Comic review: Criminal Macabre- The Third Child #3- Getting to grips with the character of Cal McDonald

Writer: Steve Niles
Artist: Christopher Mitten
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 26th November 2014


I always attempt to get to grips with the underlying societal assumptions and fears that are sitting just underneath the narrative content in my comic books. I find it interesting; informative is probably a better word for it. If I can understand where the writer is coming from I can use the review as a tool, as a platform to discuss bigger issues than just comic books.

To put it simply, I try to look at the bigger picture. What is this comic book saying about the world that I live in? That is why I am writing these reviews in the first place.

I couldn’t really get to grips with Steve Nile’s character of Cal McDonald, but after reading this latest issue of Criminal Macabre- ‘The Third Child’ #3, I’m pretty comfortable with who he is, and what he represents now.

Looking back at it now I can see that the character was a bit fuzzy to me because he was always portrayed as a rebel, but whenever I read what he actually did he didn’t come across as even slightly rebellious to me. It was all surface rebellion, drink and drugs and a poseur cool air of aloofness, but what he was actually doing was acting like a television programme Police detective, helping the poor defenceless people against various monsters and what not.

So here is Cal McDonald, a rebel, but not really a rebel. A pretend rebel, a poseur hipster rebel with a fantastic haircut. A man very much a part of the system, working for it, but pretending even possibly to himself, that he is an outsider, when evidentially he isn’t.

In this particular comic he comes across as just another typical order following statist control freak little boy with daddy issues who thinks that the world is chaotic, and that you need people in uniforms and with badges to stop the stupid masses from descending into riots and chaos. I’m not going to use the ‘anarchy’ word, because statist types often misuse it. Anarchy means freedom from rulers, freedom from slavery, freedom from state control. Anarchy is a philosophy of freedom, and the enemy of all poseur rebels who at heart are just scared little boys and girls with parental abandonment issues, much like the character of Cal McDonald in Criminal Macabre.

If Cal McDonald was a real life person he’d be wearing a black uniform and working for the state. He would be living a life of fear, believing that he was a fascinatingly complex rebellious man because he had daddy issues and took drugs and drank too much whiskey. This kind of man is not a hero, he is an establishment tool, to be used, abused and spat out when no longer useful to his controllers. He is, to briefly quote Morrissey, ‘the soldier who won’t get much older.’

And now I understand why I had problems with the character in the first place. Cal McDonald is a fake rebel, a man who has made the world what it is today by joining the corporate control system, trying to work through his abandonment issues by using violence against those who are truly rebellious and fighting against it.

In other words, he's a drugged up, alcoholic cop. Not a hero, just another corporate yes man pretending to be a rebel. In this book he is pushed as a leader, a special man who will stop the chaos, stop the street riots and maintain the status quo of societal slavery. Of course he is going to be pushed as a role model, as a leader, because that’s what he is. That is what he represents. Cal McDonald is a poster boy for police state control freaks.

Look at the front cover on this book. Cal McDonald, a black uniformed angelic cop with a baseball bat, surrounding by protesters (portrayed as monsters) fed up with the corporate state, he is going to defend it to the death with violence.

Police state poster boy

Drink up Cal. Take some pills. The state needs fake rebels just like you. You prop it up. You are the backbone of world state controlled slavery.

Without people like Cal McDonald the slavery system collapses. They take drugs and drink too much because thinking with clarity would make them realise that they are not the solution, they are the problem.

If I wanted to sell a lot of copies of Criminal Macabre do you what I’d do? I’d set up a stall just outside a Police station and give a special ‘Heroes’ discount to all Policemen, soldiers, social workers, parole officers, court wardens, judges and administrators and everybody else who gets their wages from the corporate police state. They’d love this book. They wouldn’t know why, but they’d get a huge kick out of it.

Here's a truth. Government employees are messed up people, and I am not one of them. I don’t want to join their weird control freak cult of government worship. Cults are for crazy, lost, messed up people, and just because they are state sanctioned cults that doesn't mean that they are any better for you than some bloke in the mountains who thinks that he is Jesus.  It’s time I said goodbye to Cal McDonald. I’m a real-life rebellious guy. I'm into individuality and freedom, and there's nothing happening here for me.

Rating: 5/10 (It made me think, and the art/colour is very good)