COMICS: The Master Chief Returns In This New Preview For HALO: ESCALATION #10

[frick] YEAH CHIEF! Love me some Halo. It actually has a great expanded universe.

Master Chief>Captain America

Take the bait, you know you want to.

Im a huge Halo fan, I have really been enjoying these Escalation comics.

and for Halo fans who dont read the comics, this story is set after Halo 4, where the Master Chief and his old SPARTAN teammates are ordered to check out what is going on, on the Halo ring seen in Halo 4, and they find out the Didact (bad guy from Halo 4) has fallen through a portal on to this Halo ring. Now they are trying to stop him from moving the Halo ring to Earth and activating it.

Halo Escalation has been a good bridge between Halo 4 and 5. great overall arc-related storylines and some good individual storylines too. Loving that they included the Chief's old teammates in this current storyline, loved them working together in the early novels

But I really hope 343 Industries doesnt make it that you have to read the books to understand the story of Halo 5, like they did with 4. The Didact was an awesome bad guy in Halo 4 (and even moreso in these comics) but he was so underdeveloped. If you never read the Forerunner book trilogy, the Didact came across as a Forerunner who wanted to randomly wipe out humanity for no reason...while the books give the Didact much better motivations to fight humanity

343 Industries randomly threw in the fact humanity once had a intergalatic empire when the Forerunners existed and had a huge war with both the Forerunners and the Flood...something which never appeared before in the Halo series (besides the Forerunner book trilogy) and this really brought down Halo 4's story because you had to read the books to full understand it (ok, so there was some terminal cutscenes during the game but they still werent developed enough, they should have used a couple of extra levels to fully develop who the Didact was)

Its like a comic book movie, people should never have to do homework and read a comic, just to know whats going on in a CBM. same for Halo, people shouldnt have to read the books or these comics, to know whats going on in the game

I always say treat Halo and comic book movies like Firefly and Serenity. You can watch Serenity as a new fan and you wont get confused because you get the gist of the story, but if you watch Firefly, it will add interesting backstories to the characters you saw in Serenity. Treat comic book movies and Halo the exact same way.

Although I do respect 343 Industries more than Bungie when it comes to their relationship with spin-off media. At least 343 Industries dont make a game that steps all over book continuity and end up making an inferior story to the book (Im talking about Halo: Reach and the earlier book Halo: Fall of Reach)

@TheGambitFreakIsBatmanOfCBM

woah woah woah. What are you talking about...how does this comic "take a nice, warm dump on Fall of Reach's chest"....you do know that there are two novels set after Fall of Reach released years ago, long before 343 Industries were even an idea. the two novels were "First Strike" and "Ghosts Of Onyx" and during these novels, the Master Chief stops at Reach on the way home from the events of the original "Halo", finds that Kelly, Fred, Linda & the SPARTAN creator Catherine Halsey have survived and they make their back to Earth. Halsey then kidnaps Kelly right before Halo 2 to bring her to the Shield World of Onyx and eventually, the other two SPARTANs are also called Onyx.

then 343 Industries picked up the story from there, had the SPARTANs leave Onyx and go home. This was the last we see of them...until this current comic story. So, what did you mean by your statement? It doesnt disrespect Fall of Reach


Now, for your second point, dont get me wrong, you are very right in some ways. Before 343 Industries did their own few retcons (some of which are quite awesome IMO, including the Forerunner/Human/Precursor/Flood story of the Forerunner novels), most of the original 33 SPARTANs died on Reach, Fred and co. survived while Chief went through the events of Halo trilogy

But 343 Industries did stupid retcons, mostly in that silly Halo anime, about 4 SPARTANs died in that....which was done so terribly. Same for the silly re-write of Fall of Reach. So, I agree with you on those points...but there wasnt that many bad retcons

And, to clarify my statements, I should have made myself clear on the fact. In story and timeline ways, Halo Reach stepped all over Fall Of Reach. In relation to the timeline, Fall of Reach was all about a one-day final battle to save Reach...Halo Reach made it all about a month long battle which didnt match the details of the book at all

And, in the book, the Covenant fleet followed a tracker planted to Keyes' ship. In the game, humanity happened to miss a GIANT GODDAMN COVENANT SHIP in orbit above Reach that had sat there for ages, making humanity look like idiots. Plus, in the book there is a giant fleet of humanity and MAC cannons that are defending Reach...which are nowhere to be seen in Halo Reach.

Overall, it just seemed like humanity were pussies in the game, whereas the book seemed to give a more epic ending to Reach where humanity fought to their last man. And dont get me started on that final level where NOBLE team have to get Cortana to the Pillar of Autumn...even though she had already been in the Pillar long before the Covenant arrived (although I'll give it to Bungie, they did release a cool Halsey journal, where they retconned the Cortana on Reach as only a part of Cortana to be re-united with the Cortana on the ship)

Its silly little things like that made the story of Halo Reach seem inferior in comparison, although I did love the overall characters of NOBLE team (even if some of their fates were horribly done) and the second half of the game where they have to survive the destruction of Reach