I read about this the day before it debuted and I thought it sounded intriguing. The mini-series is about a trauma-scene clean-up crew and the mystery around one of the extremely bloody scenes they clean during this issue. This also constitutes breaking my Dark Horse cherry.

For the most part I enjoyed this issue more than my higher profile first issue purchase this week (Batman Cacophony). My favorite parts of this issue are the clean-up scene diagrams. The first indicates the damage inflicted to the scene and the second all the different tools used to combat that damage. There is an enormous amount of blood at both scenes, but in both cases there are no bodies. One because the bodies have already been removed… but the other? Oh, and the blood found at that scene is from over a 100 individuals, including 11 runaways dating as far back as 1981.

The art in this is exceptional. It fits the writing, the dialogue is very true-to-life and so is the way in which people are drawn. I hope to see a lot more of Rahsan Ekedal in the future. All in all this issue is very well done, but I have a few nitpicks..

For one, not very much happens in this issue. Since this is the first issue, and some setup needs to be laid out, it’s understandable. The most egregious problem I have is the insinuation of vampires suckling the blood of runaways or something of the sort. Although, so long as that isn’t what’s actually going on, I’m hooked. Hopefully as their summary states,”..by focusing on the scientific explanation..” they “..prove things are seldom what they seem…”

Patrick Stedem

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