Comics
Review: ‘Dead Body Road’ #2
A darkly vibrant crime thriller, “Dead Body Road” #2 layers the mystery with hard-hitting twists and slick humor. You’ll be quoting the tough guy dialogue by the time you’re through with the issue. The “Dead Body Road” series is a hot dose of adrenaline to the system.
WRITTEN BY: Justin Jordan
ART BY: Matteo Scalera
PUBLISHER: Image Comics
PRICE: $3.99
RELEASE: Jan. 22, 2013
Tired and frightened, Rachel is on the run from two well-armed hired goons, who are having second thoughts about keeping her alive The hired goons have trapped Rachel in the corner of a nearly empty diner. With no weapon in hand, Rachel sits trapped in a small booth with the two thugs. who have their guns pointed right at her. Rachel keeps her mouth shut as she hides something valuable from the two. What none of them realize is that someone else is directly on the way to the diner. Cage is seeking revenge against the men who killed his beloved Anna. No one will be spared alive when Cage is through with all of them.
Writer Justin Jordan mixes the high octane drama with his own brand of pulpy humor. Though the hired goons may sound like two ordinary dumb thugs, their eagerness for violence makes them deadly. The two goons are just itching for Rachel to make a mistake, so they can pull out their guns and start shooting at her. They are willing to murder the waitress working at the diner, even though she is an innocent bystander.
What I really enjoy about Jordan’s narrative is how the suspense is built around one single location. Jordan has to keep the tension flowing and escalating at the right pace as Rachel sits confined in a booth with the two goons. How is Rachel going to get out of the room alive when she is completely surrounded? One of the goons even reminds Rachel that there will be no cavalry rushing in to save her. Rachel may look like a damsel-in-distress but Jordon has a neat little twist waiting for readers.
I particularly liked Matteo Scalera’s character design for Rachel. If you notice, the colors to her shoes match with her striped shirt. With the aid of Moreno Dinisio’s color scheme, Rachel looks the part of a blonde bombshell, but she has actually lived in the seedy underbelly for far too long. In order to appear tough, Rachel wears a leather jacket and has piercings near the top of her nose, between her eyes.
Through wide shots, Scalera’s depicts the western landscape with a vast desert, where the sun is always scorching. The isolated diner sits out in the middle of nowhere, by the side of a lonely road. Scalera hits the reader hard with his portrayal of graphic violence, especially when guns are drawn. Towards the climax, there is a Mexican standoff that will get the heart racing as every major character starts blasting away.
Making great use of its location and gritty characterizations, “Dead Body Road” #2 flows with pulsating energy in just about every page. I can’t wait to see how Cage continues his wrath as the “Dead Body Road” continues.
4/5 Skulls
Reviewed by Jorge Solis
Comics
‘You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive’ – IDW Dark’s Next Horror Comic Will Make You Question Reality
Five friends. Four houses. One perfect life. Bloody Disgusting is excited to exclusively announce You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive, a brand new horror comic from IDW Dark.
From Eisner-Nominated writers Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly, and rising horror artist Heather Vaughan, You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive is described as a “paranoia-laced, socially-conscious, horror mystery that will leave you questioning reality, and reveal that this crafted world is more of a nightmare than the idealistic dream they were expecting.”
Phoebe Joplin has never questioned the world her parents built: a secluded community where she and her friends were raised to be smarter, stronger, and better than anyone else. No distractions. No dangers. No secrets. Until the night of their graduation.
When one of them dies under impossible circumstances, Phee starts to pull at the edges of her perfect life—and what she finds is something far more terrifying than she ever imagined.
Because this place isn’t a sanctuary. It’s a cage. And no one who discovers the truth ever leaves it alive.
Collin Kelly & Jackson Lanzing (Batman – One Bad Day: Clayface, Star Trek: The Last Starship) co-write the upcoming IDW Dark horror comic, featuring art by Heather Vaughan.
Jackson Lanzing said in a statement to Bloody Disgusting, “You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive is in many ways a spiritual successor to our last creator-owned horror, The Principles of Necromancy – a dive into the promise and consequence of playing god with the blood of innocents. But the Hivemind book this reminds me of most is Clayface: One Bad Day. This is a deeply human story with intensely raw emotions – five best friends and their five mysterious parents, tearing one another apart for the promise of some impossible glory that’s waiting just beyond their darkest actions. We’re thrilled to be bringing this story to life with our long-time partner in crime, editor Heather Antos, at IDW Dark – and we’re particularly excited to give our Clayface fans a new, brutal and emotional horror made just for them.”
Adds Collin Kelly, “We’re deconstructing a feeling that seems universal these days; our elders have a death grip on their power, without any intention of giving it up to the generations that come next. YNLTPA is about growing up with the limitless potential of the future… and realizing how much it’s a lie we’ve been fed to keep us under the yoke of the past. Bringing this brutal experience to life is our artist and co-creator, Heather Vaughan, who brings an incredible amount of humanity to our cast. But it’s in our youthful leads that Heather’s art really shines – you are going to fall in love with these young people, even as they go through the worst experience of their lives. What we’ve all crafted together is going to be tragic, painful, but above all else, sincere – with a future so uncertain, there’s only one thing we can trust: you’ll never leave this place alive.”
“Some horror stories are about monsters in the dark. YNLTPA is about realizing the monsters raised you,” previews Senior Group Editor Heather Antos. “Working with Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly on this series has been a dream in the darkest possible way. They’ve built a story that’s layered, brutal, and deeply emotional, and every issue gives artist Heather Vaughan opportunities to push the art into places that feel both haunting and deeply personal. Some horror comics will keep you up at night…this is one that will stick with you for years to come.”
The first issue of You’ll Never Leave This Place Alive goes on sale October 14, 2026! Make sure to pre-order at your local comic shop by September to guarantee a copy.
Exclusively check out the various covers for Issue #1 down below.
IDW Publishing’s horror imprint IDW DARK features comics like A Quiet Place: Storm Warning, Smile: For the Camera, The Exorcism at 1600 Penn, Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees, The Twilight Zone, Event Horizon: Dark Descent & Event Horizon: Inferno, and more.
You must be logged in to post a comment.