The Halo Graphic Novel

Halo Graphic Novels

by Lee Hammock, Jay Faerber, Tsutomu Nihei (Illustrator)

Marvel and Bungie team up to create The Halo Graphic Novel HC 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.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Science Fiction, Fiction, Video Games, Graphic Novels Comics, Games

128 pages, Hardcover

First published July 19, 2006

Reviews

[TK421 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Halo used to be my mistress. I loved her. I adored her. Then, I realized my wife was going to kill me if I spent more time with Halo than I did with her. Now, I only play every so often...just when I need to be reminded that I can still kick some Covenant ass.

The other day my wife surprised me with HALO GRAPHIC NOVEL. (She knows she's the only woman for me.) Immediately I opened it up to look at the artwork. It was varied and raw and new and I couldn’t wait to begin reading it. Then I read the introduction. I wasn't going to get a new storyline from the Halo universe; I was going to get new stories that were only briefly mentioned or left to the gamer's imagination. This excited me more. I have numerous questions that none of the books or games have ever truly satisfied.

I will briefly give my thoughts on each story:

THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE INFINTE SUCCOUR

This story is all about the Flood. Once seen as mindless space-aliens, the Flood are actually a very impressive species that can take over live or dead cells and make them into one of their army. They have a set agenda—kill all. Their goal is domination. The artists of this story, Lee Hammock and Simon Bisley, do a great job of rendering the reader to feel the claustrophobia of what it must feel like to be fighting within a ship within the confines of dark, cold space. The scenes are a frenzy of action, which shows the dark images and perils of war. Courage and honor are two of the main themes in this section. (FOUR STARS.)

ARMOR TESTING

My first impression upon seeing this section was: It looks like Archie and Jughead have been refitted. This is not a negative critique of Jay Faerber, Ed Lee, or Andrew Robinson. I liked the playful drawing style; it fit the story well. The story centers on Maria—a retired Spartan who only wants to raise a family—while she tests the new armor before it is sent to Master Chief on to Cairo Station. She is matched up against 20 Marines. I liked that the Halo universe addressed the issue of females and what they could do in combat. (FOUR STARS.)

BREAKING QUARATINE

This is an interesting story because it centers on Sergeant Johnson, one of the most loveable characters in the Halo universe, and his escape from the Flood. It had previously been left to the gamer to imagine how Johnson escaped. Tsutomu Nihei provides the answer to this question through a short twelve page section void of any written speech. Even thoughts are left out. I find this section remarkable because as the reader looks and studies each scene the unfolding drama is crystal clear while the images themselves are a bit grainy, giving a dream-like quality to the story. (FIVE STARS.)

SECOND SUNRISE OVER NEW MOMBASA
If you’ve ever played Halo 2, then you know what a desolate, war-stricken town New Mombasa is. Brett Lewis and Jean Giraud give a neat insight to what the city was like before the invasion. Although, I have to admit I found the artwork to be too gummy—too fake. The story is told by a reporter whose task it has been to “downplay” the preceding attacks before the invasion, give it an “adventurous” appeal. There are many direct corollaries one can infer about the news media and America’s current wars. (I’ll leave that for the reader to decide.) But, like most controversies, the truth needs to be told. As it happens, the truth of the invasion may be the only thing that gets out of the city intact. This story is a bleak testament of when the military blunders and then tries to rectify their wrongs. (THREE STARS.)

Yes, there are elements of each story that if you’ve read the other books and played the games you’ll appreciate more. But I think this can also be enjoyed by the uninitiated. It’s a quick read that I plan on revisiting numerous times…as long as my wife let’s me bring it to bed.

VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

[TAP · Rating 3 out of 5]

Art: 4
Writing: 3

[Drew Canole · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm very late to the party on this one. This was published a bit after Halo 2. I was a big fan of Halo CE and Halo 2 back in the day but it wasn't until last summer with Halo Infinite that I went back and played all the games and rekindled my love of the franchise. Halo 4 and 5 are a bit of a slog (thankfully 5 is incredibly short), but the rest of the series is just fantastic FPS fun.

I've read the Moebius story before but honestly, it's the weakest one here. The Bisley comic is classic Bisley (also unfortunately really hard to make out what's the heck is happening at times). My favourite was probably the Tstutomu Nikei story of how Seargent Johnson survived the flood attack before the '343 Guilty Spark' mission in Halo CE.

I really appreciate how faithful the stories and artwork are to Halo CE and Halo 2. They flesh out and add to the mythos. It's a shame Bungie/Microsoft didn't do more comics. The book also includes an art gallery with a wonderful 2-page spread by Geoff Darrow.

My one beef with this collection... why call a collection of short comics a "Graphic Novel"?

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some purists might say "Reading a graphic novel shouldn't count towards your book challenge." To which I say "Fuck you, I'm counting it."

I've considered marking down the VCR's instruction manual, but I can't locate an ISBN on it.

[Hale · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this novel and I love Halo. The stories are interesting and the art is amazing.

[Frédéric · Rating 2 out of 5]

Typical collection: four stories, none of which are particularly good or bad.

The one illustrated by Nihei is completely hollow—a guy wanders around shooting critters, and that's it—but it's visually appealing even though I don't like the style.

Bisley's has a plot—basic, but a plot nonetheless—but is largely unreadable due to the combination of dark and garish colours on alien morphologies. The action scenes are nothing but a blur of dark grey, rancid green and fetid purple. Yuk.

Moebius's brings a more interesting civilian perspective and is beautifully illustrated, even if it's far from the Master's best work.

The other story... I've already forgotten it.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stories are good, but let's be honest the reason you read this graphic novel is for the beautiful art style! Thats why i was here for and it was honestly just beautiful! What a comic collection 😍

[Vito Gardella · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is a great graphic novel lost of great art work the story lines in this novel are not a good as i thought they would be i love to read to books like these because when you read it you get a feel of what they are really doing in the story some of the short storys have no conversation at all but you sure can imagen what they would say

[Patrick Chen · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best comics / games series ever made! No, seriously. It's a great addon to the Halo series and with the release of Halo 3, many fans can expect another Halo graphic novel adding on to the current storyline.

[Sezer Turgay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tsutomu Nihei,Simon Bisley ve Moebiusun eşsiz çizimleriyle güzel bir çizgi roman.Halo oynadıysanız ve çizgi roman seviyorsanız okumanızı tavsiye edebilirim özellikle Moebius'un çizdiği hikaye baya güzeldi.

[R. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a terrible way to spend a few hours, but nothing earthshaking or great here in terms of plot or artwork unfortunately. I'm not a big fan of this style of art which just strikes me as messy and unfinished more than anything else.

[Lightwhisper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Um prefácio sobre a criação desta novela gráfica, com 4 histórias diferentes, em que achei a primeira confusa de entender do ponto de vista gráfico/visual, a segunda mais simples, a terceira prezo por ser sem texto e a quarta por ter o moebius a desenhar. No final, galeria de arte que vale a pena. E entre cada história a falar dos seus criadores.

[MuhPatriarchy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overrated, and I say that as a fan of the franchise. The first 50 pages are taken up by 'The Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor' by Lee Hammock and Simon Bisley. Unfortunately Simon Bisley's drawing of fight scenes and in particular of The Flood in the second half of it, pretty much makes many of those panels too chaotic and difficult to see what is going on. In any case it barely has an impact on the broader Halo canon.

The second story, 'Weapons Testing', is fine, although it shows a number of abilities of the combat armor that it doesn't have in game by a long shot (a recurring problem with the Halo secondary materials) , but the third 'Breaking Quarantine', on Sergeant Johnson's escape from The Flood has some of the same problems as the first entry, with it also containing no dialogue at all.
The final story, 'Second Sunrise over New Mombasa' by Brett Lewis and drawn by Moebius is the best one of the bunch.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

#I decided to read this book because I love halo.#This is published as a graphic novel but it is more of a short stories in graphic
form.#I liked the care and detail put into the images themselves.
Out of the different stories my favorites are' last voyage of the infinite succor' and the sergeant Johnson one
as the both had good art styles and the sergeant Johnson one was all in japanese.#I didn't like 'second sunrise over new mombasa' as the art style was not to my taste and the plot was mixed up.# I would recommend this book to fans of manga and fans of halo.

[Jacob H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

with halo being one of the best games yet, there are alot of books and other things that tell storys that take place befor or after and i like to know about every thing about the halo world. it tells about some things that happens in 1 of the 3 games and tells about it. it was also good because it was made by fans and i like what they think of the halo world.

[Edwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent artwork.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good, interesting, highly distinct and stylized art at times. Meh stories, but what do you want from an action video game comic?

[Merlin3000 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent artwork. Perfect for halo fans, specially the 4th story.
Non fans might not find it so enjoyable, since the stories are small and intricately related to the halo fiction.

[Stephen]

good

[Richelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Halo, but I think I expected something different from this. It's older, and mostly flood themed, which is awesome. The art is cool, but overall I expected more.

[James]

I LOVE HALO!

[Luke Lindsay · Rating 2 out of 5]

While you can certainly bite, "The Halo Graphic Novel" doesn't give the reader much to chew on.

As a hardcore Halo fan, I didn't find as much enjoyment here as I'd hoped.

1) The Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor
This is the longest comic in the collection, but failed to justified its length. You won't find much depth here - the characters are shallow and exist only for the sake of action. You will find pages filled with illustrated combat, but are often devoid of dialogue. We don't get even a glimpse into characters' thoughts during the action. Sadly, the art is not enough to carry these pages on their own. Bisley's style, while visually appealing, lacks restraint. This lack of clarity made it difficult to discern what was happening in, or between, each panel. The art-style is so busy, that I didn't notice when the commander receives his identifying wound seen in the games.
2/5

2) Armor Testing
This story has much clearer artwork, which feels more like what I would expect from a Halo comic. The writing suffers from similar problems. The characters don't have identifiable goals or motivations, and the 'twist' conflicts with established lore about the origins of Spartan II's. While the art is nice to look at, nothing of consequence comes from the story and as a result there is nothing here worth revisiting.
1/5

3) Breaking Quarantine
Choosing an established character to follow was a good choice here. A lack of dialogue feels like an intentional choice here in contrast with the first comic - although I wouldn't have minded insight's into Johnson's thoughts during his escape. While I didn't need an explanation of how Johnson escaped, the art here was pleasing to look at and feels like it pieces in with the original game.
3/5

4) Second Sunrise Over New Mombasa
While "Second Sunrise..." isn't as connected to characters, armor, or enemies from the games, I actually found it the most compelling of a read. That is for the simple fact that the writers put a clear theme about how the media influences the public perception of truth - a theme that is woven through the beats of the story. While the art feels a bit too gummy and cartoonish for what is taking place, and the characters still underdeveloped, the presence of a theme was something that kept me engaged in this story.
3/5

While I do have qualms with some of the art, The Halo Graphic Novel is mostly held back by its subpar writing. If you are a Halo fan who just wants to see cool artwork in the Halo universe, this might have a place on your shelf. If, like me, complexity in characters and dialogue matter to you, The Halo Graphic Novel won't be enough to satisfy your appetite.

[Kassar Krennic · Rating 1 out of 5]

Want to know how terrible this comic is?
There is a story in this graphic novel known as 'Armor Testing' that has a Spartan 2 retire. A Spartan 2 retires, during the worst war in human history, when mankind itself is on the verge of extinction. A Spartan 2 retires, and ONI lets her.
Not only is this extremely dumb and lore breaking, it also ruins the tragedy of the Spartans since now we know that they can simply say, "Nah, let humanity be exterminated. Let every last man, woman and child be murdered by hostile, fanatical aliens, I'm going to go have kids and raise a family!"
Spartans, whether they are a Spartan 2 or a Spartan 3 (I refuse to even think about the lore travesty that is the Spartan 4), are weapons. They exist to kill, to bleed and to die for humanity. The UNSC would not, ever, allow one to retire.
You want to know something truly funny? This Spartan, known as Maria-062, has never been mentioned again. Not a single mention in all the Halo lore that followed. Not. One.
It seems both Bungie and 343 know how stupid this story is and have decided to retcon/mark it as non-canon. And really, who can blame them?

[Samuele Martinelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't really impressed by it... The first and last stories are somewhat good and add something to the lore, or at least a different perspective. The second one I found it quite useless, no depth, didn't add much either, it felt a filler of a filler. The story about Johnson was ok but again not marvelous or that important, at least it was usually pleasing and I loved looking at that.

About artsyle of the first one is ok, the second and last story I wasn't a big fan of... The story about Johnson escape had the best art so far. I absolutely loved that.
Paradoxically you find the best art at the end from other artists, that was the most pleasing for the eyes, especially if you are an Halo fan.

I liked that they give some context about the reason of choice before the story. Was quite good, and also the afterwords.
In the foreword it is mentioned that an older pitch was made for a Halo comicbook and that it was bad... I can't imagine how bad it was that one we didn't get to see...

[Billy Fuss · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 4.5 - A different look at others interpretation of the Halo Universe
I bought this book for Tsutomu Nihei. I was not disappointed. The book talks up the fact that they didn't want to just release something right when the game came out that felt tacked on. This actually didn't come out til after Halo 2. Although there are flaws you can tell this is a work of love. Things aren't 100% canonical and new things were added. I love what this comic set out to achieve. It wasn't just a tie-in or a cash-cow. It really did explore other aspects of the universe. In fact, the Master Chief only shows up in reference and in the gallery of extra art. I love that and I give this comic a lot of credit. It would have been easy just to hire a big name and have them crank something out *cough* Dragon Age *cough cough*

[Ian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Four stories in which we see the Covenant confront the Flood, a Spartan testing new Mjolnir armour, Sgt. Johnson escaping a deadly situation and the Covenant attack on New Mombasa.

This was the first Halo comic published and, as such, still feels a little experimental, as if the powers that be at Bungie and Marvel hadn't quite figured out how to make use of the brand yet. There's certainly nothing here that feels like it adds anything important to the franchise and even the Master Chief only appears for two pages.

The stories are unremarkable and the art, while interesting, doesn't feel like its the best fit for the Halo universe. I'm usually a huge fan of Simon Bisley's work (particularly on 2000 AD stuff) but even that doesn't feel up to its usual quality.

If you were to skip this book, you wouldn't miss much.

* More reviews here: https://fsfh-book-review2.webnode.page *

[Entre.paginas.y.libros · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amo todo lo relacionado a Halo y esta novela gráfica no fue la excepción, me encanta leer y conocer más sobre el universo que crearon.

Las imágenes son increíbles y cuenta con diferentes estilos de ilustración en cada historia, pero sin duda me gustaron todas.

Mi historia favorita fue la del sargento Johnson (Rompiendo la cuarentena), porque simplemente es increíble cómo es que logró escapar del Flood, lo cual es una hazaña que no cualquiera puede realizar.

El último viaje del Infinite Succor: 5 ⭐
Prueba de armaduras: 4 ⭐
Rompiendo la cuarentena: 5 ⭐
Segundo amanecer sobre Nueva Mombasa: 3.5 ⭐

Al final viene una galería de imágenes de diversas interpretaciones del universo de Halo realizadas por distintos artistas. Y vaya que las ilustraciones están geniales.

Si les encanta este universo o les gustan las novelas gráficas, no se pueden perder la oportunidad de leer esta joyita 👌

[Tariel Yong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brought this at a local bookstore a couple of years (probably 2007/8) back, I was just a young teen back then too and honestly? I could not fully grasp what each story was about (excerpt the one related to the sergeant) until I reread each again, today.

Kudos to the team that worked on this graphic novel. I did not regret the purchase although I have already given it away. (Note: I have not played Halo 2 yet so that could explain why I was confused with the sight of a prophet in the first tale.)

[Sutton Patterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Last Voyage - Great art and love the colors. Story was hardest one to follow

Armor testing - fun. Great concept

Breaking Quarantine - Best artwork panel by panel out of these 4 stories

Second Sunrise Over New Mombasa - I really like the story and setting pre-invasion and the focus on civilian involvement. Character design was my least favorite of the 4 but the city looked great.

Overall decent book. I enjoyed all the stories and artwork. The gallery at the end has some really awesome pieces.

[Luke Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arte no geral é FUDIDA, com nomes como Bisley e MOEBIUS, mas mesmo artistas que eu não conhecia fazem no geral um trabalho muitíssimo bom.

Histórias diversas e no geral muito divertidas, fechadas com propósito próprio e todas tem sua própria identidade.

Eu sou fanboy de coletâneas e isso pode pesar na nota particularmente, porém, pra mim vale muitíssimo a pena.

Principalmente pela arte

FUDIDASSA