Don’t You Know It’s Hard to Keep the Fighting Clean?
Written By: Gail Simone
Art By: Jon Davis-Hunt, Todd
Klein
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: October 21, 2015
*Non-Spoilers and Score At
The Bottom*
The esteemed team of
lawyers on retainer for this website have informed me that I must make this
statement: the following comic book review contains depictions of a story
involving a brainwashing cult created by a pulp paperback author. It could be
construed that this cult is an allusion to Scientology, but Weird Science DC Comics Blog Dot Blogspot
Dot Com, hereinafter named “the website,” claims no propriety or authority
over the creators or publisher of Clean
Room number one (1), hereinafter named “the comic,” and disavows any
culpability or being followed by creepy Scientologists thereof. Please don’t
microwave our pets. Read the review—perhaps this cult is painted in a positive
light!
Explain It!:
Gail Simone really excels
at writing about emotionally damaged people, and making us feel for them
through their dialogue. So it is with our introduction to the protagonist of
this story, Chloe Pierce, who we meet in the midst of an attempted drowning
suicide. She’s despondent over the recent suicide by gun of her fiancée,
Philip, who got mixed up with a crazy cult called the Utopians shortly before
removing the right half of his face. She is fished out of the lake before she
can expire by her neighbors, and wakes up in the hospital where a well-meaning
nurse hands her a copy of An Honest World
by Astrid Mueller, a key tome to the Utopians and a book which makes Chloe wig
out a little. It’s then that she decides she needs to uncover the mysteries of
the Utopians in order to understand why her husband-to-be offed himself.
We actually meet the
creator of this wackadoo cult, Astrid Mueller, in the book’s prologue before
the title page. We see her many years ago in Germany, a bright-eyed, pigtailed
little scamp, on her way to church. Suddenly, a livery driver slams his truck
right into her body and t-bones a parked car, and then backs up over the
bloodied little girl for no discernable reason. He is taken out of the car and
beaten mercilessly by onlookers, while the girl is taken to the hospital, unusually
kempt for someone who has been rolled around under a moving truck. It is there
she begins having visions, and if you’re putting two and two together here,
it’s almost certainly Astrid Mueller. We learn that Astrid was writing shlock
horror novels until she wrote White Hall,
Red Heart, the only book ever written without any punctuation whatsoever.
After reviewing all three-hundred pages, the reader is then enlightened or
insane, and it’s not clear which makes one eligible to join the Utopians.
Chloe, a journalist as well as a suicidal revenge plotter, is able to gain
entrance to the Utopians headquarters to speak with Astrid Mueller, after she
has read White Hall, Red Heart
herself. She gets the runaround, but eventually Astrid steps through some giant
double wooden doors, flanked by a gang of well-dressed people just different
enough that they could be a modern-day Hogan’s
Heroes.
Okay, so I’ve been a
little vague about this book. That’s because I think you should check it out.
The art and plotting by Jon Davis-Hunt is capable enough—certainly meticulous,
if nothing else—but this is a pretty creepy story that is really well-paced and
contains just enough information to make you curious for more. You want to
enter the Clean Room. I mean, really you probably don’t, but you should read
this comic book. Gail Simone is let off the licensed property leash and it’s
already pretty gripping.
Bits and Pieces:
Some horrors are easy to
describe, but the kind of horror we see in Clean
Room is more visceral. Though many of the characters have a pugnacious
quality about them, the art is very strong and detailed and effective where it
needs to be. Perhaps you were feeling like you were sleeping too well and could
use a few mild nightmares? Well say no more, pick up this series and wonder
about those spaced-out people pushing reflective stickers and flowers down at
the airport.
8.5/10
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