A dysfunctional family of astronauts are perfect for the Shrouded College’s next mission. But who are the dangerous prisoners who are being held on a space station? Find out in The Bloody Dozen #1 from Image Comics!

THE BLOODY DOZEN #1

Writer: Charles Soule
Artist: Alberto Jiménez Albuquerque
Colorist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: Chris Crank
Publisher: Image Comics
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: December 13, 2023

Previously in The Bloody Dozen: The world of the Shrouded College has plenty of supernatural issues, and the mysterious Shrouded College has the resources to help sort them out. But what does that have to do with the space program, and a mysterious space station?

A NEW MISSION

The Bloody Dozen #1 opens in 1923 on a remote island near Antarctica. The warden has called for help, although he claims to the new arrivals that’s things are now under control. “Under control” involves a lot of impaled bodies strewn outside the circumference of a magma moat which surrounds a prison that looks like a medieval European village. The prisoners have been captured again, at great cost, and it is all but certain they will escape again.

The story flashes forward to present day Cape Canaveral. A group of tourists visits the Kennedy Space Center and gets their chance to meet an actual astronaut. Said astronaut is Greta Hill, and one of the tourists, a young lady with piercings and dark green hair, cries foul. Greta may be an astronaut, but she has not yet been to space. Greta has her escorted out.

Greta goes home after her day and is surprised to find that same young woman in her living room. She goes for a gun, but the young woman pulls a veil over her face and conjures up a shade of Greta’s husband, whose ship blew up on its mission. They cannot bring Gary back, she says, but they can bring her daughter, Glory, back.

Glory, it turns out, is a sniper and an addict. She is dangerous and in demand. The Shrouded College can give her and Greta another chance. Greta asks what they need in return. They do want something, but they also need to involve George, a retired ex-astronaut and also Glory’s grandfather. There is no love lost between him and Greta, but he is fond of Glory. He is also skeptical of the young woman in the veil, but when she opens a portal to Tampa, he steps through too.

The young woman brings them to a warehouse and tells them that Glory is there. George decides to go in. Glory currently hates Greta and probably won’t choose to come with her, and George is a pretty tough old geezer. He presses the door buzzer. A thug answers the door and reveals his gun. George is unfazed by this, but when he sees Glory plainly strung out, he goes into attack mode, much to the surprise of the thugs.

He brings Glory out. When the young woman sees Greta, she goes ballistic, insisting that she does not need an intervention and she does not want to change. The young woman from the Shrouded College touches her on the forehead and temporarily brings her to sobriety. They go to a diner where she briefs them on her proposed mission. There is a space station in close orbit around the sun, she tells them, put there eighty-five years ago. Greta is trained as a pilot. George has zero-G combat experience, and Glory understands addiction, death, and blood. Their mission is a prison break.

AN UNHAPPY FAMILY

The Bloody Dozen #1 takes place in a world with style. The opening scene makes much of the remoteness of Bouvet Island. Near Antarctica, it is rough, rocky, and covered in snow and ice. It looks inhospitable, as though there is no likely place to make landing. The warden and the man who arrived to help him are clad in fur-lined coats and we can see how the wind whips around them. It is 1923 and we expect them to be headed for some rustic structure. Instead, the reveal is the haphazard array of buildings from a walled medieval city center. The impaled bodies surrounding it come as almost an afterthought.

I like the touch of keeping this mission in the family. It’s a device that works to bring in some conflict without having to spend a lot of time in exposition, and that lets the art help with character development. Greta is pretty tough, but her husband died on the mission where he was swapped in for her. Blonde Glory resembles her all-American father except for the toll that her addiction takes on her. George is the mustachioed life of the party in his retirement community. All three of them come across as competent and opinionated. I expect to see sparks fly on their mission.

BOTTOM LINE: A WILD ADVENTURE

The Bloody Dozen #1 sets up a wild adventure with the supernatural in space. Underlying it is a thread of gritty realism which is tempered by a bit of dry humor and makes it an entertaining read.

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