Reviewed By Eric Switzer. “Cluster” #2 makes with the action adventure 100% and is exactly the easy peasy sci/fi romp I predicted it would be…up until the last two pages.  I have mixed feelings about the agenda in this book, not all good, certainly not all bad, but I can tell you I was derailed by the way this issue ends.  Perhaps it is something much more than what I expected.

WRITTEN BY: Ed Brisson
ART BY: Damian Couciero
PUBLISHER: BOOM!
PRICE: #3.99
RELEASE: March 4, 2015

We rejoin Samara and her band of misfits as the race against the clock to get back to prison before their punch expires and kills them.  Along the way they fight a giant worm, haggle with some indigenous black market traders, and have a run in with a formidable group of foes.  We find out that Greenwood, the warden-like figure of the the M.I.D., has a vested interest in Samara’s safety, which means there is a group “soldiers” on the hunt for our heroes whilst they rush back to the safety of…prison.  All of this is perfect fodder for the space adventure I think we were all hoping for, but then there’s more.

Halleran reveals to the group that what got him incarcerated was a knife fight over a bag of H that ended with him stabbing his best friend to death.  He describes having ended up that way after losing his wife and kids and had he just givin back the dope he stole, his friend wouldn’t have had to die.

Heavy.

I like 99.9% of my media to just ooze violence and nihilism and despicableness.  I eat that shit up, but here I found this admission to be shocking and out of place for the genre and style of the book.  It was as if on the way to kill the queen mimic in “Edge of Tomorrow” Tom Cruise mused about his battle with smack or if you found out Leia had to kick Han out because he backhanded her and called her a whore.

And then there’s the last two pages: flash back to that fateful night where Samara is being a spoiled rich party girl, giving her little sister shit for wanting to leave the club, mere moments before killing her in a drunk driving accident.  Yeah, lets go back there.

A book can be whatever kind of book it wants to be and I don’t critique stories on their subject matter, only their execution.  I’ve never seen anything with this sort of confluence of light and heavy before and that could be part of my reason for rejecting it.  It is too soon for me to say whether the book is trying something it shouldn’t or not, but I can tell you it was off putting to me.  In some ways I guess I’m guilty of wanting my art in clearly defined categories.  “Cluster” is a weird blend.  A weird, weird blend.

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Eric Switzer  is an aspiring filmmaker and screenplay writer living in Los Angeles.  His work tends to focus on the lighter side of entropy, dystopic futures, and man’s innate struggle with his own mortality.  He can be found on twitter @epicswitzer or reached via email at ericswitzerfilm@gmail.com.