Orthodox Church.


title: Ion Antonescu

text: Nevertheless, Romanian-born Holocaust historian Radu Ioanid notes, few Romanians involved in organizing the Holocaust were prosecuted, and, of those, none were executed after the Antonescu trial. He attributes this to nationalist resistance within the administrative and judicial apparatus, to communist fears of alienating a too large number of people, to the emigration of Zionist survivors, and to the open hostility of some communists toward liberal Jewish community leaders. Jews also faced conflict with the new authorities and with the majority population, as described by other researchers. There were, nonetheless, sporadic trials for Holocaust-related crimes, including one of Maria Antonescu. Arrested in September 1944 and held 1945–1946 in Soviet custody, she was re-arrested at home in 1950, tried and ultimately found guilty of economic crimes for her collaboration with the Central Jewish Office. Five years later, she was sent into internal exile, and died of heart problems in 1964. After 1950, a large number of convicted war criminals, even some sentenced to life imprisonment, were deemed fit for "social cohabitation" (that is, fit to live amongst the general population) and released, while some suspects were never prosecuted.


title: Ion Antonescu

text: Although the Marxist analytical works of the increasingly marginalized communist figure Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu make isolated mentions of the Holocaust, the heavily politicized official discourse inspired by Soviet historiography interpreted Romania's wartime evolution exclusively based on the Marxist-Leninist idea of class conflict. In this context, the main effort to document and expose the Antonescu-era massacres came from Jewish Romanians. This began in 1945, when Jewish journalists Marius Mircu and Maier Rudrich contributed first-hand testimonies. In 1946–1948, the Jewish community leader Matatias Carp published "Cartea neagră" ("The Black Book"), a voluminous and detailed account of all stages of the Holocaust. After forming a secondary element in Antonescu's indictment, the deportation of Romani people was largely ignored in official discourse.


title: Ion Antonescu

text: The communist regime overemphasized the part played by the PCR in King Michael's Coup, while commemorating its 23 August date as a national holiday. The Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej faction emerged as the winner of the interior PCR struggles and incorporated nationalist discourse. That faction claimed a decisive role in toppling Antonescu, even though a majority of its members had been jailed for most of the period. In accordance with Stalinist principles, censorship produced historical revisionism that excluded focus on such negative aspects of Romanian behavior during the war as antisemitism and the Holocaust, and obscured Romania's participation on the Eastern Front. Beginning in the mid-1960s, when Nicolae Ceaușescu took power and embarked on a national communist course, the celebration of 23 August as the inception of the communist regime was accompanied by a contradictory tendency, which implied a gradual rehabilitation of Antonescu and his regime. Historians who focused on this period believe that the revival of nationalist tenets and the relative distance taken from Soviet policies contributed to the rehabilitation process. After a period of liberalization, the increasingly authoritarian Ceaușescu regime revived the established patterns of personalized rule, and even made informal use of the title "Conducător". Beginning in the early 1970s, when the new policies were consecrated by the "July Theses", Ceaușescu tolerated a nationalist, antisemitic and Holocaust denialist intellectual faction, illustrated foremost by "Săptămîna" and "Luceafărul" magazines of Eugen Barbu and Corneliu Vadim Tudor, by poet Adrian Păunescu and his "Flacăra" journal, and by novelist Ion Lăncrănjan. The regime also came to cultivate a relationship with exiled tycoon Iosif Constantin Drăgan, a former Iron Guard member who had come to endorse both Antonescu's rehabilitation and the national communist version of protochronism. In contrast, much of dissident culture and the Romanian diaspora embraced the image of Michael I as its counterpart to the increasingly official Antonescu myth. Lucian Boia described this as "the spectacular confrontation between the two contradictory myths [transposing] into historical and mythological terms a fundamental fissure which divides the Romanian society of today."


title: Ion Antonescu

text: Topics relating to the Holocaust in Romania were distorted during the communist era. Ceaușescu himself mentioned the number of survivors of the deportations (some 50,000 people) as a total number of victims, failed to mention the victims' ethnic background, and presented most of them as "communists and antifascists." The regime also placed emphasis on the Holocaust in Northern Transylvania (where the Final Solution had been applied by the Germans and the local Arrow Cross Party). Vladimir Tismăneanu has said Antonescu has a "pseudo-sacred aura" and many Romanians consider the attempts to diminsh this to be an affront to their national dignity: "In post-Communist societies, fantasies of persecution offer immense gratification to large strata of frustrated individuals". These national views are based on propaganda advanced during the Ceaușescu regime.


title: Ion Antonescu

text: Earlier accounts of the massacres, which had already been placed under restricted use, were completely removed from public libraries. While a special politicized literature dealt with the Holocaust in Hungary, the entire Ceaușescu period produced only one work entirely dedicated to Romania's participation. Centred on the Iași pogrom, it shifted the blame from Romanian authorities and advanced a drastically reduced death toll. In its preface, official historian Nicolae Minei claimed that Romania was not responsible for any deaths among Jews. Other official texts made more radical claims, openly denying that Antonescu's regime was antisemitic, and that all those killed were victims of Germany or of circumstance.


title: Ion Antonescu

text: Romanians' image of Antonescu shifted several times after the 1989 Revolution toppled communism. Polls carried out in the 1990s show the "Conducător" was well liked by portions of the general public. This tendency, Lucian Boia argues, was similar to a parallel trend favoring Wallachia's 15th century Prince Vlad III the Impaler, indicating a preference for "authoritarian solutions" and reflecting "a pantheon that was largely set in place in the 'Ceaușescu era' ". It was also popular at the time to see the 1944 Coup exclusively as the onset of communization in Romania, while certain sections of the public opinion revived the notion of "Jewish Bolshevism", accusing Jews of having brought communism to Romania. British historian Tony Judt connected such reflexes to growing anti-Russian sentiment and Holocaust denial in various countries of the former Eastern Bloc, and termed them collectively "mis-memory of anti-communism". Vladimir Tismăneanu, a prominent Romanian-born political scientist, referred to Antonescu's "pseudo-sacred" image with the post-1989 public, and to the phenomenon as "fantasies of persecution." The wartime dictator's image appealed to many politicians of the post-1989 period, and sporadic calls for his rehabilitation were issued at the highest levels of authority. Far right groups issued calls for his canonization by the Romanian Orthodox Church (together with a similar request to canonize Corneliu Zelea Codreanu). Certain neofascist groups claim to represent a legacy of "Codrenism" from which Sima was a deviationist, and these have also become Antonescu apologists.


title: Ion Antonescu

text: A particular case in this process was that of forces gathered around the Greater Romania Party, a group often characterized as merging xenophobic or neofascist messages and the legacy of Ceaușescu's national communism. Founded by party leader and former "Săptămîna" contributor Corneliu Vadim Tudor, "România Mare" magazine is known to have equated Antonescu and Ceaușescu, presenting them both as "apostles of the Romanian people". In his bid for the office of President during the 1996 election, Vadim Tudor vowed to be a new Antonescu. Boia remarks that this meeting of extremes offers an "extraordinary paradox". Drăgan also openly resumed his activities in Romania, often in collaboration with Vadim Tudor's group, founding three organizations tasked with campaigning for Antonescu's rehabilitation: the media outlet Europa Nova, the Ion Antonescu Foundation and the Ion Antonescu League. His colleague Radu Theodoru endorsed such projects while accusing Jews of being "a long-term noxious factor" and claiming that it was actually ethnic Romanians who were victims of a communist Holocaust. Ion Coja and Paul Goma notably produced radical claims relying on fabricated evidence and deflecting blame for the crimes onto the Jews themselves. Several journals edited by Ion Cristoiu repeatedly argued in favor of Antonescu's rehabilitation, also making xenophobic claims; similar views were sporadically present in national dailies of various hues, such as "Ziua", "România Liberă" and "Adevărul".


title: Ion Antonescu

text: Various researchers argue that the overall tendency to exculpate Antonescu was endorsed by the ruling National Salvation Front (FSN) and its successor group, later known as Social Democratic Party, who complemented an emerging pro-authoritarian lobby while depicting their common opponent King Michael and his supporters as traitors. Similar attempts to deny the role of Antonescu in the Holocaust were also made by the main opposition parties, the Christian Democratic National Peasants' Party and the National Liberal Party, with Radu Câmpeanu, the latter party's president, publicly describing the wartime leader as a "great Romanian" who tried to defend the Jews. Sections of both governing and opposition groups contemplated the idea of rehabilitating the wartime leader, and, in May 1991, Parliament observed a moment of silence in his memory. The perceived governmental tolerance of Antonescu's rehabilitation raised international concern and protests. While the FSN-supported Romanian President Ion Iliescu publicly opposed attempts to rehabilitate Antonescu and acknowledged the "crimes he committed against the Jews", it was his successor, Emil Constantinescu, a representative of the Democratic Convention, who in 1997 became the first Romanian officeholder to recognize the collective responsibility of Romanian authorities. Nevertheless, during the same period, Attorney General Sorin Moisescu followed a since-deprecated special appeal procedure to overturn sentences passed against Antonescu and other 1946 defendants, which he eventually withdrew.


title: Ion Antonescu

text: To a certain degree, such pro-Antonescu sentiments were also present in post-1989 historiography. Reflecting back on this phenomenon in 2004, Maria Bucur wrote: "the perverse image of Antonescu is not the product of a propaganda campaign led by right-wing extremists, but a pervasive myth fed by historical debates and political contests, and which the public seems indifferent to or accepts unproblematically." After the Revolution, archival sources concerning Antonescu, including those in the National Archives of Romania, were made more available to researchers, but documents confiscated or compiled by Soviet officials, kept in Russia, remained largely inaccessible. Although confronted with more evidence from the newly opened archives, several historians, including some employed by official institutions, continued to deny the Holocaust in Romania, and attributed the death toll exclusively to German units. In parallel, some continued an exclusive focus on Northern Transylvanian massacres. Local authors who have actively promoted Antonescu's image as a hero and wrote apologetic accounts of his politics include historians Gheorghe Buzatu and Mihai Pelin, and researcher Alex Mihai Stoenescu. Larry L. Watts published a similarly controversial monograph in the United States. Although criticized for denying the uniqueness of the Holocaust and downplaying Antonescu's complicity, Dinu C. Giurescu was recognized as the first post-communist Romanian historian to openly acknowledge his country's participation, while his colleagues Șerban Papacostea and Andrei Pippidi were noted as early critics of attempts to exculpate Antonescu. The matter of crimes in Transnistria and elsewhere was first included within the Romanian curriculum with a 1999 state-approved alternative textbook edited by Sorin Mitu.


title: Ion Antonescu

text: In 2003, after a period in which his own equivocal stance on the matter had drawn controversy, Constantinescu's successor Ion Iliescu established the Wiesel Commission, an international group of expert historians whose mission was the study of the Holocaust in Romania, later succeeded by the Elie Wiesel National Institute. The "Final Report" compiled by the Commission brought the official recognition of Ion Antonescu's participation in the Holocaust. After that moment, public displays of support for Antonescu became illegal. Antonescu's SMERSH interrogations were recovered from the Russian archives and published in 2006. Despite the renewed condemnation and exposure, Antonescu remained a popular figure: as a result of the 2006 "Mari Români" series of polls conducted by the national station TVR 1, viewers nominated Antonescu as the 6th greatest Romanian ever. The vote's knockout phase included televised profiles of the ten most popular figures, and saw historian Adrian Cioroianu using the portion dedicated to Antonescu to expose and condemn him, giving voters reasons not to see the dictator as a great Romanian. The approach resulted in notable controversy after "Ziua" newspaper criticized Cioroianu, who defended himself by stating he had an obligation to tell the truth.


title: Ion Antonescu

text: The same year, on 5 December, the Bucharest Court of Appeals overturned Antonescu's conviction for certain crimes against peace, on the grounds that the objective conditions of 1940 justified a preventive war against the Soviet Union, which would make Article 3 of the 1933 Convention for the Definition of Aggression inapplicable in his case (as well as in those of Alexianu, Constantin Pantazi, Constantin Vasiliu, Sima and various Iron Guard politicians). This act raised official protests in Moldova, the independent state formed in Bessarabia upon the breakup of the Soviet Union, and in Russia, the Soviet successor state, as well as criticism by historians of the Holocaust. The Court of Appeals decision was overturned by the Romanian Supreme Court in May 2008. The same year, Maria Antonescu's collateral inheritors advanced a claim on a Predeal villa belonging to the couple, but a Brașov tribunal rejected their request, citing laws which confiscated the property of war criminals.


title: Ion Antonescu

text: Beyond their propaganda and censorship efforts, Antonescu and his regime had a sizable impact on Romanian culture, art and literature. Owing to austere guidelines on culture and to the circumstances of wartime, this period's direct imprint is less than that of other periods in the country's history. Few large heroes' memorials were built during the war years. Memorials produced at the time were mainly roadside triptychs ("troițe"). The Heroes' Cult organization received expropriation rights to Bucharest's Jewish cemetery in 1942, and proposed to replace it with a major monument of this category, but that plan was eventually abandoned. Antonescu and his wife preferred donating to Orthodox churches, and were "ktitors" of churches in three separate Bucharest areas: Mărgeanului Church in Rahova, one in Dămăroaia, and the Saints Constantine and Helena Church in Muncii, where both the Marshal and his wife are depicted in a mural. After floods took a toll on his native Argeș County, the Marshal himself established "Antonești", a model village in Corbeni (partly built by Ukrainian prisoners of war, and later passed into state property), while ordering hydroelectric exploitation of the Argeș River. He also had sporadic contacts with the artistic and literary environment, including an interview he awarded to his supporter, writer Ioan Alexandru Brătescu-Voinești. His 1946 trial was notably attended and documented by George Călinescu in a series of articles for "Națiunea" journal. Political humor of the 1940s preserved distinct images of the Romanian leader. Romanian jokes circulated under Antonescu's rule ridiculed his adoption of the title "Marshal of Romania", viewing it as a self-promotion and dubbing him the "Auto-Marshal". During the war, Soviet agitprop portrayed Antonescu and the other secondary Axis leaders as villains and servile dog-like creatures, representations notably present in musical theater and puppetry shows, as well as in press cartoons.


title: Ion Antonescu

text: Marin Preda's 1975 novel "Delirul" displays the Ceaușescu regime's ambiguous relationship with Antonescu. Critics John Neubauer and Marcel Cornis-Pope remark that the novel is "admittedly not [Preda's] best work", and discuss his "complex representation" of Antonescu as "an essentially flawed but active leader who tried to negotiate some maneuvering room between the demands of Germany and the threats of the Soviet Union [and whose failure] led to the dismantling of Romania's fragile democratic system." The book sought Antonescu's rehabilitation for his attitudes on the Bessarabia-Northern Bukovina issue, but did not include any mention of his antisemitic policies, of which Preda himself may have been ignorant. An international scandal followed, once negative comments on the book were published by the Soviet magazine "Literaturnaya Gazeta". Although an outspoken nationalist, Eugen Barbu produced a satirical image of Antonescu in his own 1975 novel, "Incognito", which was described by Deletant as "character assassination".


title: Ion Antonescu

text: During the 1990s, monuments to Antonescu were raised and streets were named after him in Bucharest and several other cities. Among those directly involved in this process were Iosif Constantin Drăgan, the nationalist Mayor of Cluj-Napoca, Gheorghe Funar, and General Mircea Chelaru, whose resignation from the Army was subsequently requested and obtained. Also during that interval, in 1993, filmmaker and Social Democratic politician Sergiu Nicolaescu produced "Oglinda", which depicts Antonescu (played by Ion Siminie) apologetically. The rehabilitation trend was also represented at an October 1994 commemorative exhibit at the National Military Museum. The same year, a denialist documentary film, "Destinul mareșalului" ("The Marshal's Destiny"), was distributed by state-owned companies, a matter which raised concern. After the Wiesel Commission presented its findings and such public endorsement was outlawed, statues in Antonescu's likeness were torn down or otherwise made unavailable for public viewing. An unusual case is that of his Saints Constantine and Helena Church, where, after lengthy debates, his bust was sealed inside a metal box. Outside of this context, the publicized display of Antonescu's portraits and racist slogans by football hooligans during Liga I's 2005–2006 season prompted UEFA intervention ("see Racism Breaks the Game"). As of 2019, Romania has nine streets named after Antonescu; locations include Constanța, Râmnicu Sărat and Bechet.


title: Ion Antonescu

text: Antonescu received a number of awards and decorations throughout his military career, most notable being the Order of Michael the Brave, which was personally awarded to him by King Ferdinand I during the Hungarian–Romanian War of 1919. He also received several decorations from foreign countries. He was the first Romanian to receive the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, being awarded it by Hitler himself.


title: 2022–23 EFL Championship

text: The 2022–23 EFL Championship (referred to as the Sky Bet Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the 19th season of the Football League Championship under its current title and the 31st season under its current league division format.


title: 2022–23 EFL Championship

text: The season started on 29 July 2022 and will end on 6 May 2023. Due to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, the Championship took a 4 week break mid season during the tournament. The break commenced in mid-November and the first round of fixtures after the World Cup was held on 10 December.


title: Sam Ryder (singer)

text: Sam Ryder (born 25 June 1989) is a British singer-songwriter. Ryder rose to prominence through TikTok, after posting music covers during the first UK lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. He represented the at the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 with the song "Space Man" and finished first in the jury vote, and second overall. Ryder's music has incorporated various genres such as rock music, pop, alternative rock, and metalcore, with praise given to his vocals and falsetto. His debut album, "There's Nothing but Space, Man!" (2022), was met with generally positive reviews, and debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart.


title: Sam Ryder (singer)

text: Sam Ryder was born on 25 June 1989, the youngest child of Keith Robinson, a carpenter, and his wife, Geraldine (née Costelloe), a dental assistant from Hackney, London. He has two elder sisters, Katie and Natalie, born in Newham, east London three years and one year before him respectively. He was raised in Chelmsford, Essex and attended St John Payne Catholic School in Chelmsford between 2000 and 2007.


title: Sam Ryder (singer)

text: Ryder began singing when he was a child and was inspired to pursue a career in music after seeing the Canadian rock band Sum 41 live in concert aged 11.


title: Sam Ryder (singer)

text: Ryder is a big fan of Eurovision and has memories of watching the contest with his family while growing up in the Essex countryside. His musical awakening occurred in his early teens when after a trip to a nunnery he discovered an album of British heavy metal band Iron Maiden. His first job was delivering papers for "The Essex Chronicle" as a child.


title: Sam Ryder (singer)

text: He has a sister who lives in Sydney. He revealed that he was inspired to learn how to play the guitar after the Finnish rock band Lordi won the Eurovision Song Contest 2006. In an interview for Capital in 2022, Ryder said that he previously once worked in construction with his dad and helped build Wembley Stadium.


title: Sam Ryder (singer)

text: Ryder made his debut as a singer and guitarist in the music industry in 2006 when he co-founded the band The Morning After, with whom he released two studio albums. Following his time with the band in 2010, he toured as a guitarist for the band Blessed by a Broken Heart. In 2012, he was announced as their new lead vocalist and contributed to their album "Feel the Power." They split in 2013, and he began working as a frontman for the band Close Your Eyes. Ryder released one studio album with them called "Line in the Sand", and left in 2014.


title: Sam Ryder (singer)

text: Following his time working for other bands he spent some time working in construction for his father. He started to pursue a career as a solo artist and in 2016 recorded an album with producer Bryan Wilson in Nashville, Tennessee, although it was never released. In 2017, he opened a vegan juice bar in Essex with his long term partner Lois before shutting it down in 2019. He spent some time busking, and performing at weddings and clubs all over the south-east of England before joining TikTok.


title: Sam Ryder (singer)

text: Ryder rose to prominence through TikTok where, starting with the first lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, he began posting his music covers. He caught the attention of musicians such as Sia, Justin Bieber, Alicia Keys and Elton John. By the end of the same year, he became the most-followed UK artist on the platform. He later signed a record contract with Parlophone. In 2021, he released his debut EP, "The Sun's Gonna Rise", which has received over 100 million global streams. It was followed up with a sold-out tour.


title: Sam Ryder (singer)

text: Ryder wrote "Space Man" during the pandemic, and in January 2022, the song was sent to TaP Music and the BBC. In the same month, he accepted their offer to represent the country in the contest. On 10 March 2022, he was announced as the for the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 with "Space Man". Ryder toured Europe between March and May 2022 to promote his entry. In an interview for Sky News, he spoke about the injury he had sustained in Madrid during his tour after crashing into a metal bar.


title: Sam Ryder (singer)

text: On 12 May 2022, the BBC aired a documentary on BBC iPlayer and YouTube which detailed Ryder's journey to Eurovision. Ryder also won a Marcel Bezençon Press Award, becoming the first UK act to win a Bezençon Award. At the Eurovision final in Turin, Italy, he finished in second place with 466 points, becoming the highest-scoring UK Eurovision entrant. He won the jury vote and also scored the UK its best result since 1998 and its first top three since 2002. After the contest, "Space Man" peaked at number two on the UK Singles Chart, becoming the highest-charting UK Eurovision entry since Gina G's "Ooh Aah... Just a Little Bit" in 1996.


title: Sam Ryder (singer)

text: In June 2022, Ryder performed "Space Man" at the Queen's Platinum Jubilee concert, Platinum Party at the Palace. In July 2022, he performed the British national anthem at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. On 19 August, he released his follow-up single, "Somebody", which reached number 77 on the UK Singles Chart. The music video for the song, released the same day, was shot in Šimanovci on the set of Serbian reality show "Zadruga".


title: Sam Ryder (singer)

text: On 2 September 2022, Ryder released "Living Without You", a collaboration with Sigala and David Guetta. On 3 September, he performed Queen's "Somebody to Love" alongside with Queen members Brian May and Roger Taylor, at a tribute concert for Taylor Hawkins at London's Wembley Stadium. On 26 September 2022, he performed tracks from his album live at Lafayette in London for National Album Day, in partnership with the charity War Child.


title: Sam Ryder (singer)

text: On 13 October 2022, Ryder performed as one of the opening acts for the National Television Awards. On 22 November, he announced a special New Year’s Eve show, set to be aired on BBC One and iPlayer, titled "Sam Ryder’s All Star New Year’s Eve". On 9 December, his debut studio album "There's Nothing but Space, Man!" was released. The album debuted atop of the UK Albums Chart, making Ryder the first British male solo artist to debut at number one with their first record in over three years, and the first solo artist to debut at number one with their first full-length release since Olivia Rodrigo's "Sour" (2021).


title: Sam Ryder (singer)

text: Ryder started making music at age 13 and has spent most of his adult life touring, writing, and performing for other bands and once resided in Hawaii. In 2018, he was involved in a surfing accident, which led him to put more effort into his music career. He is a vegan and once owned a vegan café in Coggeshall, England. He likes to surf the coast of Great Britain in his free time, meditate, travel, snowboard, drive around race tracks and skate. He also once worked as a construction worker and wedding singer.


title: Sam Ryder (singer)

text: Ryder is in a long-term relationship with his partner Lois Gaskin-Barber. He cites David Bowie, Elton John, Freddie Mercury, and Queen as his music influences. Ryder believes in aliens, and once wanted to pursue a career as an astronaut. He said that he once saw a UFO while in Hawaii as a child.


title: Sam Ryder (singer)

text: On 22 May 2022 "Space Man" reached number-one on The Official Big Top 40. Every time an act reaches number one they receive an award.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Crossed is a comic book written by Garth Ennis and drawn by Jacen Burrows (for the first ten issues), published by Avatar Press. Following volumes "Crossed: Family Values", "Crossed 3D", and "Crossed: Psychopath" were written by David Lapham. A new series, "Crossed: Badlands", was written and drawn by rotating creative teams. The franchise has also spawned two webcomics: "Crossed: Wish You Were Here", which ran from 2012–2014, and "Crossed: Dead or Alive", which began syndication in November 2014.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: "Crossed" is a creator-owned series from writer Garth Ennis and artist Jacen Burrows. It began with "Crossed" #0 on August 27, 2008, and all 10 issues have been released.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: The second series, "Crossed: Family Values", is written by David Lapham and drawn by Javier Barreno. Ennis described how this unusual situation for a creator-owned property came about:


title: Crossed (comics)

text: The story follows survivors dealing with a pandemic that causes its victims to carry out their most evil thoughts. Carriers of the virus are generally known as the "Crossed" due to a large, cross-like rash that appears on their faces – other names include "cross-faces" and "plus-faces". This contagion is primarily spread through bodily fluids, which the Crossed have used to great effect by treating their weapons with their fluids, as well as through other forms of direct fluidic contact such as rape and bites, assuming the victim lives long enough to turn. A major difference between the Crossed and other fictional zombie or insanity-virus epidemics (e.g., in the film "28 Days Later") is that while the Crossed are turned into homicidal violent psychopaths, they still retain a basic human-level of intelligence: thus, they are still capable of using tools and weapons, driving motor vehicles, setting complex traps, and other actions. It is occasionally noted in the series that a Crossed retains any skills they had prior to their infection; most simply lack the patience or sanity to do anything not immediately related to their vicious impulses.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: The contagion spread across the entire world, with the Crossed killing, raping, engaging in cannibalism and maiming for fun, with governments and military overwhelmed; friends and family butchered each other with anything they laid their hands on, and cities were turned into vast charnel houses. Much of the Middle East was wiped out when Israel deployed nuclear weapons. The last organized act by the U.S. government was to shut down as many nuclear power plants as possible and then kill the nuclear scientists and technicians to prevent them from reactivating the plants. A few nuclear power plants were not reached in time, however, such as Wolf Creek in Kansas and Browns Ferry in Alabama, detonated by Crossed who removed the control rods. One by one, the remaining military bases are overrun. Soon human civilization is all but gone, and mankind is an increasingly endangered species.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: The Crossed themselves show considerable variation, as they are still self-aware individuals – albeit turned into homicidal maniacs. One of the most visible examples is the actual level of insanity demonstrated. Many Crossed are practically feral savages with absolutely no regard for their own self-preservation, to the point that they will gleefully mutilate themselves for the sheer thrill of it, including amputating their own limbs. Others will be so driven to kill that they will carry out suicide attacks, crashing vehicles or causing nuclear meltdowns. Most are capable of basic (albeit deranged) speech, and wield whatever clubs, knives, or sharp objects are at hand to attack anything around them. The more insane Crossed will even attack each other, though they apparently prefer the non-Crossed. Some characters speculate that this preference is due to their need for sadistic gratification: given that the Crossed are so insane that they will mutilate themselves voluntarily, it isn't as fun to torture fellow Crossed as it is to torture uninfected, frightened victims.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: In many cases, the personality and resultant madness of a Crossed individual will be affected by memories and relationships they had prior to infection. Examples of this include several Crossed in "The Golden Road" attacking Sanarkand specifically to exact vengeance on Gideon Welles, Eve carrying around the severed head of her boyfriend and sexually taunting Oliver (who betrayed her friends to the Crossed and raped her prior to her infection) in "The Quisling", and Hazuki refusing to harm her friends after becoming Crossed in "Five Bloody Fingers". It is also implied that certain mind-altering drugs can further influence a Crossed's personality; in "Gore Angels", the Crossed known as "Al the Chemist" ate several hallucinogenic mushrooms prior to his infection, later exhibiting a fascination with "enlightenment" and apparently seeing uninfected humans as "purple people".


title: Crossed (comics)

text: On rare occasions, pregnant women who have been infected and turned survive long enough to give birth, but their babies are born infected as well – apparently the placental barrier provides no protection against the infection (though it is possible that it does, but unsanitary birth conditions infect them during delivery itself, like neonatal conjunctivitis). Crossed women who have given birth are, however, gleefully willing to murder their own newborn babies.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: The rate at which a person becomes infected ranges from several hours to a matter of minutes, and once infected there is no turning back. In most situations, the rate of infection is incredibly fast, in the range of one to three minutes. No cure exists for the Crossed, and there is almost no hint that scientists were able to study the infection long enough to do any sort of thorough research on the dilemma. While cover art has shown infected lab monkeys, animals generally seem immune, with predators such as leopards and lions freely mauling and biting Crossed with no sign of infection.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Some survivors have attempted to slip past the Crossed by painting red cross-marks on their faces to simulate the rashes from the infection – the Crossed will attack other Crossed if they're bored or frustrated, but at least some of the time will leave other Crossed alone. The effectiveness of the ruse varies between stories, but it rarely works for long. In "The Fatal Englishman", the main characters note that they have never seen this trick succeed in the five years they survived since the outbreak; on the other hand, the survivors seen at the beginning of "The Quisling" attribute their survival to the "fake cross" tactic, although they admit that they weren't sure if it would've fooled the Crossed for more than a passing glance (it should also be noted that they carried parts of the dismembered corpse whose blood they used for the fake crosses with them, which may or may not have "enhanced" the illusion to the Crossed).


title: Crossed (comics)

text: As time goes on in-universe, characters note that the Crossed have apparently been developing new habits. Some Crossed have been shown to be quite capable of complex pre-meditated actions. Not consumed by unthinking bloodlust to the extent that many of the other infected are, they have enough intellectual wherewithal to plan ambushes and traps, and organize gangs of Crossed to assault survivor enclaves. The more mindless rage-consumed Crossed will still know how to use firearms if they find them, but usually won't think rationally enough to plan out where to acquire more firearms. The more rational and calculating Crossed, in contrast, will actively seek out armories to acquire new firearms. Some of these more rational Crossed will consciously coat their weapons in their own bodily fluids, actively trying to turn non-infected survivors into more Crossed.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: The series frequently presents Crossed specimens with unusual levels of focus and restraint, allowing them to form gangs of Crossed around them. Major examples of such characters include Horsecock in the original series, Ashley and Ashlynne in "Homo Superior", Smokey in "The Quisling", the nun Aoileann in "Wish You Were Here", and serial killer Beau Salt, whose journal and descendants survive to "Crossed +100". In comics by Simon Spurrier, this is attributed to some quality in the infected or their circumstances before infection; it's suggested in one issue that the disease doesn't always take proper hold in a "broken brain". Shaky says that Aoileann is good at "holding back passion" (which is mistaken for control) and simply passed this on to her group. Russian gangster Mattias had periods of control (followed by violent mania) due to brain damage from long-term ketamine use, and an Australian was focused on getting revenge. In "Wish You Were Here", it is vaguely implied that Aoileann's unusual reaction to the Crossed infection may also be due to her having epilepsy, altering how it affected her brain. Beau Salt, already a prolific serial killer before 'The Surprise', as he called it, was largely unaffected by the infection, retaining all his faculties. He spent decades weeding out feral Crossed in order to build a functioning society of Crossed, passing his legacy down to his children, named after The Seven Dwarves.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Aoileann is capable of having lucid conversations with other people, making complex future plans and traps, and even seems to have retained certain empathetic emotions, as she is actually horrified at the prospect of personally killing other people (though she lets her followers kill uninfected people) and attempts to hold back her followers from killing Shaky (other humans are fair game). Mattias displays not only cognitive thinking but also strong emotional feelings. In his human life he fell in love with his parole officer, Serena; following his infection, he is determined to find and protect her, only to go insane with grief when he finds he came too late. This showed traces of positive emotions such as love and sadness that is almost never observed in other Crossed. If and how his ketamine habit affects this is unknown. Smokey is one of the smartest Crossed ever seen, being able to organize and lead a large group of Crossed. He is even able to strike deals with survivors, protecting them from the other Crossed in exchange for their assistance in luring out other survivors. An exact reason why he is so much smarter is never given; although there were medical reasons behind Aoileann and Mattias, no such conditions are ever stated with him. He does not display emotions, he is just more intelligent. The twin sisters Ashley and Ashlynne in the Florida Keys are also intelligent, for unknown reasons, though the fact that they are identical twins may indicate that it is due to some random genetic mutation. In issue #97, a navy patrol ship captain with access to a long-range communications system (communicating with other survivors across continents) told Smokey that such intelligent "super-Crossed" were exceedingly rare, being more of a scary campfire story that survivors shared with each other. The captain mentioned that besides Smokey, he had heard rumors of a nun in England (Aoileann), twin sisters in Florida (Ashley and Ashlynne), and an autistic kid in Montreal (similar to epilepsy, apparently his Autism made his brain structure different enough that the virus didn't take full hold).


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Of all these "super-Crossed", there is one who takes it to another level: Salt, an infamous serial killer (known as the "Phonebook Killer") who was infected on C-Day. Because Salt was already homicidally insane and had no restrictions on his impulses, the Crossed virus did not significantly change him (perhaps because his psychopathic brain structure was already significantly altered from normal). Retaining all of his intellect and long-term planning ability, Salt soon became a dark messiah of sorts to the Crossed. He created the hundred-year plan to ensure the Crossed survive and continue the apocalyptic cycle indefinitely.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: The "super-Crossed" tend to appear in comics that take place long after the outbreak first occurred, up to five years later by "The Fatal Englishman". As Shaky explained in "Wish You Were Here", it is not so much that the Crossed "evolved" during these years, but rather the process of natural selection setting in. Logically, many of the Crossed who were so insane that they didn't care about their own self-preservation have died off, while the far more dangerous rational and calculating ones took steps to survive over a long period of time. Those Crossed with little sense of preservation, not even the sense to put on warm clothing in colder weather, tended to die off in the winters. The Crossed who survived that long tend to be the more rational and lucid ones who have the wherewithal to preserve themselves, use combat tactics like avoiding gunfire, use guns themselves, and setting complex ambushes. Meanwhile, the few surviving non-infected are hardened veterans who have been combating the Crossed for years, further increasing the pressure of natural selection as the Crossed are forced to become smarter and more cunning to catch the survivors off-guard.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Most of the completely "anti-social" Crossed die out in the heavy fighting of the initial outbreak. By the time of "Crossed: Family Values", survivors observe that most Crossed usually form up into gangs of about five to fifteen members – any larger than that and they start fighting each other again, bringing the number back down to below about fifteen. The more coherent Crossed who survived many years, however, are capable of forming into even larger groups of over a hundred without fighting each other (as seen in "The Fatal Englishman" and the webcomics). As seen in "Family Values" and the webcomics, when there are no more uninfected around to attack, after a while a group of Crossed will usually fall into a sort of bored stupor, aimlessly wandering in one direction until they find more people to attack. A number of Crossed, however, appear to be naturally smarter or, at least, more capable of patience and planning: deferring immediate pleasure to have a greater atrocity later. These tend to become the leaders of large gangs, numbering in the many dozens or, in "Crossed +100", a whole community. These appear more often in stories set months or years after the outbreak.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Before "The Thin Red Line", the "Crossed" stories agreed that the infection was stunningly rapid, so fast that the news media and most world governments had little, if any, time to respond, but the exact specifics of the outbreak differed from writer to writer. Depending on the story, it took anywhere from a week to a mere matter of hours for the infection to spread across the globe. In the original story, the infection erupts suddenly across the entire United States without warning and later spreads; a survivor says Canada tried to fortify the border "in the first week," and were unaware the virus had reached them until after that point. In contrast, "Badlands" #14–18, #40–43, and "Wish You Were Here" have the infection erupting across the entire planet in the same day, the latter two showing United Kingdom and Japan being rapidly overrun; "Badlands" #16 has the White House (and Surgeon General) and part of the news media still around the next day, reporting on the crisis. "Badlands" #10–13 ignores this, and has the Crossed tearing through small towns without being noticed, getting more and more numerous over the course of a week; and "Badlands" #26, also by Ennis, has a British soldier named Harry (later appearing in "The Thin Red Line") say he's been aware of the Crossed for "the past three days" by the time the outbreak is public.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: In the "Crossed: Dead or Alive" webcomic, the characters discuss a collapsed bridge, and speculate it was detonated by the U.S. Army in "the first few days," in an effort to cut major road arteries and slow traffic between the eastern and western sections of the United States to slow the spread of the virus. In the stories where the infection is sudden, the Crossed are shown overrunning the United States at sunset/night and London in the afternoon. Badlands arc 62–70 shows the initial outbreak in the city of San Diego and the attempts by the US military to restore order in the city, and, as the epidemic got out of hand, evacuate thousands of surviving civilians from the city to waiting cruise ships and extract them to a supposedly secure island off the California coastline. However, a U.S. Navy fleet sent from Pearl Harbor to protect the evacuation ships at San Diego harbor somehow falls victim to the infection and ultimately massacres much of the civilian evacuation vessels still residing in San Diego, killing and maiming hundreds or possibly thousands of survivors.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: "Homo Tortor" by Kieron Gillen introduced a fringe scientific theory that a viral pandemic of sociopathy had caused the mass extinction of prehistoric hominids. When the outbreak happened, one man attempted to find the theory's professor in the hope of learning about the origins of the Crossed – there turned out to be no link, with the prehistoric scenes being an in-universe story by the Crossed about the world they were making now.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: "The Thin Red Line" ("Badlands" #50–56) finally established an origin and timeline of the infection as happening in the summer of 2008, the time of the first comic. Other stories have gone with this, and "Crossed +100" gives a specific date of July 27, 2008, for when Americans see the "Surprise" as starting.(This origin clashes with other outbreak stories: London is not overrun for several days, the White House is overrun before most of the U.S., and the Crossed are public before an outbreak in Japan or most of the United States).


title: Crossed (comics)

text: The outbreak began in Yorkshire, United Kingdom: the patient zero was a man who had a psychotic breakdown and murdered his family, and the infection spread rapidly from two local policemen to the entire population of the village of Tethersby. Within a few days, there were reports of infections in France, Chad, Australia, South Africa, Pakistan, Russia, and the United States. During the story, government scientist Dr. Chopra points out that the British "patient zero" cannot logically be "the" patient zero if the infection is appearing so far abroad, and theorizes if the virus is "something in the D.N.A...the planet's" that has manifested, and this is why it doesn't follow any known scientific laws. "Patient Zero" himself was aware of events he could not possibly have seen or heard, and saw visions of atrocities he was unaware of, suggesting a paranormal angle, and refers to it as something that "cleanses."


title: Crossed (comics)

text: In the U.K., indecisiveness by Prime Minister Gordon Brown meant that a state of emergency wasn't declared until after a Sky News team found and filmed the villagers committing a mass suicide. From this point the infection spread rapidly, and the Prime Minister and his staff were moved into a secure bunker guarded by the SAS and SO1 police officers, which also doubled as a medical research centre where "Patient Zero" was placed under quarantine. Soon after, the Crossed had overrun most of Yorkshire and other parts of northern England and Scotland, with smaller outbreaks appearing further south. Under the belated state of emergency, the U.K. suspended all public transport, airlifted troops back from Afghanistan, and blockaded the M1 motorway just north of Northampton; south of there, cordons held and prevented large-scale refugee migration, which could bring more of the infected south.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: As the infection appeared worldwide, a group of Pakistani Crossed dropped a nuclear bomb on Delhi, wiping out most – if not all of – India's government; India's remaining military at least had the wherewithal not to launch a nuclear counterstrike against Pakistan, realizing it would achieve nothing. Shortly thereafter, Russian Prime Minister (and Acting President following Dmitri Medvedev's incapacitation) Vladimir Putin requested the RAF shoot down 40 Crossed-piloted Tu-95 bombers before NORAD – unable to launch planes due to similar problems – feel obliged to launch nukes. When Gordon Brown contacts the White House, the person answering (implied to be President George W. Bush) is clearly infected, confirming Washington D.C. has been overrun. A single Tornado GR1 is launched to intercept the Russians, and the crew sacrifice themselves to prevent nuclear war from breaking out.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: After this, the government is evacuated to bunkers, civil authority is superseded by the Armed Forces, and orders go out to shut down all nuclear facilities. However, Prime Minister Brown says in the long term they should "hopefully" regain control, and that government scientist Dr. Chopra has a chance of finding an answer to the virus. Unfortunately, Brown's advisor – acting without clearing it with the PM – had ordered two of the SAS to torture "patient zero" for information, which led to their infection and "zero" turning fully-Crossed. As the bunker is being sealed, it's revealed Chopra is infected, and about to butcher the Prime Minister.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: In the United States, the President declared a national state of emergency with the full backing of Congress, whilst forty-two state governors imposed martial law in their home states. FEMA and the National Disaster Medical System were activated, but were late in mobilizing. Within days of the outbreak, the power grid had failed in Atlanta, St. Louis, Columbus, and Chicago, and likely most other cities, as well. NDMS deployed mobile mortuary teams across the eastern seaboard in an attempt to contain the epidemic, and private health-care centres were federalised.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: One hundred years after the initial outbreak, as depicted in "Crossed: +100", it is revealed that around 2050 A.D., Crossed numbers began to drop significantly, and eventually regular humans once again outnumber the infected, though small family-groups of Crossed continued to inhabit some areas, breeding new generations by refraining from killing their young. "Crossed +100" shows that in the long run, Crossed will even learn to breed and form dysfunctional family-units. Human society has somewhat begun to rebuild in the former United States, but is still socially and technologically backwards compared to society before "The Surprise," as C-Day is referred to in 2108.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: The first story ("Volume One" in trade) takes place ten months after the outbreak, with flashbacks to those events, as a small group make their way toward Alaska in the belief that its low population before the outbreak will mean there are fewer Crossed to be avoided, and that the Crossed's gleeful bloodlust hampers their ability to look after themselves. However, they encounter a small group of Crossed who have a degree of self-control and subsequently begin a hunt for the survivors.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: In "Family Values", the story centers on a religious family who escapes their North Carolinian ranch to survive in a mountain compound led by the protagonist Adaline's father, who, while being a strong leader against the Crossed, is a sexual predator who has routinely raped his daughters.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: "3D" was written with the 3D effect in mind and is not available in a 2D format. The story follows SWAT veteran Lt. Hunt MacAvoy as he leads a rescue mission into the middle of Crossed-infested New York City to rescue a stranded doctor. At 48 pages, the "3D" one-shot is about a quarter of the size of one of the collected "Volumes".


title: Crossed (comics)

text: In "Psychopath", the story follows a group of survivors who pick up an injured man, Harold Lorre, who understands the way the Crossed think and is tracking a specific group of Crossed. Lorre is the titular psychopath, and he is killing members of his group of humans as he deems them problematic, passing the deaths off as the grisly acts of Crossed. The Crossed group they are tracking killed a woman Lorre had stalked, prior to the outbreak, and subsequently forced a relationship upon her as they survived. After she was turned into a Crossed and killed, Lorre kept a fragment of her breast in a plastic bag.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: The first "Crossed Annual" spins off from "Wish You Were Here", featuring the lifestyle of the psychotic SBS marine Jackson. He appears to be tracking down the scientist who created the Crossed virus, an earlier version of which drove Jackson mad; this is simply a delusion of his, as he'd always been psychotic and the 'weapon' does not exist.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Issues #1–3 ("Of the World and Its Becoming", by Ennis and Burrows) follow a group of United Kingdom survivors traveling across Scotland. As they struggle to stay ahead of a horde of Crossed – hoping that the harsh conditions of the Scottish mountains will wear down the self-destructive Crossed – the leader of the group, Ian, relates his introspection on the purpose of survival when there is no hope. By the end of the third issue, the entire group is killed and/or turned.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: In issues #4-#9 ("Homo Superior", by Jamie Delano and Leandro Rizzo), the story follows individual survivors in the Everglades – Steve, a former military woman who has become cruel and sadistic after countless traumas in her past; Greg, a jaded family man who lives off the grid to get away from his dreary home life; Leon, a teenage "swamp rat" living at a fortified "base" with his domineering extended family; and the twins Ashley and Ashlynn, who fled the city after the Crossed outbreak began. The survivors eventually meet and band together, only for their individual psychoses to ultimately cause them all to become Crossed, with Steve infecting herself willingly after realizing that she was barely different from the infected in the first place.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: In issues #10–13 ("Yellow Belly", by David Lapham and Burrows), a teenage survivor named Edmund (nicknamed Yellow Belly for his cowardice) relates his experience of being at a carnival where the clowns and other workers become infected in the early hours of the outbreak, turning fun times into depraved terror. In issue #13, he crosses paths with Harold Lorre, the main character of "Crossed: Psychopath," who encourages Yellowbelly to use the Crossed-infested world as an opportunity to obtain power by force. Ultimately though, he is killed by a biker woman he fled with, when he confided his cowardice that resulted in the death of her sister-in-arms.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Issues #14–18 ("The Golden Road", written by David Hine), are set just prior to the outbreak, in the town of Stableford, Wisconsin. The town gained the colloquial nickname of "Stumptown" after its residents participated in a mass insurance fraud by "losing" limbs to collect payouts, only to have their scheme exposed by infamous transgressive writer Gideon Welles, who used the town as inspiration. To add insult to injury, Welles built his massive estate, Samarkand, on the outskirts of the area. The story centers around aspiring writer Clooney and his girlfriend Tabitha, who Welles has invited to Samarkand for a writer's retreat. Unfortunately, Welles is a sadist who psychologically breaks down his guests; worse yet, a horde of Crossed has arrived in town by train. Emasculated and humiliated by Welles' debauched sex orgy with his girlfriend and other guests, Clooney uses the Crossed to turn on his fellow writers, leading to all of them being killed or turned by the horde. The only survivor is Philly, the young niece of town cop Lorna; she escapes by boat after being forced to kill her aunt, who was infected when a dead Crossed fell on her.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Issues #19–20 ("Conquers All", by Si Spurrier ("Crossed: Wish You Were Here") and Raulo Caceres ("Crossed: Psychopath")) involve Mattias, a former criminal who was turned into one of the Crossed, but still retains a level of self-control and rationality compared to the other Crossed. A paroled enforcer for a local mobster, Mattias fell in love with his parole officer, Serena, and they had a relationship that ended due to the conflict between their duties and their love. In the present, Mattias travels to the police station to find Serena, only to find she had taken her own life days earlier. After a ketamine-enhanced rampage, he passes out in a parking lot, reawakening with no memory of his search for Serena and repeating his futile journey.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Issues #21–24 ("The Livers", by David Lapham and Miguel Garrido) rejoin Amanda, the survivor of David Lapham's "Psychopath" arc. Having been scarred by her experience with Lorre, she no longer trusts anyone, and uses whatever means at her disposal to survive, while paranoia ultimately causes her to kill anyone who takes her in before they can get her. She falls in with The Livers, three survivors that have formed a close bond despite their mutual insanity and occasional cannibalistic tendencies, and finds a new way to survive.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Issues #25–28 ("The Fatal Englishman", by Ennis and Caceres) are set five years after C-Day. Four British Army soldiers (representing each nation of the United Kingdom) go on a suicide mission to break into Porton Down and release the biological weapons, hoping it will wipe out the Crossed but leave enough humans alive for Britain to rebuild and go on an offensive war against the infected. Along the way, they become guardians of a group of children and a Catholic priest, with whom the title character shares his wisdom. Eventually, after ensuring the survival of the priest and his flock, they decide against their genocidal plan, instead blowing up the entrance of Porton Down to stop anyone from using its lethal cargo before setting off to make a final stand against the Crossed. However, the leader of the group realizes that he cannot see his friends suffer a grisly end at the hands of the Crossed; thus, he shoots them dead on the way up before confronting a horde of Crossed with nothing but a half-filled pistol.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Issues #29–32 ("Quisling", written by Christos Gage) follow Oliver, an anthropologist and self-proclaimed "survivor" who studies the Crossed while doing whatever it takes to prolong his life. While hiding out with a group of survivors, he observes an imposing axe-wielding member of the Crossed, dubbed "Smokey" for his fireman's garb, noting that he seems to have much greater intelligence that allows him to lead his fellow infected (paralleling the character Big Daddy from "Land of the Dead"). After being cornered by Smokey's band, Oliver betrays his fellow survivors and strikes a deal with the Crossed, helping them hunt other survivors while hoping for a chance to escape or to find a group capable enough to fight back. As his guilt grows and rumors of other "Super-Crossed" reach him (featuring a cameo of the twins from the "Homo Superior" arc), Oliver realizes that Smokey is far too dangerous to leave alive; especially when the Crossed reads his journal and assaults a nuclear base for its weapons. Ultimately, Oliver gives his life to stop Smokey's plans, willingly infecting himself to prevent his "partner" from using him any longer. Enraged, Smokey slaughters his band of Crossed before storming out of the base, setting out for Florida in search of more "Super-Crossed" like him.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Issues #33–36 ("Breakdown", by Lapham and Miguel Ruiz) pick up with Amanda as she is hunting for the Livers and is forced to hide from a religiously-themed tribe of Crossed pursuing the same prey. She hides in a crawlspace for days, but is devastated when the Crossed bring in her two Liver companions – one captive, and the other infected – and she loses the strength of the delusions they supported. She attempts to re-integrate with another group of survivors, but her growing insanity (represented by hallucinations of Harold Lorre from "Psychopath") drives her to kill them all before returning to the crawlspace, determined to remain until she either dies or overcomes her madness.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Issues #37–39 ("American Quitters", by Spurrier and Rafael Ortiz) follow the odd couple of a stoned out hippy and a hardcore biker traveling cross-country to San Diego to die by the ultimate overdose and while exacting revenge on a rival biker gang leader, respectively. Along the way, they pick up a pregnant Mexican woman fleeing from the drug lord father, trying to reach an island sanctuary off the Baja California peninsula. Ultimately, 'no lesson is learned' as all three of them die in unexpected ways; the biker is overrun by Crossed while overdosing on the ultimate high, the hippy is killed fulfilling the biker's revenge, and the pregnant woman is torn apart by her infected relatives on the island.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Issues #40–43 ("Gore Angels", by David Hine) look into the broken mind of an abused girl during the early days of the Crossed epidemic in rural Japan. After being drugged, gang-raped, and humiliated on the Internet while in America, Emiko channels her anger and shame into "Gore Angels", an incredibly violent manga sold under a pseudonym with the help of her friend Satoshi. By chance, one of her few friends from America has come to Japan with the instigator of the incident (and the latter's girlfriend) in hopes of finding a resolution to Emiko's pain, but everything goes off the rails when the Crossed begin to emerge...


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Issues #44–49 ("Grave New World", by Daniel Way and Emiliano Urdinola) follow a group of US Coast Guard personnel who hope to outlast the Crossed by setting out on a boat and finding an island to call home. However, taking on a pair of survivors leads to a whole new array of problems, not the least of which include a horde of Crossed pirates and the increasingly erratic behavior of their own Captain.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Issues #50–56 ("The Thin Red Line", by Ennis and Christian Zanier) reintroduce the four men from "The Fatal Englishman", revealing them to have once been security for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The story shows the very beginning of the Crossed outbreak, focusing on Britain's efforts to contain the madness and discover its source; however, they soon realize that the situation is far worse than they could have ever realized.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Issues #57–61 (by Justin Jordan and Georges Duarte) follow Esperanza and Jane, a pair of young women fleeing from Alejandro, Esperanza's Crossed brother, and the horde of infectees at his command. They eventually find safe haven at a woodland camp commanded by Sutter, a hardened survivalist with plans of his own that have little to do with the survival of his campmates...


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Issues #62–70 (by Lapham and Francisco Manna) concern Gavin Edward Land, a former police detective seeking vengeance against the people who raped and murdered his daughter. As he works through his list and the Crossed outbreak in San Diego, U.S., he learns more than he wanted to know after Wentz, his final target, seems to have turned a new leaf in the wake of the apocalypse.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Issues #71–74 ("Five Bloody Fingers", written by David Hine) focus on Uboshita Satoshi, the friend of Emiko briefly seen in "Gore Angels". When C-Day breaks out in Japan, Satoshi sets out to find his blood brothers, the Five Bloody Fingers, and help them survive C-Day. Finding Hazuki, the girl he loves (and one of his blood brothers) turns to be a harder task than he thought, as her father is a yakuza boss who is also on the lookout for her. The friends find themselves making a stand against the Crossed at a Japanese cosplay convention, where their blood oath may be tested with the relentless threat of the Crossed...assuming that Boss Yamada doesn't first feed them to Usama, his pet lion, in the end all 5 infect each other renewing their blood oath, becoming infected, and die fighting other Crossed.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Ultimately, Washington discovers that everything about "Homo tortor" was made up by Professor Nelson, who has become Crossed during the outbreak. Along with his similarly-infected assistant (and Washington's college girlfriend) Amy, he wrote the story not as an attempt to falsify history, but as a vision of the society he intends to create with his band of Crossed.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Issues #81–86 ("The Lesser of Two Evils", by Mike Wolfor) begins shortly after C-Day, with a group of survivors stranded on a partially-collapsed overpass. Although they are safe from the lingering Crossed, things begin to unravel after they are joined by Morgan and Olivia, a pair of women who claim to have survived the Crossed due to their "bible": ""Surviving D-Day"" a best-selling "zombie survival guide" novel (similar to The Zombie Survival Guide).


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Issues #87–90 ("Shrink", by Max Bemis and Fernando Melek) follow two brothers; the straight-laced psychologist Jack and the hedonistic bully Clancy. As Jack and Tiffany (a close friend of his) prepare themselves for the day the Crossed outbreak finally hits their suburban neighborhood, Clancy crashes by and asks Jack for a favor; after willingly infecting himself with the Crossed plague, he has his brother lock him in the basement and attempt to psychoanalyze his Crossed self, hoping that Jack can learn something of importance about the outbreak and its source.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Issues #91–92 ("Anti-Crossed", by Bemis and German Erramouspe) follow a group of 5 survivors – 4 men and a female author named Leigha – surviving in a barricaded comic book store as they struggle with their depleting morale and growing boredom. It is soon revealed that the male survivors – all massive comic book fans – had taken Leigha hostage early in the outbreak, and have since been periodically raping her at gun point. Due to their growing boredom, the guys make a deal with Leigha; if she writes them an "Anti-Crossed" comic, they will refrain from maltreating her and give her other "privileges". Leigha reluctantly agrees, making a comic that fulfills all of her captor's twisted fantasies, but things may change when two strangers arrive at the store.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Issues #93–99 (by Gage and Fernando Heinz) begins by following a band of survivors led by Cody, an opportunistic man who designed disaster shelters for the elite before stealing one for himself when C-Day hit. His state-of-the-art bunker serves the group well until it comes afoul of Smokey, the "Super-Crossed" last seen in the "Quisling" arc. After being driven out and left at Smokey's mercy, Cody saves himself by offering to help Smokey mold the Crossed into a coherent society, advising him on means of controlling the others' bloodlust and promising them fresh victims by breeding uninfected like cattle. When this inevitably fails (in part due to a remorseful Cody sacrificing himself to undo his own work), Smokey seeks out other Super-Crossed like himself, eventually finding the Crossed twins from the "Homo Superior" arc.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Issue #100 (also by Gage and Fernando Heinz) follows Smokey and the twins as they attempt to fulfill the former's dream of ending the self-destructive nature of the Crossed. Although they manage to establish a reasonably-functional homestead with dozens of followers, Smokey remains depressed and laments to an old Cody that it is a far cry from the new society he had hoped to create. The children he fathered with the twins also seem to be no more intelligent than regular Crossed, leading Smokey to believe that their species is doomed to die out within a generation. Years later, the aging Smokey kills Cody by quickly breaking his neck, sparing him from a slow and painful death. Shortly after, Smokey is betrayed and left for dead by the twins and his own son, now revealed to have been a "Super-Crossed" the entire time; the twins explain that they prefer immediate self-indulgence over long-term planning. Smokey survives the attempted assassination by jumping into a river, emerging later and limping off to fight another day with a smile on his face.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: The final issue, foreshadows the resurgence of human society a century later in "Crossed: +100", with Smokey's homestead receiving news of human colonies beginning to re-establish themselves as the feral Crossed die out.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: In the webcomic "Crossed: Wish You Were Here" (written by Si Spurrier and drawn by Javier Barreno (Vol.1) and Fernando Melek (Vol.2)), former writer "Shaky" (short for Shakespeare) writes in his journal of life on the island of Cava off of the coast of Scotland, where he and a handful of other survivors try to have some semblance of society while desperately trying to keep the wandering Crossed at bay.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: In the first volume, Shakespeare must deal with the logistics of living on an Cava with his group, under two men Rab and Don with very different leadership styles. Eventually the leaders decide to send out a sortie compiled of random members of the island, reasoning that anyone who wishes to volunteer is too important to lose. Eventually Shaky blackmails one of the leaders into letting him into the sortie, and decides that if he is going to live the rest of his life in the apocalypse, he won't be bored doing it. He feels that the boredom (or having too much time to think about mysteries and the past) could kill him if he doesn't do something about it.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: While the sortie is on the mainlands, Shaky quickly and unintentionally becomes one of the two leaders among the group, the other being a schizophrenic but well-trained former military Scotsman named Jackson (the insane protagonist of the first Annual). During this time Shaky sees that the rest of the group is poorly suited to survival – Tabitha, who has shown some romantic interest in him, is fairly competent, but the two other members consist of a cowardly American woman, Selene, who almost continually wails about the situation, and an absent-minded older man who apparently only survives multiple Crossed attacks by luck. They are all being tracked by a figure wrapped in black who was previously shown with Aoileann; the pursuer finds a note left by Shaky and retrieves it.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Starting with the sortie onwards, the narrative alternates between the main story and Shaky's flashbacks to the events that first led him to Cava. Shaky is shown to have been a writer who was in a London café when the infection first hit. After repeated attempts to contact his parents and his fiancée, he finally finds out that they are all either dead or infected. He decides to kill himself by jumping off a bridge and drowning. However, he is rescued by a police patrol on a riverboat, the captain assuring him he is now safe. Shortly after, the boat is attacked, the crew all killed or turned, and Shaky surviving only through the heroic last acts of a female member of the Coast Guard. Shaky ends up back on land, wandering alone for a week before he encounters a Crossed child. He cannot run as his pants are down around his ankles, but a group comes along in time to save him, the leader throwing him a gun and allowing him to come when Shaky kills the Crossed himself. He spends the next eight months with a man called the Gamekeeper and his group of survivors. Though the Gamekeeper is extremely resourceful and intelligent, he is also sadistic and ruthless. The survivors dislike him, but he remains in control because he is needed for survival. The group members are slowly killed over time until only Shaky, a college-aged Pakistani man named Ashoke, and a husband and wife couple are left. It is shown that the Gamekeeper used to work for the husband, and in a form of revenge, he does as he pleases with the wife. At this point, Aoileann joins the group, revealed to be a devout and chaste nun. The Gamekeeper begins regularly raping the wife, much to the husband's anguish. The group can see that the Gamekeeper is taken with the nun, and the wife tries to make her the target of his lust. Shaky manages to spoil her plans. The internal discord culminates when the group finds a cache of guns, and the husband decides to kill the Gamekeeper. However, the leader outwits him and kills him instead. Now without her husband, the wife soon hangs herself. Greatly upset at this turn of events, the Gamekeeper begins to distance himself from his own group, only showing up occasionally with food or when a Crossed needs to be killed. Aoileann has a seizure and it is revealed that she has epilepsy. The group continues on until one night the Gamekeeper attacks Ashoke in order to rape Aoileann. While Ashoke lies unconscious from being strangled, the Gamekeeper cuts an X into Aoileann's face, demanding that she avert her eyes while he rapes her. Shaky walks in on the scene and shoots the Gamekeeper with a shotgun despite the nun's protests, then ties him to a tree. He sets an alarm to go off once every hour, expecting the Crossed to finish what he started. The group continues on their own, though Ashoke has suffered severe mental retardation from the attack.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Back in the present, the sortie runs into another survivors group led by a brutal but devious man named Jasper, and Shaky tells them of his group's "sanctuary" and how if the other group follows his orders, they may come along when his group goes home. Shaky realizes he can only take two of Jasper's group back with him, and plans to weed them out as time goes on. Jackson, disapproving of Shaky's vileness, leaves the group under Shaky's sole care. As Jasper's group's numbers dwindle down, their leader steals their food and disappears. The remaining survivors from both parties come across a military fortress that is surrounded by Crossed and requests medical supplies in exchange for their weapons. The sortie mulls over how to execute the trade with the sea of Crossed blocking their way. Shaky comes up with an idea that requires a volunteer to take on a high-risk mission. Selene volunteers, finally building the nerve to take action and also to speak of her past, in which she had inadvertently caused the death of her husband and two children. Seemingly in atonement, she happily accepts the task of driving a van into the fortress to get the weapons and bring them back. The group successfully distracts the Crossed (the decoys mostly consisting of members of Jasper's former crew) and gets Selene into the base. However, she doesn't reappear when a day passes and it's time for her to return. The group wait for her and continue luring the Crossed a few more times. They're beginning to believe something has happened to her when they hear the sounds of explosions, followed by prolonged gunfire. The noise frightens them. They wait until there is a long period of silence before moving to investigate the fortress. There they find carnage and only one living thing – a Crossed small child, whom they kill. Expecting Selene has died – Shaky's theory is she did so heroically – they load up on weapons and head home.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: When the sortie arrives back on Cava, they are met with Jasper who found the island without Shaky's help. During Shaky's absence Jasper planted seeds of doubt against Shaky, stating that Shaky had been leaving a stunning amount of written evidence behind with the location of Cava. The reveal makes Shaky an outcast, both for his actions on the sortie and his leaving evidence of Cava. Tabitha begins to have sex with Shaky while he is in isolation at the other end of the island, but she and one of Jasper's former followers are his only allies. Jasper then starts assuming a greater role within the hierarchy while pushing out Rab and Don. Eventually things reach a flashpoint when Rab, Don, and Shaky decide to push Jasper out. This leads to a confrontation between Shaky and Jasper, with Jasper's antique gun exploding in his hands. Shaky then uses Jasper's unconscious, injured body as bait attempting to lure the Crossed alerted to Cava's presence, but it is foiled when the group of Crossed is seemingly led by an infected Aoileann, who has seemingly instilled them with some level of self-control.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Jackson returns to the group with interesting news. He is accompanied by Selene, who is alive but mentally broken. He states he found her on an island occupied by Crossed, lying inside a circled of lit candles, alone. She'd been holding an empty envelope. Shaky later questions her about what had happened. She seems to snap out of her trance, in which she repeated the same few words over and over. She tells Shaky of how she'd been taken by someone in black. She then wound up living among Crossed, mostly unmolested but having to watch the infected going about their ghastly business. While she watches all these horrifying scenarios, Aoileann repeats the same phrase to her. After she finishes telling her story, she goes back to repeating her programmed message. Shaky realizes this is information about a meeting place.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Shortly after Jasper's death, Tabitha comes to Shaky with news of being pregnant. Shaky decides he has to come up with an idea to keep her safe, but his thoughts are interrupted by an American drift fleet of cruise ships that arrive near Cava to trade supplies. Rocked with the idea that they no longer have to stay on Cava, many of the group consider leaving and joining the drift fleet. Realizing that they wouldn't be in charge anymore, Rab and Don try to convince people to stay on the island which leads to conflict. Shaky decides that Cava is his home, and he won't leave.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Using his weasel-like personality, he convinces the rest of the group that the drift fleet is planning to attack Cava, while at the same time he tells the drift fleet's captain, Nora, that soon Cava will attack the drift fleet. He tells Nora that he will be among the attackers and wishes to secretly help the drift fleet. All he asks in return for this information is for Tabitha and his child to be looked after. During Cava's attack, events are turned into a stalemate by a warned Nora and Don's secret plan to take the fleet's only surviving child hostage. During the confrontation Don is killed by Jackson who joined and led the drift fleet to Cava in the first place after leaving the sortie. As per the agreement Nora takes Tabitha and doesn't sell out Shaky, with no one but Jackson, who is aware of Shaky's vindictive attitude, the wiser that the entire situation was instigated by Shaky for his own benefit. As Jackson leads the remaining Cava residents back to their territory, they spot Aoileann and the Crossed in the hills. Per Shaky's instructions, Jackson fires his rifle at Aoileann, but the bullet is taken by the Crossed covered in black. The dying Crossed is revealed to be Ashoke. In a rage, Aoileann points in the direction of the fleet. Back on Cava the group sees the drift fleet in flames, overrun by Crossed. Shaky and Jackson head off to quickly find and kill Aoileann, who has for some reason walked inland by herself. During the hunt Jackson is injured by a trap, and decides to kill himself rather than have all of his military knowledge be added to Aoileann's group of infected. Shaky hands him his weapon with only one bullet, in case Jackson believes it would be a good final act to kill Shaky as well.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: The flashbacks also continue, with Shaky and Aoileann trying to take care of the handicapped Ashoke, who it turns out is battling a drug addiction. At this point, Shaky has fallen in love with Aoileann, but she remains devoutly chaste despite his advances. Eventually, Shaky decides that he cannot risk keeping Ashoke with them, as his mental retardation is a liability. He leads him off during the night and abandons him, telling the nun that he must have wandered off and they cannot spend time searching for him. Moving on, Aoileann and Shaky find a vicar surviving in a church attic with a group of children, and join him for several days. Shaky continues his advances towards Aoileann.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Back on Cava, the infected drift fleet crashes into Cava spilling infected all across the island. Among their numbers is an infected Tabitha, who finds her way to Shaky's residence and is looking at a picture she drew of him. Shaky himself walks in and they begin to communicate for a moment before she is shot and killed by a Cava resident, whom Shaky kills in turn. Despite losing most of the island and several of their people, Cava is able to fend off the drift fleet's numbers. Unfortunately, however Aoileann's group surrounds Cava shortly after, trapping the few survivors on what's left of the island. Shaky decides there's little choice but to meet with Aoileann per the instructions she brainwashed into Selene.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: After Shaky's attempts to talk to Aoileann in person only result in more losses, the group decides it's best to try and escape at night using a refiner ship from the drift fleet. Shaky comes across an abandoned radio and is surprised to learn that the Gamekeeper is still alive thanks to Ashoke finding and freeing him due to suffering stockholm syndrome. After losing an eye to a crow and coming across Aoileann's camp, the Gamekeeper had been captured and held prisoner as a human while Ashoke was not as lucky and ended up infected. The Gamekeeper then tells him the customs of Aoileann's Crossed army, his misadventures as a captive, as well as the past events from his own point of view. Shaky realizes that the Crossed army is much more intelligent than he thought, though ultimately admits that he learned nothing new from the old enemy of his. Shortly afterwards, Aoileann interrupts the talk and reveals that she was the one who got the Gamekeeper to talk over the radio. After a talk, Shaky makes it back to Cava only to find himself ignored by the surviving inhabitants.


title: Crossed (comics)

text: Shortly afterwards, Rab breaks Shaky's ankles on Cava, telling him that he is just too big of a risk to bring along with them, as people tend to die around him. Before they can escape, Rab's group comes face to face with Aoileann's, and see for the first time how truly outnumbered and out-gunned they are. While Rab's group prepares to escape, Shaky speaks to Aoileann over a radio and realizes that they both have questions for one another. Shaky realizes that the situation at Cava has reached a flash point, and he is playing a dangerous game by asking Aoileann questions. If he asks an emotionally charged question or answers a question in a way that could make Aoileann appear weak, her gang will kill her and swarm the island. Suddenly a follower of Aoileann attacks her and forces the Crossed group to attack Cava. Shaky, attempting to use himself as bait to lure the Crossed away from Rab's group, crashes a boat on a small rock, making himself easy prey, but the new Crossed leader sees through the ploy and decides to continue hunting Rab's group. Rab, thinking ahead, had planted explosives on his vessel, and Selene sacrifices herself by detonating the trap, killing most of the infected as the rest of Rab's group escaped on a second hidden vessel.