Anghus Houvouras reviews The Disciples #1…
Dagmar, Rick, and Jules, intrepid private eyes/bounty hunters, have been hired by a high ranking Senator to retrieve his teenage daughter who’s run off to join a mysterious religious cult.
This is no ordinary cult though. In the near future of “The Disciples,” the ultra-wealthy have become true masters of the universe by colonizing moons throughout the solar system. Billionaire industrialist McCauley Richmond is one such colonist: he’s built a new society on Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter, where his flock of cultists can have the religious freedom to worship him.
But when the team reaches Ganymede in their Starship Venture, they discover something has gone horribly wrong…
This ghost story in space reunites comics’ king of the macabre Steve Niles with his longtime collaborator Christopher Mitten, whose stylish mix of grit and flow matches Steve’s sharp characterizations and taste for screams.
For me, the best first issues are the ones that get to the point. That start the story out with a bang and immediately draw the reader into the story. I’m all for proper world building in comic books, but sometimes it feels as though modern comic creators seem more obsessed with framing the story in debut issues rather than pulling us in. The first issue of The Disciples by Steve Niles and Christopher Mitten is a fantastic introduction into a gritty and disturbing future.
In the future, the super wealthy run the galaxy. Something that should surprise no one. Colonies are established on planets and moons throughout our solar system. One such colony on the moon of Ganymede where a billionaire industrialist is viewed as a God. His entire colony has become a cult of worshipers. When a politician’s daughter ends up involved with this seedy cult, he hires a trio of bounty hunters to bring her back.
There’s a lot of story elements here from the sci-fi playbook. Space colonies. Bounty hunters. Space zombies. All of it has a familiar feel. Elements of other properties like Joss Whedon’s Firefly and the video game series Dead Space. The world of The Disciples doesn’t immediately feel like the freshest of concepts, but Niles’ focus on strong characters and Mitten’s trippy visuals do a great job of setting the tone and letting us get to know our protagonists.
Much of the story is provided from the perspectives of our bounty hunters who lay out the narrative groundwork as they prepare the journey to Ganymede. It’s an issue heavy on ‘tell’ not ‘show’, but it works. There’s a real dirty feel to this world. An unpolished level of workmanship, nuts and bolts exposed. There’s also a very insane, terrifying alien that shows up at the end of the issue that lets us in on the painfully obvious:
This mission is going to be anything but easy.
There’s a lot of potential in the first issue of The Disciples which manages to deliver something engaging in spite of some predictable tropes in play.
Anghus Houvouras is a North Carolina based writer and filmmaker and the co-host of Across the Pondcast. Follow him on Twitter.
https://youtu.be/yIuEu1m0p2M?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
Originally published June 11, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
