Sister Mercy #1 Review: It Just Works

Nuns aren’t the type of people you’d imagine being sexy or even go into action. Nuns are more along the lines of females who want a life devoted to god in peace and quiet and away from earthly desires. Comic book writer Corey Hardiman said “to hell with that” and created ‘Sister Mercy” with artist Ricardo Silva and it’s a wild ride.

In a post-apocalyptic world, Sister Mercy is a nun who can apparently hear the voice of God who helps her in her everyday life. One day what remains of the church she lives in gets attacked by a bunch of “Mad Max” like bandits who are there to take her to “The Kingdom” that is ruled by someone called “The Black Pope.”

What better way to make a nun a badass than by putting her in a post-apocalyptic world where she needs to be a badass. The best thing here is that Hardiman didn’t go the usual route where it’s the religious VS the non-religious but the people of the same faith going at each other. Also, what better cannon fodder to use in this setting than the typical “Mad Max” leather-wearing gang members.    

Of course, using the “Mad Max” gang members is old and tired. However, there are ways of doing something creative with a cliché. Terry Pratchett made fun of that and Australia in “The Last Continent” (electing politicians and then immediately throwing them in prison “to save time.”) Having them work for a large religious organization makes sense because they’re the ones with all the cash and resources.   

Silva’s artwork is another strong suit in the comic. While normally everything brown is boring, here it makes sense because the whole world has gone to hell. The character designs are nice. The characters are drawn competently and Silva has a firm grasp of how sequential art is supposed to work. Of course, the backgrounds do look like what the typical post-apocalyptic world would look like, but it becomes less noticeable the more you read the comic.

The first issue of “Sister Mercy” delivers a combination of ideas that shouldn’t work but do work in the end with some neat artwork. Hardiman knows how to tell a story, keep the reader invested and want to read future issues to find out what happens next.