Comics
[Comic Review] “Cluster” #2 Ends With A Gut Punch
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.
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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