The reverend has been tied down. Or maybe he’s been tied-up. His head is a few feet from the floor. His ankles are tied. He’s upside down. There’s a woman standing next to him with a rather large and rather sharp knife. There’s blood. He’s begging her. He’s going to have to do better than beg in Sister Imperator #1. Writer Corinna Bechko opens a four-part series with artist Puste in the opening chapter of a series dedicated to shining light on the origin of the popular character from the Ghost universe. It’s an entertainingly dark dramatic opening for the mini-series.

The police come by as the reverend hangs upside down against a pentagram The woman with the knife doesn’t have any difficulty surrendering to the police. She seems quite relaxed about the whole affair. It’s raining outside and she’s at peace. As she’s taken into custody there’s a man  from the press there who is looking for a statement. She doesn’t have the time at that moment, but she seems to like the man and what he has to say, so she invites him to talk with her. She has a story to tell him about her childhood.

Bechko works with some pretty well-worn psychological trauma drama. It's the type of thing that has been explored pretty extensively in horror in and around the edges of contemporary drama and popular fiction and things of that nature. Certain sociocultural issues are explored in some detail. However, there is a whole lot in the script that feels too terribly fresh or original in its framing or perspective. That being said, it's a solidly entertaining story with some interesting elements and aspects that develop in the course of the journey from the front cover to the back.

Puste does a solidly respectable job of framing the horror. The cool and casual approach of the female lead seems well rendered on page. And the mood that he's delivering in the rain with all of the blood and everything else at the beginning of the issue  seems perfectly well executed. The artist isn't given a great range of motion to explore, though. There isn't a whole lot of subtlety or depth to what's going on necessarily on the page. So the artist isn't given a huge amount of room to explore subtleties and nuance and motion of motion and intention.

Doubtlessly there will be some complexity that will be explored as the series continues. However, the first quarter is just setting up basic premises of pacing and conflict and things of that nature which absolutely need to be rendered in order for the rest of the story and the rest of the series to make any kind of sense at all. And everybody involved is doing a very good job of delivering that to the page in the course of the first issue. However, there isn't much to necessarily draw the reader into a second issue that feels all that terribly interesting. It's a fun story. But there isn't enough there.

Grade: B-