Comic Break: The Cleaners #2 (Dark Horse Comics)

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The Cleaners
Issue: #2
Writer: Mark Wheaton and Joshua Hale Fialkov
Artist: Rahsan Ekedal
32 pp. Dark Horse Comics. $2.99

Reviewed by Paul Stotts

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Sharks snacking on bodies. Blood and viscera polluting the water, staining the waves with death. Now that’s ugly. And a prime reason why trauma cleaning is a disgusting business. Flossing bits of human ground chuck out of Jaws’ choppers isn’t appealing.

Except maybe to Bellarmine and his crew of blood custodians.

Luckily they get to sit the human sushi bar out. But the mess at the marina does provide Bellarmine a lead in his investigation into a gruesome blood spill in the San Fernando Valley. Multiple sources of blood, but no bodies, suggests a biological waste dump. All the blood being donor blood suggests something really weird going on.

And from there sinister isn’t a huge leap. Bandits don’t rob blood banks and leave the crimson cash lying around. Especially in a residential alley in the Valley. Dumping some O+ in your neighbor’s backyard? Might as well litter the ground with a stack of twenties.

Now psychos. Well. Plasma retention isn’t their strongest suit.

Writers Mark Wheaton and Joshua Hale Fialkov along with artist Rahsan Ekedal have created an intriguing little comic. Gruesome. Odd. And quite disturbing. The Cleaners is a glimpse into the ugly underbelly of a violent society. But underneath all this muck and violence—beneath all the filth—lies good people. People that care. And that you start to care about.

In only two issues, Wheaton and Fialkov have put together a great mystery. One that’s unusual—with an outcome that isn’t immediately transparent. Hopefully in future issues the eventual answers will match this promising setup.

Final Grade: 79 out of 100

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