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The Ballad of Halo Jones #3

The Ballad Of Halo Jones, Book Three

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Alan Moore's Halo Jones, book three.

88 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1986

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About the author

Alan Moore

1,576 books21.7k followers
Alan Moore is an English writer most famous for his influential work in comics, including the acclaimed graphic novels Watchmen, V for Vendetta and From Hell. He has also written a novel, Voice of the Fire, and performs "workings" (one-off performance art/spoken word pieces) with The Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels, some of which have been released on CD.

As a comics writer, Moore is notable for being one of the first writers to apply literary and formalist sensibilities to the mainstream of the medium. As well as including challenging subject matter and adult themes, he brings a wide range of influences to his work, from the literary–authors such as William S. Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, Robert Anton Wilson and Iain Sinclair; New Wave science fiction writers such as Michael Moorcock; horror writers such as Clive Barker; to the cinematic–filmmakers such as Nicolas Roeg. Influences within comics include Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Kirby and Bryan Talbot.

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
Profile Image for Stewart Tame.
2,480 reviews121 followers
July 26, 2020
This is arguably the best of the three Halo Jones books.

It's longer, for one thing. Moore and Gibson had fifteen installments in which to tell their story, as opposed to the more usual ten. It allows for more incident and character development. Some of the entire series’ most memorable scenes take place during this arc.

The subject matter is more on the grim and serious side. No more shopping expeditions, no more playing hostess on a space liner … Halo joins the military, and we finally get a glimpse of that war in the Tarantula Nebula that's been teased in the background of the previous two books.

It could be argued that this is, in some ways, a tacit failure of Moore’s original concept. Halo was originally supposed to deliberately go against the grain of the typical 2000AD feature, but being a soldier in a future war is about as 2000AD as it gets.

Still, this is hardly the typical 2000AD spin on future warfare, and it's not as though Moore wasn't hinting at this early on as a possible storyline. And Halo is still very much *not* a typical hero. She feels very down-to-Earth and ordinary, despite being caught up in such extraordinary events.

With this volume, all loose threads from the first two books appear to be accounted for. In his introduction, Moore speculates about the possibility of further adventures. But since it's been thirty-four years, as of this writing, since that intro appeared, and there's been no sign of The Ballad of Halo Jones Book Four, I think we’d best not hold our collective breath. Highly recommended!
Profile Image for Clouds.
235 reviews662 followers
January 18, 2022
Brilliant book!
I'm now vert disappointed that this is the last of the Halo Jones stories - feel like Moore had hit his stride with the character and... and... I want to know what happens next!
Profile Image for Keith.
Author 10 books286 followers
July 20, 2019
Oookay. So I read this book because Garden said she wanted to talk about it and I found the 3-volume set at Comic-Con for half price, and there you are.

The simplest thing to say is that none of the things you'll read about it -- 'epic,' 'groundbreaking,' 'feminist,' even dare I say 'good' -- are actually things that it is until the third volume, but the first two volumes are short and like, honestly, it doesn't matter what I write here, you'll read them and wonder why anyone bothered recommending it to you. Here, look, I'm just going to spoil the plots of the first two books because nothing happens and they're kind of terrible until you get to the third book anyway.

The Ballad of Halo Jones, Volume One: Halo Jones goes shopping.

The Ballad of Halo Jones, Volume Two: Halo Jones gets a job on a cruise ship.

I mean, like, that is basically it. Volume 1 takes place in about 6 hours of story time and nothing happens until the last two pages. It's supposed to just be about "women being women" or something, according to Moore in the afterword, but it's bogus. It's dreck. Find it for five bucks or less if you can.

Volume 2 is mildly better because, like, a few things happen, but they're sort of inconsequential and basically unconnected from one another. The most interesting part of the book is its prologue, which starts to paint a picture of the world of poverty which Halo escaped in the previous book. And like, a few other interesting things happen, but most of them aren't clearly interesting until either the last few pages of Volume 2, or once you get rolling on Volume 3 (this one).

And oohhhh, Volume 3.

If Volumes 2 and 3 are what it's like to watch the original X-Men movies 20 years later, Volume 3 is what it's like to get your face blasted off by Logan. But better, really -- it's all the anti-war and anti-corporate sentiment of Starship Troopers and Apocalypse Now. It's just dark -- incredibly dark, painfully dark, the kind of truth-in-darkness that has come up through time to the inky black hell that is life in 2019 to sort of explode.

Halo Jones is fucking genius, but, like its titular character, it takes a looooong time to come to fruition. It is a painful book to read while living in the world we have been doomed to, but that is perhaps what makes it most sublime.
Profile Image for Kam Yung Soh.
965 reviews53 followers
August 13, 2020
The third book of the Ballad of Halo Jones, this one initially finds her down and out. Out of funds and options, she is now stuck on a nowhere planet and drinking to forget her sorrows. But change would come when the opportunity for a job comes along.

But the job offer would actually be enlistment (via the shipmate she met in the previous book) into the military conflict between Earth and the worlds of the Tarantula Nebula. She get basic training and is assigned to patrol duty. She then gets to see first hand the conflict that is happening and wonders whether it is worth it.

When she gets sent to the planet Moab, a heavy gravity world that plays havoc with time, she begins to question the futility of war but gets involved in a relationship with the general in charge of the war. When the war winds down, questions begin to be asked about the general's methods, especially one that Halo discovers, to her horror, that she was involved with on the cruise ship in the previous book. At the end, she makes a decision about her relationship with the general and decides to makes her own path in the galaxy again.

A book that is darker than the previous two, this one shows a Halo that now world weary and disappointed with her life. Whatever happens to her from now on is not yet known as future planned episodes of Halo Jones' story were not written, but if there were, they would surely explore yet more fascinating aspects of her life.
Profile Image for Burcu.
49 reviews3 followers
September 16, 2020
The third volume of the Ballad of Halo Jones ties the story up very well. All Halo wanted from the beginning was to get out. And she did. And it cost her so much. This volume is by far the heaviest one of the three, showing the inhumanity of war and how it destroys the ones fighting it. War becomes the reason for itself at some point, and even the innocent start acting for its will.
Profile Image for Jesse.
256 reviews1 follower
April 17, 2020
Fascinating early Moore work. Doesn't hold up to the level of the later stuff, but a lot of fun in its own right.
Profile Image for Jamie.
988 reviews12 followers
October 4, 2018
A good ending to a fascinating journey.
Profile Image for D.M..
727 reviews12 followers
August 15, 2013
In this final volume of the Ballad of Halo Jones, both author Alan Moore and artist Ian Gibson are clearly giving us some of their best.
Moore has reached a climax he was never sure he'd see, and the payoff is an almost complete turnaround from the flighty, fluffy beginnings of the character. Many pieces that have littered the earlier stories are here assembled into a remarkable whole. Meanwhile, he takes science fiction conventions and turns them largely upside down, incorporating them deftly into the story rather than leaving them to frame it.
Gibson's art has also attained a level above that of which he seemed previously capable. He appears to have taken time and trouble to fill in his pictures lovingly, rather than filling them with scribbles and slabs of ink. The characters here become real, through both the creators' talents, and the story reaches its inevitable end with a beauty and finality unexpected from its origins. This book is where the whole series becomes worthwhile.
This edition once again features a contemporary introduction by a still pre-Watchmen Moore, illustrated by sketches and layout drawings by Gibson. Also included are 2000AD covers that featured Jones.
Profile Image for Kam-Hung Soh.
119 reviews3 followers
October 14, 2018
For various reasons, the series wasn't continued so this volume is more of a closing to a chapter of Halo Jones' life than a conclusion (as suggested by the prologues examining her life from the far far future). Halo, forever looking for a purpose and a crust, joins the military, fights in some utterly meaningless but terrifying military occupations and loses her friends and her mind (for a while).
Profile Image for Fugo Feedback.
5,108 reviews173 followers
March 9, 2010
Impresionante cierre para una serie tremenda, lástima que se nota que quedaron cosas por contar. Releer y rerreseñar ni bien pueda.
Profile Image for Mythreyi.
105 reviews4 followers
November 21, 2016
When i created the book shelf categories on this site, i tried to capture all the possible classifications of WHY i read the book i read, than WHAT they are classified as. Overtime i have realised that the books i am surprised by are the ones that always end up fitting in more than one shelf. And even after knowing Alan Moore, i am still surprised how his works always end being more than one thing. And that too, perfectly. Like the man understands deeply, the way human society ticks and hence can write in the complexities as if he were the clock-maker himself.

Ballad of Halo Jones is no exception. The book, currently in 3 parts,can be misjudged as being frivolous. The first comic does revolve around shopping expeditions at times. Like any Alan Moore work and like us humans, a shopping expedition can also be an insight into us, flawed and frivolous as we are. For those who stick with it beyond the first book, you get to this volume. The one where our initially young adult character grows through adulthood and into the disillusionment that we all know, as we grow up.
And because it is never about one thing, you also get to see what war does to humans. What it does our dreams. How is shapes our malleable personalities. And what happens when you come through it.

This is just a splendid read, one of the best. (And yes, the artwork is fantastic. It is black and white, but that binary nature didn't stop Gibson from capturing the complexities demanded by the tale)

Just pick it up if you come across this at some shelf and i hope you cherish it as i do.
Profile Image for Ian.
1,353 reviews6 followers
October 6, 2020
The conclusion to Halo Jones' story sees the character hitting rock bottom and, in desperation, joining up to fight in the war in the Tarantula Nebula.

This is by far the most mature and, frankly, bleak book of the series, with very strong overtones of both Vietnam and WWI stories.
Halo finds herself an unlikely grunt in a possibly-illegal war where the politics of the conflict have fallen away and been replaced simply with the war's self-perpetuation. Our heroine hates the fighting and feels the incremental loss of her humanity keenly and yet, when the war ends, finds herself wishing for the simplicity of combat.

Moore also experiments, quite successfully, with some interesting science fiction concepts here, as the war takes Halo to a planet whose intense gravity not only has the potential to turn an unshielded soldier into a puddle but which also causes time-dilation that plays havoic with Halo's understanding of how long she's been fighting. They're both great ideas and the latter one also clearly has an element of allegory to it too.

Part of me was disappointed that Halo's story doesn't have a nicely wrapped-up happy ending, but seeing as how Moore's whole concept of her was that she's ordinary, just like the rest of us, it makes sense that she merely survives and keeps going as best she can.

* More reviews here: https://fsfh-book-review2.webnode.com/ *
Profile Image for MatiBracchitta.
584 reviews
August 28, 2022
Es raro hacer una reseña de Halo Jones dado que en sí se trata de un cómic raro. Es decir: El desarrollo de personaje que tiene Halo es muy bueno. Podemos ver como el personaje literalmente crece. Pero los personajes a su alrededor se mantienen más bien estáticos a pesar del paso del tiempo. Incluso hay personajes que son tan poco desarrollados que se entremezclan y, por ende, su final pierde fuerza cuando llega.

Pero que no se confunda: El cómic es muy bueno. Se nota que tiene a Alan Moore en los guiones dado que todo está muy bien hilado. Que los capítulos sean tan cortos es super agradable dado que te brinda flexibilidad por si quieres leerlo de corrido o de forma más esporádica. Por otro lado, hay una gran diversidad artística de la mano de Gibson quien va tomando fuerza conforme la historia avanza.

También hay que destacar que la trama se vuelve muy interesante. Tiene los comentarios sociales de Moore, pero sin que estos lleguen a robarle mérito u atención a la historia. Si uno quiere los analiza y sino no y sigue disfrutando del cómic en igual medida.

Creo honestamente que es una obra que habilita a la relectura dado que nos brinda muchos detalles que parecen ser intrascendentes, pero como dije al principio terminan siendo hilados a lo largo de la trama.
Profile Image for Marth.
212 reviews10 followers
February 16, 2021
The Ballad of Halo Jones Book Three - 4.5/5

The best a've the tree beuks a've Halo Jones be scribbler Alan Moore and artist Ian Gibson. Halo, findin hersel in a deid end and wae nuffin leeft gais awf tae join the armie. Wit coms aw it is ah tru 'war is hell' storie. She's lef wae trama, mair deid freends n guilty fae sum unfirseen consequences fae revious tales.

The art be Gibson is fine, cartoony when it shed, gritty when is needed. The colourin wurk dun be Barbara Nosenzo fir the 2018 rerelease is nae half bad tae, thoug yeh kin kinda tell it wisnae drawn wae colur in mind.

Aw in aw, a great storie aboot wit war kin dae tae a soul.
Profile Image for Jared Ball.
45 reviews1 follower
May 30, 2020
Going into this series I didn't know if I was going to like it. I always had a liking for for Moore's stories and I absolutely love Ian Gibson's artwork in Judge Dredd. Halo Jones flips the script with a more subdued story about an ordinary girl in trying to find her way. The third and final volume of the series sees her fighting on an alien planet. Parallels to the Vietnam conflict are very evident here. Why conflict happens and the terrible cost it asks of the participants spill out of every page. The books ending is a sad one because there is so much more to tell and the between Moore and the publisher means that a future Halo Jones will never happen. That being said the ride was a blast while it lasted.
Profile Image for StrictlySequential.
4,020 reviews20 followers
August 23, 2021
First Edition = October 1986 = £4.95 = $9.95

What a finish! Alan is in top form as he covers the galactic war through the actions of Halo. He connects his own dots from previous books and the revelations are fun to be a part of. There are themes galore that I could go into but lets just say that the horror of war is the enveloping scope of the thing. Sure it's very depressing but it's profoundly presented and makes for a great read.

Gibson's art is stunning. He draws the female figure with such perfection that it's hypnotizing. The rest is great as well but he made me firmly in love with Halo from the very start to the very end even if there were no words.
Profile Image for Max Z.
333 reviews
June 26, 2021
In the third one Halo enlists into the army and it suddenly becomes all dark and depressing like all war stories. Moore is as usual, inventive (some of the combat takes place on the planet with high gravity which also slows down time extremely) but so far I haven't seen why this trilogy is supposed to be special or why Halo should (the narrator helpfully reminds us from time to time that this is all in the past). I'm not sure if there are more books with this character but I've lost interest at this point.
Profile Image for Andy Luke.
Author 10 books16 followers
October 25, 2021
Ian Gibson's art changes delightfully across each of these books. In Vol. 3 the populist pleasing 'war story' succeeds conveying horror and trauma, this time with a European style: broader feeling canvases and Nosenzo's colouring is the best it's been. Moore comes through as a writer doing a lot in little moments, expressing the fallacy and stupidity of war through the characters with reasoned SF. The final chapter of this unfinished 9-book series is particularly strong and as Gaiman often remarks, wonderfully heart-wrenching.
619 reviews4 followers
September 23, 2018
A fascinating volume, with Jones going to war in a zone where gravity massively affects time. The story's epic tragedy continues, but it's still not enough to defeat our hero. Moving, clever, it still holds up really well, with a tragic payoff from a good deed in the prior volume. Shame that it had to end here, in what was projected to be 9 books. Still, it's a good enough note to end on, with endless possibilities forever promised in the imagination.
Profile Image for Adriana.
3,558 reviews42 followers
January 21, 2019
Wow, is this volume bleak. There's way more violence and despondency than what the hopeful beginning had made me believe it would come to.
It is, however, a brilliant third act that provides the best possible closure to Halo's path.
This isn't at all the type of book I usually read, but I found that looking past an art style that's not usually my style and giving an unknown genre a chance can lead to great discoveries.
Profile Image for Richard.
69 reviews1 follower
October 11, 2019
Halo Jones is a heroine for any age. The writing is pin-sharp, the art is evocative and dynamic, and - for the first time in these editions - the colours are wonderfully rich and add depth to every image.

This collection is a must for any fan of graphic novels, sci-fi, coming-of-age (and beyond), well-plotted anti-war and dystopian stories and, well, almost anyone.
Profile Image for Lucas Morris.
Author 3 books5 followers
March 12, 2023
This book was rough to get through. Dark, and gristly. Like chewing through bone and sinew gasping to get the nutrition you desperately need to stave off starvation. Gnawing until your jaw aches, your teeth break. Blood dripping from your lips and tears falling from your eyes, unable to see through the blur. The sun eclipses and you are safe, drifting off into the deep voids of space.
Profile Image for Mitchell Friedman.
5,877 reviews234 followers
January 2, 2024
And then in Book 3 this turns into really a completely different type of book. All military all the time. Though still in a hopeless pointless sort of way. With characters dying left and right. And it kind of ends like it was going to go in a different direction.

Readable throughout. And art was fine. The world building was pretty good.

3.5 of 5
Profile Image for Jodhi Hoani.
32 reviews
November 28, 2018
This one I liked. Promethea, not so much. But that's another review. For now, I liked it. (Not really a review - I do recommend you read it if you haven't … it will be half an hour of your life well spent). Promethea, not so much …
Profile Image for Patrick.
157 reviews2 followers
August 4, 2020
The Ballad of Halo Jones is longer and darker then the first two volumes. When people refer to this as a classic, I'm pretty sure this is the part of the story they refer to. There are come really good, really powerful moments in this volume.
Profile Image for Seyed.
99 reviews20 followers
February 1, 2021
It still remains one of the best things to come out of 2000AD. A truly original setting and nothing but strong female characters makes such a wonderful change.
Profile Image for Variaciones Enrojo.
4,158 reviews51 followers
July 20, 2016
Reseña escrita por Eugenio en su blog:
http://quienmemandaria.wordpress.com/...

La obra de la que más contento está Alan Moore…
Balada de Halo Jones Nº 02
Edición original: 2000 Ad Nº 451, 452, 453, 454, 455, 456, 457, 458, 459, 460, 461, 462, 463, 464, 465, 466 USA
Segunda y última entrega en formado de novela gráfica, de las aventuras de Halo Jones, con una saga que el guionista Alan Moore califica en su prólogo como “la más larga de la historia de Halo-Jones” y también como “la mejor”.
En esta ocasión, la historia adquiere un tono bélico en su saga principal, confiriéndole un ambiente más similar a Starship Troopers.
Bienvenidos al siglo L.
Bienvenidos a los Municipios Aliados de América.
Bienvenidos al mundo de Halo Jones.
(...)
El segundo volumen discurre en una nave espacial, tiene algo más de acción sigue protagonizado por una mujer, pero en esta ocasión hace de azafata en un viaje espacial, es retenida por terroristas, no consigue ligarse a un hombre, ayuda – sin saberlo – a provocar una guerra biológica, se libra de un perro robot asesino enamorado de ella y baila con el hombre más rico del universo.
en el tercer volumen vemos como Halo, una Halo hundida y sin más opciones, se une al ejército. Después de un breve e inútil enfrentamiento, Halo es enviada a la guerra donde consigue sobrevivir a duras penas, pero no sale del todo malparada, sobrevive (que no es poco) y consigue una nave espacial para su uso y disfrute con la que recorrer el universo… ¡Incluso liga!
(...)
La verdad es que es una obra muy extraña, el volumen uno me pareció malísimo, en realidad no malísimo si no pesadísimo, una historia de ciencia-ficción alejada de los cánones habituales con un lenguaje ininteligible y escasamente atractivo… El segundo volumen mejora algo, pero hay un capítulo y un personaje en concreto que hacen que mejore mucho: “Nunca olvidaré a cómosellame…” y su protagonista, Glifo. El tercer volumen es más… parecido a las historias clásicas de ciencia-ficción al tratarse de una guerra y tal, pero… es bastante especial también.
Así que tenemos un buen dibujo, no maravilloso o espectacular pero sí bueno, acompañado de un buen guión que va de menos a más (el trabajo del que más orgullo está Alan Moore o eso dice él mismo) aunque hay pequeñas muestras de lo que vendrá desde el primer libro…
Es una buena lectura y tal, pero… Una cosa totalmente imprescindible es la lectura de los prólogos de Alan Moore a cada libro y, sobre todo, el único texto que aparece escrito por Ian Gibson en el que dice que Alan Moore escribía cada arco argumental pensando en los royalties que le daría la publicación en tomo de los mismos… Impagable.


(Reseña completa en http://quienmemandaria.wordpress.com/... )
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