Tag: graphic novel

Review: Saga Volume Six

Saga, Volume 6Saga, Volume 6 by Brian K. Vaughan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Man, what I wouldn’t give for a recap page at the start of this volume. Even just a reminder of where everyone was at the end of the last volume, because the plotline has become a thick and tangled web of who wants to kill whom and who is allied with whom to prevent the afore-mentioned killing. But that’s all just a quibble. You can always go back and read volume 5, after all.

Volume 6 is great. It’s a bit lighter than previous ventures, a bit more hopeful, and I think that’s due in large part to the presence of Hazel, now old enough (albeit still in kindergarten) that she has her own voice in the story, not just that of the narrator. There also a few new interesting characters as well, which is great considering how high the body county for this series is.

Otherwise, what is there to say? The art is beautiful and weird, there’s so much non-hetero-normative sexuality that it’s all a delight to my progressive heart, especially when it’s juxtaposed with ideas about family and parenthood.

Mild spoilers for previous volumes: most of all, though, I think I’m happiest to see Alana and Marko working together again. The timeline jumps make it a bit tricky to determine if Hazel’s foreboding narration in a previous volume “that this is the story of how my parents split up” means that the split is still coming or if the troubles they encountered in the previous books were that split; it’s hard to say, but I’m pleased to see them here, working together, even if it’s not going to last.

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Review: Tomb Raider Volume 3: Queen of Serpents

Tomb Raider Volume 3: Queen of SerpentsTomb Raider Volume 3: Queen of Serpents by Rhianna Pratchett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I continue to be impressed with the comic series since Rhianna Pratchett took over the writing. It should come as no surprise, as she’s the main writer for the new Tomb Raider games, so it makes sense she keeps the storytelling smooth and seamless between graphic novel and game.

I like that this volume focuses on the deteriorating relationship between Lara and the “normal world” as a result of her experiences. One of the best moments of the 2013 Tomb Raider game was Lara’s horrified reaction to her first human kill; it was a deeply traumatizing and emotional moment and an excellent piece of storytelling. Eventually, the needs of the game mean you’re mowing down enemy mooks with all the concern of a video game character (which is to say, none), but that’s the result of it being an action game.

Here we see that Lara’s experiences continue to evolve her as a character. She’s trying to stay connected to the normal world despite the fact that she’s done and seen things that make her more and more removed from it. It sets things up nicely for why she’s continued to, ah, tomb raid and put herself in dangerous situations despite no longer being trapped on the island from the first game.

A very solid read for anyone hungry for more adventures with Lara. If you have a chance to read this one before going into Rise of the Tomb Raider, I recommend it, but even if you’ve already played Rise, Queen of Serpents is a fun, well written graphic novel that manages to have some surprising emotional depth. I quite enjoyed it.

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Review: Tomb Raider Volume Two: Secrets and Lies

Tomb Raider Volume 2: Secrets and LiesTomb Raider Volume 2: Secrets and Lies by Rhianna Pratchett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book makes me glad that I stuck with the Tomb Raider comic series. After a rocky start in the first volume, things are looking up with a story that does an excellent job of setting the scene for “Rise of the Tomb Raider.” It’s nice to get away from Yamatai and all the plot tangles that storyline created (even if Yamatai was an excellent plot for the first game). The characterization of Lara here is top notch and the sub-plot with Lara acting in a play at Jonah’s request nicely shows how she’s falling out of sync with “normal life.”

My only major quibble was the Trinity operative who was sent to kill Lara, but sort of falls for her instead? To take as an apprentice? It’s somewhat odd, even though I know it fits into the larger storyline that at least a few members of Trinity want to recruit her, considering how effective she is.

Otherwise, this is a great, enjoyable book. I’m glad that the series found its footing and I’m looking forward to the next volume.

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Review: Snowden

SnowdenSnowden by Ted Rall
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

It’s always hard to get a decent review on a book about such a divisive figure, simply because there will be a sizable contingent that will rate based on their feelings about the subject (for or against) rather than the merits of the work itself. With that said, I’d like to note that I’m generally pretty pro-Snowden. I’ve read a few other books about him and I think the revelation of the extent of the surveillance state was an important one.

But this isn’t the book to get a deep or nuanced understanding about the Snowden leaks. Here, we have Snowden the superhero, Snowden the caricature. Snowden is depicted as unambiguously good, while politicians like Obama, Clinton, Feinstein, and others are evil schemers (Rand Paul is the only positively depicted politician, interestingly).

This isn’t a simple story of good guys and bad guys. It’s not black and white, though this book very much wishes you to think so. Snowden took personal responsibility! The most important thing is personal sovereignty! Seriously, I absolutely hate it when a book assumes that I’m too stupid to understand the important bits, so those important underlying messages need to be spelled out in bold text. Yeah, it’s a cartoon. Doesn’t mean you need to assume I don’t understand the big words.

I was left shaking my head and rolling my eyes, and again, this is from the perspective of being pro-Snowden coming into this book. I assume if you’re in the anti-Snowden camp, you probably couldn’t get through the book without bursting into flame, but that leads to an interesting question; who’s this book for? I didn’t buy into it and I’m actually in agreement with the author’s general premise!

Why did Snowden leak those secrets? This book argues it’s because he’s a fundamentally good person, the only person who spoke up whenever everyone was going along with the crowd. The word “sheeple” doesn’t show up in the text, but I can’t help but imagine previous drafts where it appeared several times.

It’s possible that the author is correct and Snowden did what he did out of patriotic duty and a sense of personal responsibility. Or maybe he had visions of fame and recognition, a hunger for a place in history. Maybe it was both of these things, or neither, or several others. Humans are complicated and messy creatures. We are, all of us, saints and sinners, fallen angels and rising apes. We do things for many, many reasons and I resist the urge to create simplistic heroes and caricatures of complex issues.

Snowden is important. His leaks are important. Discussions about the nature of surveillance are important. But they are not simple and I resist agreeing with any work that seeks to paint them as such. If you’re curious about Snowden’s story, this isn’t a book that I’d recommend, because even though I do agree with the core premise, I don’t buy into its depiction or execution.

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Review: Halo: Escalation (Volume Two)

Halo: Escalation (Volume 2)Halo: Escalation by Brian Reed
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Halo: Escalation series continues to impress. It’s everything a great tie-in graphic novel should be.

While most of volume two continues the adventures of the Spartan-IVs, a section of the book is devoted to a somewhat surprising face: the Master Chief himself and the Spartan-II Blue Team. I mention this as a surprise because it seems like, aside from a few early novels, the Halo universe seems to shy away from depicting the big MC in the expanded universe fiction, preferring instead to save his exploits for the games themselves. It’s nice to see Blue Team show up here, which I recognize is meant to prepare gamers for their appearance in Halo 5, but regardless, it’s still fun.

The Master Chief storyline is a very nice segue between Halo 4 and 5, dealing with the aftermath of Halo 4’s emotional ending. One thing that has continually struck me as odd is the Didact himself, however. Warning: spoilers for the comic and (possibly) Halo 5 to follow.

Still with me?

Halo 4 made it seem like the Didact was going to be a recurring antagonist; he definitely seemed “defeated, but not killed” at the end of that game. Which I’d thought would mean we’d see his big ugly mug again in Halo 5 . . . but Escalation makes it pretty clear that the Didact is done, since in this book, Blue Team hunts him down and kills him, and they kill him pretty decisively. I suppose it’s still possible we’ll see more of the Didact, but . . . it feels unlikely. I wonder if he wasn’t as well received as 343 was hoping and so they steered away from him in favor of other villains in Halo 5.

Back to Escalation itself; although the Master Chief storyline is the standout here, the rest of the book is quite good. There’s a good balance of world building that I enjoy and the work that’s gone into the Spartan-IVs really shows. Ray and Thorne are back and even Palmer’s characterization has smoothed out from her rocky start in a previous graphic novel. Despite how good it was to see the Chief in a book, it also reminds one that the universe is much, much larger than just the Chief. I appreciate that.

Final verdict: good stories, good art, good pick for a Halo fan. I’m happy to recommend this one.

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Review: The Witcher: House of Glass

The Witcher: House of GlassThe Witcher: House of Glass by Paul Tobin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’ve been completely sucked into the world of the Witcher since I started playing the third Witcher game a few months ago. Since then, I’ve tried to read everything I can to get familiarized with Geralt’s world and while I know there’s a series of novels waiting for me, this ended up being the first book that I’ve been able to read.

As video game graphic novels go, it’s okay. The story sagged somewhat in the middle and there were some basic assumptions about a certain character that I thought were going to be a plot twist, but ended up as something totally benign. Geralt certainly seems to have far more angst here than in the game and the continued self-references to “I’m a witcher, I don’t…” or “the witcher’s path is a lonely one” ended up getting a bit repetitive.

The art style was pretty cool, however, and there are some enjoyable moments. While the twist that I predicted ended up being completely wrong, there’s a pretty good reveal towards the end. Overall, though, I kept asking myself “why the hell would a master monster hunter allow himself to spend so much time in an obviously evil place?” Despite the fact that the titular House of Glass was full of cursed monsters and strange magic, Geralt didn’t seem to really mind that fact.

Final verdict: a fun, well illustrated graphic novel but somewhat underwhelming for my first foray into Witcher fiction, although the fact that this graphic novel appears to be a tie-in work to the game rather than the original novels might have something to do with that.

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Review: Tomb Raider Volume 1 : Season of the Witch

Tomb Raider Volume 1 : Season of the WitchTomb Raider Volume 1 : Season of the Witch by Gail Simone
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The 2013 Tomb Raider reboot is one of my favorite games. I loved the revised Lara Croft character and I loved the focus on gritty survivalism. There was a bit of mysticism in the game, but it’s fairly subtle, certainly more so than the previous Tomb Raider incarnations. It’s an amazing game and easily the best reboot I’ve ever seen for a character as popular as Lara Croft is.

“Season of the Witch” serves as a sort of inter-quel story set between the events of Tomb Raider 2013 and the new game “Rise of the Tomb Raider.” In this story, Lara and the other survivors of the Endurance are trying to get on with their lives after their horrifying experience on the island of Yamatai. Unfortunately, weird things are happening which draw them back to the island.

The plot, unfortunately, is the biggest problem here. A story about trying to cope with the events of the island could have been pretty cool, but instead we’re drawn into a conspiracy surrounding the Solarii (the antagonists from the game). Wait, why is there a conspiracy about the Solarii? These business suit types are worshippers of Matthias? How is that possible? Based on the game, Matthias was a survivor who was trapped on Yamatai and formed the Solarii as an island cult so he could break free of its supernatural power. The game made it pretty clear that nobody had ever escaped from Yamatai prior to the events of the game. So where did these conspiracy guys come from? How did they know about the events of the island? Why would they worship a guy who, according to the game’s depiction, was really just a sort of feral survivor?

I appreciated how much the story tried not to be obviously supernatural, and the various things that occur are all suggested to be trickery, coincidence, or other artifice. Unfortunately, I could not wrap my mind around the idea that the homeless psycho who was the game’s antagonist was worshiped by a secret cabal. I also felt like “returning to the island” wasn’t really all that compelling.

Despite all that, it’s great getting to see Lara interact with the crew of Endurance more. It helps build on those relationships and makes her connections feel more meaningful. Overall, it’s a decent book with good characters but some deep plot and world building problems. It’s a good read if you’re really hungry for more Tomb Raider stories, especially since it’ll be a few years until the next game (presumably).

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Review: Halo: Escalation (Volume One)

Halo: Escalation (Volume 1)Halo: Escalation by Christopher Schlerf

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Now this is a damn fine Halo story and an example of what I think should be the standard for other Halo graphic novels.

As mentioned in my “Halo: Initiation” review, this book does a much better job of introducing Sarah Palmer as a likable character, as not only is she devoid of much of the arrogance from her previous version, she even apologies to another character for being “unprofessional” at one point, which I think indicates the author has a better handle on her character. The cast is also much larger and more diverse, with a few different plotlines woven together. In particular, I really enjoyed Commander Lasky and Spartan Ray working together and their subplot was, I think, the most interesting.

I’m also a big fan of the Arbiter (he might even be my favorite Halo character, in fact) and so any book that gives him a role will make me happy, even if he’s mostly a side character.

But what made this book great for me, aside from the strong cast of interesting and likable characters, was that it wasn’t afraid to really dive into the plot and world building. We’re getting a look at the universe in the post-Covenant era, full of warlords and feuding and attempts at diplomacy. We see Sangheili that are becoming money-driven information brokers and Jiralhanae that are actually more than just berserker monsters (though only barely).

It’s a world that fills vibrant and alive, and focuses on a story that’s more than just “kill these guys and blow this thing up.” It even brings back a tantalizing glimpse at a story element from the somewhat forgotten game “Halo Wars” which wasn’t terribly popular, but one I really enjoyed. I won’t spoil the details here, but it was great seeing the UNSC Spirit of Fire getting mentioned again.

“Escalation: Volume 1” sets a high bar and I’m eager to see if Volume 2 can continue this level of momentum. Regardless of how the next book plays out, though, I would say this is a must-read for any series Halo fan. It has a bit of everything: action, plot, Spartans, aliens, and action, and it’s all wonderfully balanced. This is what a Halo graphic novel should be.

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Review: Halo: Initiation

Halo: InitiationHalo: Initiation by Brian Reed

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Based on her role in Halo 4, it seems like Sarah Palmer was intended to be the “face” of the new Halo generation and the Spartan-IVs. And on the surface, she seems like a pretty great character; she’s a Commander, which is cool, and she’s voiced by legendary voice actor and perennial fan favorite Jennifer Hale. Unfortunately, her characterization throughout the game is uneven and even somewhat unlikable, and those problems extend to this book which was meant to serve as an origin story for the character.

Palmer’s character is, for lack of a better term, just flat-out unlikable as a protagonist. It’s always great for characters to have flaws, of course, but those flaws do need to be tempered with characteristics that cause an audience to identify with the main character. Even worse, Palmer is uneven, at first disliking the Spartans for being “superior” and then lording that same superiority when she becomes a Spartan herself. There’s also the odd inconsistency in her rank and promotion: originally, her character was supposedly a lieutenant before she became a Spartan, which would make sense, but here she’s a lowly corporal . . . which means that, by the time of Halo 4, she’s jumped how many ranks in how short a time?

Basically, it’s just hard to root for her, and as this story is entirely focused on introducing us to her character, it drags the entire story down, even though the rest of the book is pretty decent. Fortunately, I’ve also read the next book in the Halo graphic novel line, Escalation Volume 1, and that story does a great deal to redeem Palmer’s character.

Thus, I’d say skip this one entirely. It doesn’t do anything for the character except make you dislike her, which is a huge problem for a backstory book.

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Review: Halo: Helljumper

Halo: HelljumperHalo: Helljumper by Peter David

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For me, the best Halo stories are the ones that dive headfirst into the Halo universe’s deep well of lore. Most of the games barely scratch at the surface of this universe, only lightly touching or referencing the deep mythology. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, since the action of the games themselves is so deeply satisfying.

“Helljumper” has the problem of trying to be more like the games than other stories. It’s very light on the story, focusing on the bond-of-brother-soldiers thing between Romeo and Dutch, two of the characters from Halo: ODST. Romeo was always my least favorite of the ODST cast, although to my surprise, he reads very differently than his game counterpart. Regardless, the focus of the book is largely on ODST action, kicking butt and killing aliens. Which is . . . okay, but the games handle this action-first focus far better.

Things like “the Knowing” which could be deeply interesting questions to ponder and investigate are instead reduced to a McGuffin that needs to be kept out of enemy hands or humanity is doomed, though we’re never told how exactly, as the McGuffin is blown up about four pages after it’s revealed.

Helljumper doesn’t really do anything wrong, but it doesn’t play to the strengths of its medium. Dutch and Romeo are likable and their bond is a good one, and I did like how the story ended on the question of whether they will transfer out or not. So while Helljumper doesn’t make any mistakes, it plays things too safe.

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