Halo: Uprising
Posted in Comics Marvel on 13. Mar, 2010
- ISBN13: 9780785128380
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
$15.45
Product Description
This story starts at the conclusion of the blockbuster video game, Halo 2. This must-read novel reveals how the Master Chief, while onboard a hostile ship headed towards Earth, battles against Covenant forces! Interwined with Master Chief's interstellar one man war is the saga of a great American city's rebellion and downfall, two disparate lives' collision and shared fate, and the Covenant's hunt for an ancient relic of untold power and value. With hope dwindling and the fate of humanity hanging by a thread, is there any chance for a future? Written by one of the hottest authors around responsible for Secret Invasion, Secret Wars and Powers this collects Halo: Uprising #1-4, and Marvel Spotlight: Halo.
Halo: Uprising
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I purchased this book for my son to read in AR, as he has read other Halo books. It’s a stupid comic book, what a waste of time and money.
Rating: 1 / 5
First off, the debacle. Readers need to understand that the whole of this work was supposed to be released in the time leading up to the release of Halo 3 for the Xbox 360. Only the first volume made it out on time, and the rest were delayed for (literally) years. What should have been a nice little tie-in between games quickly became a running joke at the comic industry’s expense, and unfortunately it’s not the only tie-in property Marvel has done this to. This review would get a star or two off for this alone, but that proves unnecessary.
The product. What you get is one binding for four comic books, clearly just trying to jump on the bandwagon calling itself a “graphic novel” when it’s only a short compilation. Don’t get caught expecting anything more.
The art is mostly great, as artist Maleev does everything from blood-drenched battle scenes to sprawling vistas in a great mix of detail and “feel”. The art isn’t overly precise, nor is it rushed, and from a technical view it’s above-average fare for the most part, with some extra oomph from a few money shots here and there. Everything is recognizably Halo for longtime fans, while being very accessible and cool to any eye. It’s not the page-filling masterworks of Todd McFarlane, but it’s not bad.
The story is the real weak point. As many reviews note, Master Chief is barely in this comic. He really just bookends the works, appearing in brief vignettes where he does little more than dish out and take a couple panels’ worth of damage each time. To talk about the story, we basically skip Chief entirely. The meat of the text focuses on two teens who wind up in a very tired and cliched “star-crossed lovers” plot. There’s a lot of hype about a “key” thrown out through the works, the resolution of which is completely underwhelming. Most readers are literally groaning and rolling their eyes at various points as the characters’ lame lovestory lurches along, though this is mostly early on and things get a little more even (as in, the writing gets closer to the much better art) towards the end of the run.
In the end, the Master Chief bits that aren’t really there are used as a crutch to keep readers tuning in as two teens stumble around a city. It might actually be a spoiler to say that these teens don’t do anything worthwhile, because that’s basically the ending of the book- that they never did or had anything of interest this entire time. Viewing postmortem this is actually a fantastic piece of black comedy, making readers fret for months and months just to find out they’d been waiting for nothing. Literally.
The most redeeming factor present it Maleev’s artwork, but that can’t make up for the rest.
Rating: 1 / 5
I will start of by saying that I’m a big fan of the entire Halo series. Naturally I was excited at the prospect for a Halo Comic made by none less than infamous Marvel. I felt the weakest product before Halo Uprising was the Grpahic Novel. This Marvel lead project had redemption for an overall perfect service record prior to Halo grapic Novel written all over it. IT WASNT.
Backround
Uprsing is a story set between Halo 2 and Halo 3 broken down into 4 pages. Master Chief the icon of the series makes a small subplot role in the comic. The main character centers around Ruwan Ackerson a civilian living in the city of Cleavland during the Covenant invasion of earth.
Review
The first problem of two I have with this comic is the constant delays. The first of the four parts was released a month prior to Halo 3. The series finished in early January a year and some months later, leading to my next problem with the series.
The biggest problem and ultimate letdown of this entire debockle of a situation was the actual relevance this story has in the Universe. I consider this the most unfortunate blemish in the Halo Universe because of “a last minute plot change” the comic was rewritten to fir the Halo Canon.
All in all this is an irrelavent story in Halo that was delayed for over a year. However one bright spot of this was the masterful artwork inside it. Marvel doesn’t dissapoint (In that sense)
Rating: 2 / 5
Theres nothing wrong with it, I’m just a bit OCD with my books and I now have all the Halo books (not including the graphic novels). My only problem is that its not the smaller book. I have all the books pretty much the same size and now this one is more the size of the Gears of War book. I’m just OCD that way. Otherwise easily 5 stars.
Rating: 4 / 5
“Halo Uprising” is a hardcover reprinting of issues #1-#4 of the “Halo Uprising” comic and it tells the story of two brothers Ruwan and James Ackerson and pop star Myras Tyla who are involved in the invasion of Cleveland by the Covenant. James is the sole surviving soldier who has been caught on a raid to a Covenant Dreadnought, and after being tortured tells the enemy that they need The Key Of Osanalan, and that they can only find it in Cleveland where James’ brother Ruwan has relocated after the destruction of Mombasa.
As Ruwan is sitting in a hotel’s bar, it is attacked, and here he meets pop star Myras Tyla, and together they escape, are captured, and then escape again. After their second escape they run into some Earth forces that are defending Cleveland, and Ruwan spills the beans that The Key Of Osanalan is totally made up, and so far the story is only half over.
Intertwined throughout this story is another story in which Master Chief is making a superhuman raid on a Covenant Dreadnought trying to kill a Covenant Prophet.
I read this graphic novel because of the war story, so the main problem for me is that being unfamiliar with the Halo universe I kept feeling that I was missing something. The whole Master Chief storyline was unnecessary and kept grinding the main story to a standstill, for me that is. Another is that there wasn’t enough James. I would have liked to have seen some his story before his capture. The writing as a whole is pretty good, although a bit awkward at times. Although I have to admire Maleev’s detailed artwork, his people are all individualistic and easily told apart; and it is often quite spectacular, still, the artwork is also quite often very muddy and stiff, not quite flowing as it should in a comic and with some of the detail lost in the murkiness. The ending however is a solid wrap-up to the story.
“Halo Uprising” also reprints the promotional “Marvel Spotlight: Halo” in which Brian Michael Bendis, Alex Maleev, and Halo creators Frank O’Connor and Brian Jerrard are interviewed, with a good sampling of artwork accompanying each of the interviews, with a portfolio of Maleev’s original artwork for “Halo: Uprising” ending the book. I would say that this is good fan fiction, but, if like me, you are unfamiliar with either the Halo universe, or the artist’s or author’s work you should stay away. This book just doesn’t work as an independent work, but fans of “Halo” will probably like and raise it a star or two.
Rating: 3 / 5