The Discipline - Volumen 1: La Seducción

The Discipline #1-6

by Peter Milligan (Escritor), Leandro Fernández (Arte)

Panini Cómics trae para ti la polémica obra de Peter Milligan y Leandro Fernández, The Discipline, donde si bien el sexo y la lubricidad juegan un papel fundamental en la trama, la monstruosidad y la lucha ancestral contra ella ocupan el protagonismo encarnado en Melissa Peake y su proceso de conversión hacia La Disciplina. Todo empezó como un juego de seducción del que no pudo escapar y por el que, para bien o para mal, ya nunca más será la misma…

Esta edición compila los números 1 a 6

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Horror, Fantasy, Graphic Novels Comics, Erotica, Adult

160 pages, Hardcover

First published October 11, 2016

About the author

Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name

Peter Milligan is a British writer, best known for his work on X-Force / X-Statix, the X-Men, & the Vertigo series Human Target. He is also a scriptwriter.

He has been writing comics for some time and he has somewhat of a reputation for writing material that is highly outlandish, bizarre and/or absurd.

His highest profile projects to date include a run on X-Men, and his X-Force revamp that relaunched as X-Statix.

Many of Milligan's best works have been from DC Vertigo. These include: The Extremist (4 issues with artist Ted McKeever) The Minx (8 issues with artist Sean Phillips) Face (Prestige one-shot with artist Duncan Fegredo) The Eaters (Prestige one-shot with artist Dean Ormston) Vertigo Pop London (4 issues with artist Philip Bond) Enigma (8 issues with artist Duncan Fegredo) and Girl (3 issues with artist Duncan Fegredo).

Series:
* Human Target
* Greek Street
* X-Force / X-Statix

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 1 out of 5]

In the foreword, Milligan sounds like an earnest teenage boy as he desperately tries to convince the reader that he wasn't writing porn for the sake of porn.
Not that there's anything wrong with that!
Unfortunately for him, that's a harder sell when your dialogue is composed mostly of phrases like Ugghhh, Guhhhh, & Oooghhh.
I'm just saying.



He rambles on for a few paragraphs about how sex is usually the end game, but in The Discipline, it's what's used to get to the end game. Ritualistic sex is all part of the journey, man!
Aleister Crowley, Tantric Yoga, Sex Magick!
Or something like that.
Then he spits out this gem and I laughed and laughed and laughed because I knew I was in for a good time with this book.
Our hero. Melissa. Befreckled, bespeckled, bemused. She seems to me like a real woman, small-breasted but big-hearted. Intelligent, gutsy, but with real frailties...

Small-breasted but big-hearted!



Ok, ok, ok.
Just because there's a lot of sex in a book doesn't mean it isn't a great read. If sex moves the plot forward or makes sense in the situation, then by all means...MORE SEX!
But this book is not that book.
This is the literary version of a sci-fi porno flick.
You know how the dialogue is really cheesy and doesn't quite make sense in porno movies? Like, they're just sort of grunting out words that no one would ever say, in a situation that would never arise in real life, all because I suppose you kind of have to have the appearance of a 'story' to go with the cheesy background music.
THIS.



She's a dirty housewife. *titter*
And she's sexually frustrated because her millionaire husband is never home so she goes and stares at this painting of a monster fucking a woman.
She meets what looks like cliche Eurotrash who tells her he's going to fuck her.
He intrigues her FOR NO DISCERNIBLE REASON so she just agrees to start up an affair with him. Except he's creepy. Like, really fucking creepy. He says straight-up serial killer shit to her and takes her to a slaughterhouse for their first 'date'. Then he takes her to a BDSM club, roofies her, and leaves her in the middle of the street stark naked.
BUT SHE'S INTRIGUED. AND SO TURNED ON.




It just gets weirder and less coherent from there.
Needless to say, it all revolves around everyone in the story having sex with each other.
But the gist is that there are some sort of shape-shifting beings who live in pocket dimensions in different eras of time. You can communicate with them by stabbing yourself in the eye with a special needle or something. These dudes are fighting other shape-shifting beings. They have roofie spit, voices that can get you horny against your will, and can only survive if they take over a human's body by (you guessed it!) having sex with them.



Then there's a side plot about our small-breasted heroine's white trash sister, Krystal. See, if Tiny Titties doesn't do what the sex monsters want her to do, then they'll go after her sister and use her as their sex puppet instead.
AND IF THAT ISN'T A PORN PLOT, I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS.
I mean, all this story needs is some guy with a huge dick that delivers a pizza.
Go home, Milliagan. You're drunk.



Buddy read with Alex. He told me to let everyone know he's single and up for all kinds of kinky alien-monster shenanigans.
Really. Just flood his inbox with whatever nasty shit you're into. I'm totally not saying that because this comic was his idea. I swear.

[Chad · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Good: I liked Fernandez's art.

The Bad: I don't even know where to start. For a book about sex, this was one of the least "sexy" things I've ever read. I was pretty much skeeved out the whole time. Milligan's focus on rough sex and domination of others left me cringing. There's no real story here, just there's 2 different kinds of monsters that are fighting and use sex as a weapon. Nothing is explained. It sure didn't feel like a 30 year veteran of comic book writing wrote this garbage.

The Ugly: I think Peter Milligan may have some weird sexual proclivities given this series and Greek Street.

[Warwick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Approximately, 50 Shades of Promethea.


(Click to enlarge any images in this review)

I was quite up for this at the beginning – the unfeasibly naïve heroine, the contemporary New York setting, the looming eldritch forces all made me think we were in for a schlocky sexploitation story, like a Dennis Wheatley mash-up. But the build-up was too short, the seduction too implausible, and the proliferation of supernatural monsters too silly.



Leandro Fernández's art is good, sometimes great, although the colouring from Chris Peter is not to my taste, full of too many lurid oranges and greens (as in the page above). Our main character, the ‘sexually and emotionally frustrated’ young wife Melissa, is engaging enough to hold your interest, but the sexiness is played kind of coy and it started to creep me out – after spending the evening jilling off, she simpers to her bestie that she was doing ‘that thing…that we women do sometimes’. You become very aware that she was written by a guy, drawn by a second guy and coloured in by a third guy. Having a woman on the team would have gone a long way I think.




If The Discipline had been played slower, it might have had more going for it; as it is, there's not enough tease and the seduction does not live up to the pay-off. Unless you're mad for paranormal romance, this can be passed over fairly guiltlessly.

[Misty · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was just... not good. There's really no getting around it.
It popped up as a featured or recommended comic on Hoopla (which doesn't give ratings and reviews, so I had no warning), so I thought I'd give it a try. Wasted a credit on this disjointed, schlocky mess that masquerades as an intelligent, edgy, artful exploration of all these THEMES that are really just barely-existent veneers for bad sex. Blah.

[Kenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rosemary's Baby contemporised and better still, without the baby.

[James DeSantis · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm going to say this might be the biggest waste of money I spent in 2016...and it's for 10 bucks.

The art is okay at best. That's about the only "decent" thing I can say about this.

The plot is moronic. You turn into these creatures based on your sexual acts. They must fight against another clan of evil demons who also are sex fiends called "Stalkers", original right? God, the pacing...this whole thing is a mess. Shit just happens randomly, like people die, fights happen, one second people are fucking, next they are on a skyscrapper...like what? Nothing flows well, the sex scenes are boring as shit (is that possible?) and don't even get me started on the dialog. Fucks, Fucks, shit, shit, that's all the dialog. Just those words...and when it's not, it's still garbage.

Skip this please. Take my advice after spending 10 bucks, it's NOT WORTH YOUR TIME!!!

[Chihoe Ho · Rating 1 out of 5]

There was a run in this Alien vs Predator-esque story where I thought "I could get into this" but then the appearance of the Swinburne character was a big fat nope. Sex, sex and more sex, which is fine, except it really comes across as violent and misogynistic (i.e. our protagonist Melissa being forced into submission to Swinburne otherwise her sister falls victim to be groomed to take her place). Yup, a big fat HELL NAW.

[Gary Butler · Rating 3 out of 5]

4th book read in 2018.

Number 502 out of 664 on my all time book list.

It is a poorly made version for the Underworld film series with sex thrown in to distract you.

[Alex Sarll]

Milligan has always been interested in sex and identity, but this tale of two warring breeds of ancient shapechanger, who mainly seem to operate through kinky fucking, still feels like a misguided attempt to jump the paranormal romance bandwagon. Like his other recent misfire, New Romancer, the historical figures don't feel quite right (there are some real rookie mistakes in the speech patterns) but the modern protagonist is just about interesting enough to keep my attention - even if her world feels like one I've seen too many times before, despite barely reading her genre. It does help that Fernandez' art is gorgeous, just the right mix of sinuous and sinister, and amply able to capture the fluidity of the metamorphoses.

[Tom Mathews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely not your parents' comic books. Supernatural beings battle each other throughout history, using sex to recruit and possess humans. Intriguing artwork gets 4 stars but a choppy storyline getting only 2 for an overall score of 3 stars.

[Woowott · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like sex and monsters and horror in things I read. But I like them well-executed. This was an indefinable mash poorly paced, plotted in a mediocre manner, with meh characters, and incomprehensible action. I went in a positive audience, but I was less than impressed.

[Zoë Birss · Rating 1 out of 5]

Exploitative, patriarchal trash that fetishizes the demonic. Species meets... Donald Trump's ethics.

Hoopla has been recommending this book to me for a long time. I'll assume it has something to do with my reading of Aliens, Sex Criminals, and Saga. This is none of those. This is the worst of 90s "adult" comics "edge" for the 21st Century. It isn't surprising to read the writer's bio and see him described as controversial, and getting his start at Vertigo in the 90s.

I like Preacher. I like Spawn. I like Sandman. I like Hellboy. But for every good title that has endured and is remembered from the nineties, there are ten that are a disgusting mess. This book resurrects their memory.

Something good I can say about this book: the illustration is clear and dramatic. It also changes through the comic with the tone of the story. As the character experiences metamorphosis, the style of illustration matches her change and carries the tone.

However, what the illustrator needs to draw, and the idiocy of the story contained in those illustrations, makes me wonder if perhaps the book would have been improved with a less talented artist. At least then we wouldn't have to see the garbage so clearly. Maybe the story would have been less vomit inducing if the illustrations had further convoluted it.

I did not like this book. I do not recommend it to any animal who can read or see.

[Luke · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Discipline is the first comic I've read of Peter Milligan and I have to say it isn't very good. The premise of the book is interesting (I'd call it 50 Shades of Gray meets the Alien movies), however the execution falls flat.
In the book we're introduced to Melissa who is put through trails by a mysterious man named Orlando to become part of a group called The Discipline. The Discipline are currently at war with a group of beast like creatures called Stalkers. These stalkers take over peoples bodies by killing them during sex.

The things I disliked about this book is that it really glorifies cheating without any consequences at all. It's characters are flat/unlikable, especially Melissa herself. Also the main events in the book are hardly explained at all as to why they are happening.
I will say though that the art by Leandro Fernandez is quite good. He adds exceptional detail to his work and he draws his characters and expressions well, especially The Discipline members.
Overall I'd rate this book a 2.5 stars.

[alexander shay · Rating 3 out of 5]

The art is a bit sloppy at times and the coloring isn't always thorough, so it's a bit hard to tell what you're looking at often. The timeline jumps back and forth so much it's confusing, as not all the time changes are indicated. While I like Melissa, I couldn't give a shit about Orlando and Melissa's feelings for him seem completely unfounded. It all feels very rushed, the 'seduction' raced through much too fast to get at what the authors want to spend most of their time focusing on. As such, character development is pretty well non-existent, things don't get explained well, and emotional involvement is very low. While I really like the concept behind the piece, it could have been executed much better, and the creatures could have looked less like stereotypical aliens and werewolves.

[Amanja · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Discipline is an adults only graphic novel series that seems to have been canceled after one volume. Although the creative team appears to be passionate about the content, an audience for this kind of book would be very hard to find.

It's basically about a bored housewife who gets seduced by a stranger. I already find this problematic. Adultery should never be promoted as the way to break a rut. She should have an open and honest discussion with her husband about how she feels unfulfilled instead. But I guess that doesn't make for as interesting reading so she gets easily seduced instead.

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[Ame · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pft.

Manhattan housewife seduced to be part of "The Discipline", ancient green creatures at war with beast-like creatures called stalkers. Female protagonist is ordered around by men to "be a good housewife" so they can use her husband's wealth, and ordered to kill and seduce on their behalf or else they threaten to recruit her sister.

If you have to write an introduction to "justify" all the sexual images, then maybe you know deep-down that the concept isn't that solid?

Meh.

[Imogene · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can see where this book wanted to go. There is a strange kind of eroticism to body horror. Full of tabbo and abjection, and, well. Strange fluids. This isn't that. It tries, though.

Despite the fairly thoughtful introduction claiming the opposite, there is still too make of the male gaze skewering the barely clad female protagonist. Plus, the seducers are male, the seduced, the "victim", female.

[Emily · Rating 1 out of 5]

The story telling was choppy and the world concept was too confusingly presented to be all that interesting. I am only giving it two stars because I did read the whole volume, thinking it might get better. It didn't. If anything it got worse. Also, it's not a good sign when within a few pages it is obvious this was written by a man.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 1 out of 5]

Man initiates innocent woman into secret world through sexual rites? Yeah, you couldn't get much more cliched than that. It's 50 Shades of Gray with monsters, and kind of ickily misogynistic with its gendered power tropes.

Two issues in and spare change and I decided I didn't care.

[Scarlet Cameo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Could be worse, but also could be better. The plot development is nowhere to be found, probably, biut two stars cause I have the bar way too low because of what I read this month, since this book is weird at best.”

[Brian Garthoff · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don’t have a problem with stories that are taboo, but The Discipline is little more than poorly written Occultist porn. It’s not an ugly book, but the art isn’t going to win any awards either. There’s some stuff that probably make the average reader pretty uncomfortable too. I won’t get into too much detail but it has to deal with historical figures and feces. Also, they use the term “Sex Death” at least three times. So, even if this type of stuff was your thing, I’m sure you can find better evil themed adult books out there.

[*Layali* · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yikes. What the hell was that?

[Britt Freeman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Highly disjointed narrative that doesn't flow. Add that to Milligan's note at the beginning that it isn't just about sex, makes me think this whole thing was about sex. And how it sells. And really who pays for pornography anymore? The ideas had potential, especially all the old Roman iconography in issue one, but then the Council appears in a pirate ship? Haphazard. The art too is in an organic style that shows promise but so many scenes, especially the action ones are hard to follow and further muddle the flow. In particular, I had to look at the frame where Mel is caught by the vitruvian man to understand what was happening multiple times. Normally I'm all for the creators trusting in their audience but the parts of the story left out here feel like translucent cliff hanger parlor tricks to string along readers to the next ineffectual issue.

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

The beginning was confusing and disjointed. The story began to come together towards the end, but the path the reader has to take to get there is a bit laborious. Plus, while it doesn't have to always be clear who the good guy is, neither side in this conflict is particularly attractive.
There seem to be more of these high concept sex books like Sunstone and Sex Criminals saying there's a lot of sex but it's *not about the sex* when, yeah, it really is. Sex is fun to write about, and titillating and still taboo. Own that that's the reason you want to write about it. Don't carry on about how you *had* have a lot of sex in it to support your high concept, because I don't buy it.
I did enjoy the artwork, but Image typically has high standards for art these days.

[Brian Dickerson · Rating 2 out of 5]

A different kind of book for sure... I liked it at times, I didn't like it at times, but it was a page turner. The art was very good but ultimately the violence merged sex was a bit much for me. I think you could accurately say this is a failure in an attempt to be "50 shades of grey for comic lovers".

[Camilo Guerra · Rating 3 out of 5]

¿ Que es la Disciplina?, ¿ un culto de sexo ?, ¿un grupo de seres serpientes que se esconden en el tiempo y usan el sexo como herramienta en una guerra interminable?, no tengo idea, pero la historia me atrapo con todos sus giros y situaciones forzadas ( enamorada en dos semanas??? ) pero la historia es atrapante y el arte de Leandro Fernandez es simple mene perfecto.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh weird confusing i liked the cesar shit but otherwise it was just strange disjointed

[Simon · Rating 1 out of 5]

IF any of the characters were remotely likeable, or even more than just cardboard cutouts, it might have been good.

[Artur Nowrot · Rating 1 out of 5]

This... is very bad. I might finish it as an object lesson in how not to write erotic thrillers with mystical themes.

[Albert · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Discipline by Peter Milligan gained a considerable amount of play over the sex content in the comic and yes there is quite a bit of nudity and sex. But it is also perhaps one of the least erotic books I have read and maybe that was the intention.

Summary

Melissa Peake is a beautiful housewife whose husband has lost interest in her. She is a trophy wife that is only for show. She is frustrated and doubting her own sensuality when she is seduced by a mysterious stranger who recruits her into The Discipline.

The Discipline is an ancient order that is at war with demonic creatures that are called The Stalkers. They have battled for eons and human beings are their playthings. They use sex and violence to survive and Melissa is caught in the middle. Will she be able to escape or will she change into one of The Discipline.

Review

The word on The Discipline is about the amount of sex in the comic. But it should have been about the story of good versus evil and what happens when both sides have more than a little evil about them. What happens when those lines are so blurred that there doesn't really seem like a good side and a bad side. Just a bad side and an even worse one. The sex in this book is more about control than anything else and no I don't have an issue with bondage and BDSM, but this is a different kind of control. It is a control that removes all will from its participants.

The artwork is very good but the story itself is blurred and everything it slows down, they just toss in some sex to distract the reader. So overall it just doesn't work well for me.

Not for me to continue to follow.