Crossed Plus One Hundred 14

CPOH 14 regular cover, art by Gabriel Andrade

Below are annotations for Crossed Plus One Hundred, No. 14 “Blood Music” (22 pages, cover date February 2016, released 9 March 2016)

Writer: Simon Spurrier, Artist: Rafa Ortiz, Series Outline: Alan Moore

>Go to CPOH annotations index
>Go to CPOH timeline
>Go to CPOH language/glossary
>Go to CPOH background, cast of characters

Note: some of this stuff is obvious. If there’s stuff I missed or got wrong, let me know in comments, or email linton.joe [at] gmail.com

WARNING: SPOILERS

General: Future Taylor and Mustaqba tend to their adopted Crossed barter-baby in the suburbs of Murfreesboro. Taylor takes the train to Genheim Camp where she is reunited with Cautious Optimism Kriswyczki and Oneway MacBlarney. Crossed attack Genheim and are repelled.

Cover 

• The exact scene depicted on the cover does not take place in the issue. The central figure is apparently Future Taylor with her Crossed barter-baby.

Page 1

panel 1

• The woman is Future Taylor.
• The baby is the name-yet-to-be-revealed Crossed barter-baby.
• This scene is a flashback to the final page of CPOH12, when Taylor first encounters the barter-baby during a siege of Murfreesboro.

panels 1-4

• These constitute a fixed-camera sequence.

panels 3-4

• “Twinkie… Twinkie” begins is a degraded version of the lullaby “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”

Page 2

panel 1

• For what it’s worth, this panel repeats the artwork from CPOH13 P23,p1.

panel 2

• On the left is Mustaqba.
• Flashback continues filling in barter-baby’s early days.

panel 5

• Mustaqba is installing the restraint system shown in the next panel.

Page 3 – no specific annotations

Page 4

panel 2

• Mixed case captions are Taylor’s journal.

Page 5 – no specific annotations

Page 6

panel 1

• “Blood Music” references the 1983/1985 science fiction novel Blood Music by Greg Bear. (Though it is not referred to at all otherwise in this issue.)

Page 7

panel 1

• “Genheim Camp” is apparently named after Genheim Blarney, the Gapple balloon driver who appears prominently in issues 7-12. Genheim is apparently short for Guggenheim.

Page 8

panel 4

• The Crossed barter-baby speaks with a Crossed voice (red letters) and with a human voice (black letters).

Page 9

panel 2

• “Say mould. Say mould.” is “same old, same old.”

panel 3

• Not clear what the sign says “R… FAPH”

Page 10

panel 1

• Sitting next to Taylor is Ufoq, archivist apprentice introduced in CPOH13.

panel 3

• The “new Salt book” is the coded final Beau Salt journal discovered in CPOH13.
• “Lebannon Stayson” must be a rail station for a human settlement in the present-day city of Lebanon, TN, about 25 miles north of Murfreesboro. See CPOH locations/map page.

panel 4

• The mixed-case red lettering is Beau Salt’s final journal.

Page 11

panel 2

• “First assaults will occur on July 27th, 2108” refers to the siege of Chooga in CPOH6. This is exactly 100 years after the Surprise – the initial Crossed outbreak.
• In P10,p3 above Taylor gives readers the key: “Split the afterbet so’s “A” becomes “N”, “B” becomes “O”, and similarforth.”
  The text on the left page does not appear to make sense.
  Left page:
  ORRFNVAVT / BEESAINIG
  OLEERTY / BYRREGL
  BR / OE
  QN / DA
  ORR / BEE
  UM / HZ
  IIV / VVI
  SMNG / FZAT
  OGTM / BTGZ
  SSV / FFI
  MN / ZA
  S / F
  The text on the right page does make sense – and includes (with one apparent missing letter) exactly the same journal text that appears in the panel”
  TRGURFRCN / GE THESE PA / envisage these partly
  CER / PRE / pressure
  RNFRSBEG / EASE FOR T / release for the
  SVA / FIN / refined
  GRRFOYBB / TEES BLOO / infectees. Bloody
  QLFANGPUERJ / DY SNATCH REW / Bloody snatch reward
  SGREQRPN / FTER DECA / after decades
  ERGENVAG / RE[s]TRAINT / restraint

Caption (and code) from P11,p2

panel 3

• “Bashful and Sneezy” are two of Salt’s top seven Crossed leaders, named after dwarves from Snow White – first introduced in CPOH5.
• It is not clear who the humans or the Crossed are. The taller Crossed may be Bashful and Sneezy. The young African-american Crossed may be Robbie Greer/Jokemercy.

CPOH17 P13,p3 features the same code text pages as appear on CPOH14 P11,p3, though this may be nonsense

• This code text is repeated later in CPOH17 P13,p3 (where the upper left is more readable.) See above panel with translation key. The left page here does not appear to make any sense:
  RMMNTSQILVA – EZZAGFDVYIN
  GUVASDMNONT – THIN FQZABAG
  DANTMNDRTTIL – QNAGZAQEGGVY
  EEFGVASNMNO – RRST IN FAZAB
  IMTRVANSQTI – VZGE IN A FDGV
  NQORIYSFFS – ADBEVLFSSF
  SOMTY – FBZGL
  On the right page, he first line exactly matches some of the text in the above panel, and the second line nearly matches the text that follows it. Overall, the top five lines appear to be more-or-less the same passage “I envisage these partly as a pressure for the less refined infectees” (appears in the above panel both as text and code.) Then the fifth line does not appear to make sense.
  VRAIVFNTRGURFR / I ENVISAGE THESE / “I envisage these”
  CNEGLYNTNCER / PARTYL AG A PRE / “part[ly] a[s] a pre[ssure]?”
  BMFFHEERMVQI / OZSSURRE ZIDV / “[pre]ssure [?]”
  URYRFFESRSVA / HE LESS RFEFIN / “[t]he less refin[ed]?”
  RQUVASRPGVAS / ED H INFECT IN F / “[refin]ed infect[ees]?”
  RMNNTRPVVM – EZA AGE CIIZ  / (“Bloody-snatch reward…” should probably follow here, but doesn’t)
  Unlike the earlier examples (CPOH13 P14,p3 and CPOH14 P11,p2 directly above) the left page and final line on right remain a mystery, leading this annotator to speculate that it may well be nonsense.

CPOH 5 Crossed Culture cover – art by Gabriel Andrade

panel 3

• The Crossed house on the left is the same one that appeared on CPOH5 Crossed Culture variant cover – see Crossed Culture variants page.
• The three people on the right at Archie Keller, Robbie Greer/Jokemercy, and Taylor.

Page 12

panel 1

• This appears to be siege of Chooga shown in CPOH6 – or perhaps the same-day siege of Bethlehem, PA.

panel 2

• This is Crossed leader Beau Salt, still spotting a goatee.
• “Bashful’s tithe” apparently refers to the way the Crossed subjugated various human settles demanding live humans, including at Kingstenn (CPOH8) and Murfreesboro (CPOH11–12).
• “Sleepy’s expedition” and “Sneezy’s seclusion” are yet to be revealed.

panel 3

• “I will use a slightly less simplistic cipher than this” means readers will have another code to crack.

Page 13

panel 2

• The man in white is Holy Mo – a (minor) character introduced in CPOH10.
• “Genheim” – see P7,p1 above.

panel 3

• “Billy-rumors” might be rumors of illbillies (Crossed). See CPOH glossary page.
• “Grundy” is likely Grundy County in south-central Tennessee.

Page 14

panel 1

• “The Signal Real-A” is probably the signal relay.

Page 15 – no specific annotations

Page 16

panel 1

• The people on the right are Cautious Optimism Kriswyczki and Oneway MacBlarney. Taylor has apparently not seen Caush for five years – since CPOH12. Apparently Kriswyczki is pregnant.

panel 5

• This panel depicts the events of CPOH12. The central figure with the knife is Genheim MacBlarney.

Page 17

panel 5

• “He was foist to volumeteer” (first to volunteer) is not true (his father was punished – selected to be sacrificed.) Oneway MacBlarney believes a self-serving myth of the past being better than it was.

Page 18

panels 4-5 (through P19,p1)

• These form a fixed-camera sequence.

Page 19-22 – no specific annotations

THE END

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