Comics
[Comic Review] “Imperium” #5 Messes With Your Mind
Reviewed by Brady Steele. The war has begun and one side didn’t even know it. Imperium #5 kicks off the promised Resource War from the end of last month in fine mess-with-your-mind fashion. Toya Harada’s team of monsters is all but assembled to begin pushing the world towards the future their leader envisions. Let the impending Utopia begin now.
WRITTEN BY: Joshua Dysart
ART BY: Scot Eaton
PUBLISHER: Valiant Entertainment
PRICE: $3.99
RELEASE: 3 June 2015
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Professor X, The Vision, an Alien/Predator hybrid, Marv from Sin City and an other-dimensionally possessed amoral scientist walk into a bar…yeah, me neither. Writer Joshua Dysart has genuinely made something remarkable here inImperium. He has put together a book in the tradition of Suicide Squad where virtually none of the main players want to be there. In fact, most of them want to kill their leader, Harada. This precarious combination makes for a great place for unpredictable storytelling.
One of the many clever things writer Dysart accomplishes this month is set up a heist in the middle of geo-political power struggle. At first, it appears paranoia has set into Harada’s opponent, Director Kozol’s mindset. He’s constantly checking security on his submersible fortress: both physical defenses and psionic ones too.
Kozol is CEO of Rising Spirit, the superhuman making company that also now has a cold fusion reactor. He knows this makes him prime target #1 for Harada and his minions. The best part is… he’s not wrong but literally no one can see them coming. Just like the readers themselves, no one really knows what’s happening until midway through this issue! It’s genuine brilliance to behold.
The second half, like all good caper films, shows off just how they pulled it off. The only thing that takes away from the story is the art by Scot Eaton. There’s nothing wrong with his work. He’s a very capable artist in the traditional sense and approach to comic book storytelling. However, it lacks the menace; the grit and the eeriness that helped establish how atypical this book is. Hopefully it steps up next month. This story is so refreshingly original I look forward to seeing what happens next. You should too so keep reading.
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Mr. Steele enjoys all things comics and imagination-based. Using his lifetime of comic-fu-dom for good, he imparts his knowledge for the universe to enjoy and for you, dear readers, to pass it on.
Twitter: @mrbradysteele
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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