Comics
Review: ‘Black Science’ #5
Grant McKay returns to center stage this month as Remender peels back the layers of this complex and pious bastard. As always the root of this month’s issue rests with the characters behind the team. However, the cracks in the entire foundation start to reveal their complexities as Grant is forced to face himself. This is the most exciting and damning chapter of “Black Science” to date.
WRITTEN BY: Rick Remender
ART BY: Matteo Scalera
COLOR BY: Dean White
PUBLISHER: Image
PRICE: $3.50
RELEASE: April 2, 2014
I can’t imagine being a dimension-hopping scientist. You’d have to be one brilliant man, and you’d have to a certain type of asshole, at least according to Remender. Luckily he does a fantastic job at communicating these traits in Grant Mckay. It’s never a dull moment as Kadir recounts how he first met the smug young man who turned out to be his own damnation.
In a roundabout way, even the moments with the masked stranger are all about Grant. This is his series after all, and Remender reminds us that he has done this all before, as he will do it again. Yet, his actions puncture holes in the very fabric of reality. His callous actions threaten the destruction of countless lives. Most notably those of his children, who the masked stranger reminds him, are doomed to be killed by their father.
So in a comic filled with infinite possibilities the fleeting idea of fate somehow worms its way in to throw everything to shit. In a beautiful poetic moment, Grant tries to defy his fate by acting before thinking. Yet, something tells me that this issue of Black Science will be a lot more important than we’re lead to believe here. Something happens within these pages that creates and even more infinite set of possibilities for the narrative. Remender loves seeding ideas, and this will surely spell the beginning of the end for the entire team.
Matteo Scalera really has a lot of time to shine in this issue. He revels in a chase scene that sees our heroes cutting across a bustling alien marketplace and bookends everything with two very senseless acts of violence. It all flows tremendously well and comes to reinforce the frantic pace that was previously established in the first issue of the series. The attention to detail in the characters is beautiful and Scalera really has a lot of fun with the design of the masked stranger.
Yet again, Remender and his team do an incredible job at building their world outward to create a memorable and engaging adventure that never stops to catch it’s breath. The characters while despicable almost across the board are engaging and intoxicating. So watching Grant become his own biggest saboteur is nigh impossible to resist. The onion keeps getting peeled back, and with every new layer comes a multitude of questions. I couldn’t be happier with this book. My only complaint is waiting a month between chapters.
Rating: 4.5/5 Skulls.
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.
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