Review: CLEAN ROOM #1

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CLEAN ROOM #1
Written by Gail Simone
Art by Jon Davis-Hunt
Published by DC Comics/Vertigo
Release Date: October 21, 2015

Chloe Pierce has lost everything. Her fiancé, her baby, and her will to live. After a botched suicide attempt, Chloe decides to get even. And she’s going right to the source: Astrid Mueller, author, prophet, and director of the largest new age religion in the world. And beneath it all — beneath Mueller’s fancy headquarters, millions of book sales, and legions of followers — is the Clean Room.

It used to be, we all wondered what went on behind the scenes in the Church of Scientology. Flash forward past a few choice exposes and documentaries, and the mystique behind a religion founded by a science fiction author looking to avoid taxation on his book sales starts falling away.

What never goes away, though, is this: why? Why do people — seemingly smart, educated, privileged people — buy into it? What does something like the Church of Scientology offer that is so compelling that it would legitimize submission to a hazy-at-best faith? What could provoke so many people to hand over their fortunes to a group that won’t even share its secrets unless you buy up to them?

Replace fortune with sanity and Dianetics with An Honest World and you have the makings of Clean Room. Gail Simone begins with an origin tale that immediately grabs my attention, in some ways, because it positions the villain of the piece as another victim. And no matter how inconsequential that might feel if we are to believe this cult is genuine evil, well… I’m not so sure yet.

Indeed, Simone certainly front-loads the series with enough evidence for the reader to cast aspersions on the cult in question that Astrid Mueller leads from her Playboy Mansion-style headquarters in Chicago. A man died. Another man loses his sanity. Closed doors with Mossad agents hiding secrets from the press. And yet… is it? Is it what’s in that room, the mythic Clean Room, that’s destroying lives? And how can it be, if the monsters Chloe sees are the same ones Astrid herself saw as child?

And by the way, those monsters? CREEPY as fuck. Penciller, inker, and colourist extraordinaire Jon Davis-Hunt blows expectations out of the water for the entirety of Clean Room #1, delivering a tale that’s equal parts sickening, emotive, and just plain cool. Death and gore border on the exquisite with fascinating detail provided to every panel, but at the same time maintains a cool and collected distance from the reader. Little details like eye slits and falling teeth inspire a great deal of staring, but still, the book maintains some distance and even-handedness across the issue.

Davis-Hunt’s trifecta of art chores definitely brings a cohesiveness to the entire issue, as no one page suffers from lack of attention, rush, or neglect. The colour work in particular is very subtle, yet sophisticated in how it sets the tone of any given scene. Even warm tones have a cool distance to them, but the subtle shifts from oranges to reds to blues feels so hyperreal. It’s as if whatever was awoken in Astrid and in Chloe may be waking in us. And that’s a damn scary thought indeed.

A wonderful start to a truly eerie, but intellectually curious story, Clean Room #1 will likely never have the mystique to work with that biographers of the Church of Scientology had twenty some years ago, but the mystery isn’t as simple as what goes on behind closed doors, really. The real mystery, it seems, is happening around us at every moment. And THAT is far more frightening to behold.

The Verdict: 9.5/10

 

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