Halo: The Graphic Novel by Lee Hammock, Jay Faerber, Brett Lewis, Tsutomo Nihei, Moebius (Artist)

From Barnes & Noble

Talk about Halo effects! The Halo video game franchise and the science fiction novels based on the game are perennial blockbusters. This 128-page graphic Halo assemblage contains a quartet of stunning graphic stories and an impressive array of gallery art. The artwork is first-rate and the stories maintain the game's battlefield high intensity and surprises.

From the Publisher

Marvel and Bungie team up to create The Halo Graphic Novel based on the best-selling video game. The graphic novel brings the Halo universe to life for the first time in the sequential art medium in a 128-page, full color, high quality, jacketed, hardcover graphic novel. Stories include: "Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor" by Simon Bisley and Lee Hammock. When communications from a Covenant agricultural support ship are mysteriously terminated, an Elite Commander and his squad of Special Forces are sent to investigate. In "Armor Testing" by Ed Lee and Jay Faerber, the only way to test Spartan armor, is to send a Spartan. The question is what's really being tested? In Tsutomo Nihei's "Breaking Quarantine," the untold tale of Sergeant Johnson's escape from the clutches of the Flood menace is revealed! Finally, Moebius and Brett Lewis' "Second Sunrise Over New Mombasa" tells of the subtler, more dangerous fights taking place on the streets of New Mombasa and in the hearts and minds of men.
Cover by Phil Hale. Gallery art created a number of elite artists including Rick Berry, Geof Darrow, Scott Fischer, Sterling Hundley, Craig Mullins, George Pratt, Juan Ramirez, George Staples, Justin Sweet, John Van Fleet and Kent Williams.

Entertainment Weekly

Used to be that movie characters who scored well with a certain young-and-pale-and-mostly-male segment of the audience were rewarded with their own comic books and - if they really scored well - their own videogames. The Halo Graphic Novel (Marvel), based on two hugely popular Xbox titles, reverses that process. (Yes, a big-screen adaptation is in the works.) The game's publisher, Bungie, is handling its lucrative franchise very carefully. They're just now publishing a graphic novel based on a game released five long years ago. (And you won't see the Peter Jackson-produced movie anytime before 2008.)

The Halo Graphic Novel is a 128-page collection of four stories - written and drawn by various top-notch creative teams - supplemented by a gallery of Halo-themed art. There are two things you should know: 1. The book demands more than a casual knowledge of Bungie's space-combat game. 2. Not one of these stories features the game's taciturn and perpetually visored protagonist, Master Chief.

What these four very different tales do offer are story lines that should deepen your understanding of the Halo universe. ''Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor'' reveals some of the dynamics at work between the game's warring factions, the Flood and the Covenant, while ''Armor Testing'' is a slight but intriguing history of Master Chief's battle suit. Both are solid efforts, but neither quite measures up to the last two pieces. Drawn by Tsutomo Nihei, ''Breaking Quarantine'' is a wordless phantasmagoria that imagines just how Sergeant Johnson was able to bust out of Flood captivity. (It took more than a pleasant smile.) And in ''Second Sunrise Over New Mombasa,'' which chronicles a city's violent last hours, Brett Lewis and Moebius create moments of both kinetic violence and poignant loss.

All in all, this is an impressive effort, given a handsome and solemn presentation. And that's the problem: It's solemn to the point of being reverential. Absent is any sense of the game's gallows humor and Dirty Dozen derring-do. One can't help feeling that Bungie is being perhaps a bit too protective of its franchise. This book represents Halo more as a museum piece meant to be admired than as a game meant to be played. B

Publishers Weekly

Based on the wildly popular videogame, this anthology collects four stories by different creators, all set in the Halo universe of the 26th century. The game's central story details a war between Earth's United Nations Space Command and the Covenant, a coalition of hostile alien races. At the center is Master Chief, a UNSC cyborg-marine who discovers the terrible secret of the Halo, a series of ringlike artificial planets. Hardcore Halo fans will love Lee Hammock's "The Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor," viscerally illustrated by Simon Bisley, detailing the Flood, a nasty parasitic race of monsters that threaten both the Covenant and the human race. For newcomers there's the legendary Moebius's "Second Sunrise over New Mombasa," in which he renders a beautiful, futuristic version of the Kenyan city-and deftly surveys the intersection of war propaganda and the media. The book's artwork is skillful and unusual (including a story by Tsutomu Nihei and a gallery by an all-star lineup of artists in the back) and the writing brings the Halo universe and its central tenets to life. But ultimately the reader will yearn for the depth of a real, book-length graphic novel -- and maybe that's next to come.

Publishers Weekly

Based on the wildly popular videogame, this anthology collects four stories by different creators, all set in the Halo universe of the 26th century. The game's central story details a war between Earth's United Nations Space Command and the Covenant, a coalition of hostile alien races. At the center is Master Chief, a UNSC cyborg-marine who discovers the terrible secret of the Halo, a series of ringlike artificial planets. Hardcore Halo fans will love Lee Hammock's "The Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor," viscerally illustrated by Simon Bisley, detailing the Flood, a nasty parasitic race of monsters that threaten both the Covenant and the human race. For newcomers there's the legendary Moebius's "Second Sunrise over New Mombasa," in which he renders a beautiful, futuristic version of the Kenyan city and deftly surveys the intersection of war propaganda and the media. The book's artwork is skillful and unusual (including a story by Tsutomu Nihei and a gallery by an all-star lineup of artists in the back) and the writing brings the Halo universe and its central tenets to life. But ultimately the reader will yearn for the depth of a real, book-length graphic novel and maybe that's next to come. (July) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Product Details