Halo: Collateral Damage

by Alexander C. Irvine, Dave Crosland (Illustrator), Leonard O'Grady (Illustrator)

The Master Chief and Blue Team are deployed by the UNSC to Alpha Corvi II, a precarious human colony world, seeking to halt the Covenant's efforts to uncover something hidden below the planet's surface.Before they were legends in the Halo universe, they were soldiers on the front lines. Alpha Corvi II is under a full-scale attack by humanity's newfound enemy, the Covenant. While most of the UNSC's forces have been ordered to defend the colony's primary city, a Covenant strike team has infiltrated a small mining settlement. With resources limited, the UNSC sends the Spartans--the Master Chief and Blue Team--to neutralize the alien threat and discover what they're after. The Spartan strike team quickly finds out that they will have to rely on each other and a small cadre of human rebels in order to survive and complete their mission.Writer Alex Irvine ( Rise of Atriox, Tales From Slipspace) and artist Dave Crosland ( Tales From Slipspace) lead us on a thrilling mission from the early days of the three-decade long Covenant War.

Genres: Video Games, Comics, Graphic Novels

80 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 5, 2019

About the author

Alexander C. Irvine is an American fantasist and science fiction writer. He also writes under the pseudonym Alex Irvine. He first gained attention with his novel A Scattering of Jades and the stories that would form the collection Unintended Consequences. He has also published the Grail quest novel One King, One Soldier, and the World War II-era historical fantasy The Narrows.

In addition to his original works, Irvine has published Have Robot, Will Travel, a novel set in Isaac Asimov's positronic robot milieu; and Batman: Inferno, about the DC Comics superhero.

His academic background includes an M.A. in English from the University of Maine and a PhD from the University of Denver. He is an assistant professor of English at the University of Maine. He also worked for a time as a reporter at the Portland Phoenix.

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a real dud. There's no real plot other than four Spartans fight some aliens. The artist was definitely not right for a gritty space warfare book like Halo. The art was cartoony and everyone's eyes were bugging out of their head.



Received a review copy from Dark Horse and Edelweiss. All thoughts are my own and in no way influenced by the aforementioned.

[Alex Caravaggio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed the read. It was a blue team story from the early days of the Spartan program (2525) and the human covenant war. They get deployed to a planet to defend it from the covenant and get intel on why it’s a target. They ally with human insurrectionists, showing the covenant are the main target for humans to continue existing. The story shows the complicated relationship between UNSC and the insurrectionists, and also some cool concept tech for the mjolnir armor. The art was great and appreciated the last few pages explaining the armor and vehicle art concepts.

[Joshua Sloan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Visually Bionicle?

[Red · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh

OK, art work is not too impressive and the ending is like the story, lackluster. It just felt like an excuse to draw Spartans in experimental armor.

Skipping this book is not a bad option.