List of Criminal story arcs
This article is a list of story arcs of the Icon Comics series 'Criminal'' by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.
Volume 1
''Coward''
The story begins five years after Leo Patterson was the only survivor of the disastrous "Salt Bay job," and fifteen years after his father Tommy, in state prison for the murder of Teeg Lawless, was killed by another inmate. Since then, Leo has kept a low profile as a pickpocket while he struggles to take care of Ivan, Tommy's old friend and partner-in-crime, who suffers from both Alzheimer's disease and an addiction to heroin. Leo has a strict set of rules he adheres to, and a reputation for being brilliant at planning scores, but also as a coward who runs from conflict and always manages to escape a bad situation. Both aspects attract the attention of Seymour, another Salt Bay survivor, and crooked cop Jeff. They try to recruit Leo for an armored-car heist, telling him a police evidence van will be carrying $5 million in diamonds to the courthouse. He refuses, unwilling to return to that life, but Seymour knows Leo can't refuse Greta, a recovering heroin addict and widow of Terry Watson, who was also killed at Salt Bay. Greta needs the money from the heist to start a new life with her daughter Angie, and blames Leo for her husband's death. Leo reluctantly agrees and recruits his friend Donnie, an epileptic con man.
When Jeff includes his own partners in the score, Leo and Greta suspect a double-cross, but they continue with the heist. Leo, however, doesn't anticipate that Jeff and his partners will pull guns and start shooting in the middle of the job, killing Donnie and wounding Greta. Leo, having made a back-up plan, manages to escape with Greta and the score, which they discover isn't diamonds but a briefcase full of uncut heroin. Jeff and his partners work for a drug kingpin named "Roy-L.T." Hyde, and the evidence-van heist was intended both to retrieve his merchandise and facilitate the release of his lieutenant, Delron. "Roy-L" kills one of Jeff's partners as punishment, and sends the recently-freed Delron with Jeff to track down the heroin. While she recovers, Greta, Ivan, and Leo lie low at Leo's grandfather's farm. As Leo and Greta succumb to their mutual attraction and have sex, Ivan goes looking for a fix and discovers the stash of heroin. Meanwhile, Jeff and Delron track down Greta's mother and daughter.
The next morning, Leo is devastated to find Ivan dead, having overdosed on the uncut heroin. He withdraws emotionally from Greta as he buries Ivan, and she lashes out in frustration, calling him a coward. He returns alone to the city and meets with "Genuine Jen" Waters, and old friend now Internal Affairs officer, who theorizes that Jeff hoped Leo would escape, but without the drugs, drawing the attention of the police while he paid his debt to "Roy-L." Meanwhile, distraught over Leo and tempted by the heroin, Greta calls her mother's house, where Jeff and Delron are waiting to trace the call after having killed Greta's mother. Leo breaks into Seymour's apartment, looking for leverage against him, but finds a message on his answering machine: Jeff ordering him to join them in going after Greta.
Leo races back to the farm, finding Greta tortured to death. Seymour appears, having stayed behind with a picture of Angie behind held hostage. As they retrieve the briefcase of heroin, Seymour tells Leo that he's just as much a coward as everyone says; Leo retorts that his father didn't kill Teeg Lawless: Leo did. Leo throws an open bag of heroin in Seymour's face and coldly executes him, saying that what he's really afraid of is his own capacity for violence. He then tracks Delron to a local motel and stabs him to death, rescuing Angie. After leaving her with Gnarly, a bartender and old friend of his father, he tricks Jeff into leading him to "Roy-L" and kills him and his men in a gun battle. Jeff and Leo shoot each other several times; Jeff calls for backup and tries to flee, but Leo, knowing that Jeff participated in Greta's torture, follows and finishes him off. Severely wounded and too weak to escape the arriving police, Leo realizes that dying is a lot harder than killing and quips, "just my luck."
''Lawless''
After an incident that began in a bar in Baghdad's Green Zone, Tracy Lawless served eighteen months in a military prison, isolated from contact with the outside world. Upon release, he discovers that his brother Ricky was killed nine months earlier, and he soon goes AWOL to find out what happened. On the way to the city, he stops at the Center City docks long enough to rob two men carrying a briefcase of illicit cash, shooting one in the process. He finds an old acquaintance named Jacob, a now-crippled criminal who specializes in creating false identities. Since he isn't recognized by Jacob, Tracy is confident he can infiltrate Ricky's old crew to discover why his brother was killed. Tracy finds the crew—Gray, Nelson, Davey, and Ricky's lover Mallory—meeting frequently at the Undertow in obvious anticipation of an upcoming heist. Tracy quietly introduces himself to certain criminals as Sam West, a "wheelman" looking for a score, and, after killing the crew's driver Davey, he approaches Gray and Mallory and tells them that he's "a guy who can drive." As the team gets ready for the upcoming score Tracy investigates his brothers death. This brings him closer to Mallory, who figures out his real identity. It is later revealed that it was Mallory who killed Ricky as he was too self-destructive and would beat her regularly. This makes Tracy kidnap Mallory during the heist leaving the rest of the crew to the police. During this chase Tracy is followed by men who work for Sebastian Hyde, who owned the money Tracy previously stole. After considering killing her Tracy lets Mallory go only for her to be kidnapped by Hydes men. This forces Tracy to meet Hyde, who wants retribution for his stolen money. Instead of having Mallory killed as revenge he lets her go and recruits Tracy into his outfit because his skills as a soldier would be useful.
Volume 2
''The Dead and the Dying''
Three stand-alone interlocking stories set in 1972. The first centers around prizefighter Jake "Gnarly" Brown, and tells of how the Hydes came to be the crime bosses of the city. The second centers of Tracy Lawless's father Teegar, a newly return Vietnam war veteran and his involvement in a heist pulled under false pretenses. The third is centered on Danica, a femme fatale involved at various points with Jake, Lawless and Sebastian Hyde.
''Bad Night''
This storyline enters around Jacob, the writer and artist of the 'Frank Kafka PI' newspaper strips which appeared in Coward and who made an appearance in Lawless. The insomniac and former counterfeiter gets drawn into a plan by a man and his girlfriend who want to impersonate an FBI agent.
Miniseries
''The Sinners''
After a wave of murders that target various high-profile, supposedly untouchable crime figures, Tracy Lawless is assigned to find the killers and stop them before a citywide gang war erupts, while an Army CID agent arrives at Center City to capture the deserting Sgt. Lawless. He discovers a priest is using children to assassinate the "evil" in his city. Lawless is able to stop this scheme, but not until after Hyde is killed.
''The Last of the Innocent''
Owing money to a loan shark and discovering his wealthy wife is cheating on him, Riley decides to murder her and use her money to pay off his debt. The story is inspired by Archie Comics, and features several sequences drawn in the house style of that series.
Other
''No One Rides for Free''
Tracy shakes down a reporter who has written an exposé on Sebastian Hyde's corporate dealings.
''21st Century Noir''
A man meets a woman online, meets her for sex, and finds out about her abusive husband.
''Special Edition''
Teeg Lawless is in jail and fends off fellow inmates who are after the bounty on his head.
''10th Anniversary Special''
A young Tracy Lawless helps his father with criminal activities while travelling cross country.
"Coward's Way Out"
An arc that Brubaker has mentioned multiple times since the end of Coward, but has not yet been published. It would be a follow up to Coward, and would be about Leo's escape from prison. Brubaker has indicated this arc may be told in the fifth volume of Criminal.''My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies''
The first original graphic novel from Brubaker and Phillips features a character who is revealed to be part of the Criminal universe. Its success inspired the revival of Criminal as a monthly comic in 2019.