Wow. That was intense. It's in the universe of Gareth Evans's 2011 Indonesian martial arts movie The Raid... or, more precisely, it's set during The Raid 2. Anyway, it's incredibly, frighteningly violent and everything's hand-to-hand. No ranged weapons. No guns. The cops have big guns, sure, but every kill is inflicted the dirty way. Fists, kicks, broken bones, baseball bats, machetes, cleavers, a hook-shaped knife or (grossest) Hammer Girl and her two claw hammers. Also, someone gets burned to death. Personally, if I had to be murdered in one of the ways seen here, I'd be keenest to avoid those claw hammers. Even thinking about that gives me the willies.

Teja and Rama are in prison, but they're cops. This isn't a healthy place to be, even if they're undercover. This is the kind of prison where you're constantly expecting someone to get killed or crippled in the next few pages. Rama's likely to be dishing this out.

Meanwhile, in the outside world, a gangster power struggle is going on. These are scary people with employees who are practically wild dogs in human form, including some fan favourite killers from the movies.

Oddly, this isn't the first comic book based on The Raid. An Indonesian graphic novel was released in 2012.

There's not much to discuss here, to be honest. The plot's extremely simple, dark as hell and exists to shove our faces in the violence. This it achieves in style. Reading this book is like realising you've been holding your breath for an hour and a half. Characterisation: minimal. Style: hell yeah. Adrenaline: you gotta believe it. I really must get around to watching The Raid... everyone says it's great and I have the DVD, but my to-watch queue is ridiculous.