Forum:Halo: Escalation Thread 2 (Issues 18-)

This is a forum topic dedicated to discussing the comic series Halo: Escalation.

Issue 8
Thought I'd share some late thoughts/ramblings on the newest issue because it's the first one that delves into the series' primary plot line and characters and will probably matter the most going forward.

After the more subdued, character-focused Issue 7 which was a pleasant surprise coming from Reed after the underwhelming display that was Initiation, Halo: Escalation Issue 8 was mostly a disappointment. The biggest question in my mind is who thought it was a good idea to tell this story in comic form? There's just so much depth and complexity that could've been gained if this had been a novel (or perhaps even a CGI film?). Did they not have a novelist on hand? Did someone in a key position (say, in the writing staff) have a preference for the comic format for one reason or the other?

For one, the pace is uncomfortably hectic — what should be defining character moments, like John's reunion with his closest friends and comrades after so many years, are shrugged off in a couple of panels. And it's not like the subtleties of the Spartans' body and sign languages ("Spartan smiles", etc.) could be appropriately pulled off in a comic anyway. What's going through John's head after his loss of Cortana, or when he sees Osman (who I presume he hasn't seen for decades and didn't know was even alive) in the Security Council? What are the Spartans thinking seeing their comrades slaughtered? None of that comes through here. Comics can be a great medium for storytelling but the strengths of the format are all absent here. Everything that we see would've been better presented via prose.

It doesn't help that the art is frankly underwhelming for a series of this scope and story importance. I stress the latter because Escalation is no longer a side story about tertiary characters but a proper continuation of the series' primary storyline. Microsoft has no shortage of money, so why not make sure they have a top artist illustrating their flagship comic? I know Halo has had those in the past (Blood Line stands out for its vibrant, crisp illustration) or was that just a Marvel thing? (though to be fair the art in Fall of Reach was pretty sketchy too).

On a side note, what's with the Spartans' identical light blue eyes? This is a weird visual media thing that first appeared in the Birth of a Spartan trailer and was repeated in Forward Unto Dawn but never came up in the novels.

Spartan Black's demise has been discussed to death both here and on other forums, so I won't delve too much into that. Though one can make reasonable guesses on why 343i decided to get rid of them, I still disagree with the way it was handled. The same Prometheans which supposedly slaughtered Black like animals barely seem to pose a threat to Blue, and if the Didact was involved we get no indication of this. It doesn't raise the stakes or make the Prometheans feel more threatening, it just shows that our main characters are protected by the plot, at least for the time being. As an interesting thought experiment, I wonder how people would've reacted if Black had been replaced by Kilo-Five?

Another issue I have is that while the Didact's return was probably a surprise for no one at this point, I just can't take him seriously whenever he appears in a visual medium. His design is so cartoonish, over the top and injected with the average preteen's idea of "cool" it might easily pass for something scribbled by a 13-year old. He looks like a villain from an 80's kids' show, and the evil throne isn't helping things. I always thought he looked like a comic book villain, and I guess he literally is one now.

Now, the book Didact is another matter entirely — I'm starting to think only Greg Bear could make 343i's version of the Forerunners work by adding the appropriate levels of weight and nuance to their characterizations whereas at the hands of their in-house writers like Reed here they just come across as flat cartoon characters. Unlike some people I'm mostly fine with the Forerunner Saga and even some of its more esoteric aspects: it draws from a long tradition of "sufficiently advanced" technology in science fiction with some thought-provoking themes running in the background, as opposed to more superficial Hollywood and comic book ephemera.

And that's another thing: a lot of recent developments seem to be geared to making Halo less like the gritty, technical military sci-fi it used to be and more like the Marvel universe with the Spartans being turned from an elite special operations outfit into something more closely resembling a superhero team, a brooding godlike general of an immensely complex ancient civilization becoming an over-the-top cartoon villain, or zero concern to physics or technology with pulp silliness like tormented souls popping up from walls or ships no longer having to abide by the previous limitations of slipspace travel. I don't like to point fingers, but I do wonder if all this has to do with 343i's current lead writer's Marvel background. Now, despite not being much of a comic reader, I love pretty much all of the MCU movies which are filled with this kind of absurdity. But I'd rather they kept the Halo universe's tone as it was rather than molding it into something it's not. --Jugus (Talk  | Contribs ) 03:14, 13 August 2014 (EDT)


 * Couldn't agree with you more. And kind of amusing - "tormented souls popping up from walls". The whacky "composers abyss" is just out of place in the Halo universe and makes it seem as though I'm reading a Harry Potter comic. You already know my stance on these science-fantasy elements that 343i implemented since Halo 4. Anyway, I definitely agree that the latest entry in this comic series was a major let down especially compared to the previous issues. Its almost as though everything was rushed and there was little emphasis placed on anything really. Like I said in "subtracting canon" (I know everyone disagrees with the title but it came from lack of better wording, plus I wanted an interesting forum title) the reunion between John & blue team was insignificant, the slaughter of black team was unnecessary & uneplained, and then there's the didact in his great cartoony glory. Basically, when it came down to this issue, my main problem with it was execution and irrational decision making. Now some people may say that "developers may not want to revisit certain characters". If that's the case why bring them back in the first place only to kill them off rendering them nothing more than a skid mark? Leave it alone, leave them where they lay, leave well enough alone. Bringing them back only to immediately kill them off seems more like a slap in the face to most fans than if they just left them a mystery (and you don't want to disappoint the fans since they account for majority of revenues by the way). Just because 343i has the power to do something doesn't mean they should do it. Yes, you're not going to please the fans everytime but at least if they took the time and safest approach to doing things than at least you can lesson the damage. And some may say "what 343i does counts regardless of what the fans prefer". But again, just because they can do it doesn't mean they should. There is a such thing as reviewers, opinions, forums, etc...If 343i properly executed this story w/ proper explanations for things, less rushed plot lines, and better artwork, than there'd be a lesser chance of displeasing fans. And like Jugus said, if you can't do it in a comic, than reserve it for a book, game, or mini-movie like "Nightfall", rahter than trying to stuff and shorten things in a tiny 20 or so page comic.-- Killamin7  [Comm |Files ] 09:38, 13 August 2014 (EDT)


 * I agree. What annoys me about the art style is that it can go from pretty decent, then all of a sudden, it becomes horrid. I wonder if the artist knows how to draw humans, or what the alien species actually look like sometimes. I feel like the poor pacing of these comics has to do with the shortness of each issue. There isn't a lot of room to explore the story or add emotion unfortunately. Darth Maul's Son of Dathomir comic series (also created by Dark Horse) has forty pages per comic and a great art style. This gives each issue enough time to explore entire battles. I realize that Star Wars is more well-known than Halo, but still I would expect Mircosoft to put some money into Escalation to make it a better comic series. Although the series has made several mistakes (mostly due to art style) and has not accurately portrayed some of the characters, I still think it's one of the better comic series we have seen so far and explores interesting parts of the Halo universe, such as the Ealen peace treaties or New Phoenix's reopening. And I wouldn't mind if it continued beyond November.


 * However, I think my biggest problem with this series as a whole so far is how it ends stories. While I know that this is partially due to the length of each issue, a lot of the stories featured in Escalation are poorly wrapped up or forgotten. 'Gajat seemed to be an interesting character. He was a mercenary that was working with human insurgents, Kig-Yar, Sangheili, and Jiralhanae, and then he was killed off and his organization was forgotten about (I know it's a longshot, since the comic covers have been rather unreliable, but I hope the Kig-Yar on the cover of issue 11 is from the mercenary group and Tek has now taken over or something). The Spirit of Fire was advertised to be appearing in one of the issues, but only had a small cameo. Petra was kind of forgotten about. The Ealen IV storyline ended pretty well, especially compared to the others. I think that if the length of each issue and the art style was improved (maybe on par with Son of Dathomir), Escalation would benefit greatly.


 * And I agree that 343i is starting to portray Spartans as superheroes (especially Blue Team/Palmer/Majestic). I think it would have been better if the Didact never changed from his original appearance. It isn't over-the-top cartoon villainy, and I actually like his appearance/armor better. I really hope Halo doesn't begin to drift into the deep sci-fi/fantasy genre. As much as I love Star Wars, I've never been a fan of the hardcore fantasy elements like "Dathomir magic" or Force ghosts turning alive again. That's one of the reasons I prefer Halo. The science is kept relatively realistic and is more based on some form of actual science (real or not). However, some of the Forerunner abilities, like imprints, seem to be coming from the fantasy genre. Nonetheless, I'm excited for November and all of the upcoming Halo content. Broken Circle will hopefully be a refreshing read with the lack of Halsey hate (although I am still waiting for more news on the novel or some sort of preview). - NightHammer (talk) 11:10, 13 August 2014 (EDT)


 * In many cases, it's not the exotic technologies themselves that feel grating to me, it's the way they're portrayed. I can accept that a civilization as advanced as the Forerunners can upload their minds to and fro. But the needless mystification and vilification of the Composer, for instance, is out of place. It's a mind uploading tool (which should be a relatively everyday thing to a Forerunner-tier civ), but 343i's writers can't seem to get over the fact that mind uploading is not some arcane form of demonic magic, nor should it be as difficult as 343 wants to present it as — we're told that the digitized personalities fragmented and couldn't be restored to biological form, apparently because even the Forerunners just couldn't get the soul to work properly. Even though they had consciousness backups in something as mundane as their armor. This leaves the Composer as an oddity - why is this thing treated as so special when it's clearly inferior to many technologies they utilize in their daily lives?


 * The whole geas deal is one of the less compelling aspects of the 343i-era fiction for me, not only because the technology itself is firmly in the realm of the fantastical but because it diminishes human agency: previously, humanity was lauded for our ingenuity and our exceptional ability to innovate and endure in the face of impossible odds. Now, we're told none (or very little) of it was our own making. That we need arcane gene-magic to babysit us rather than being able to stand on our own. Humans have always been the Forerunners' inheritors which put us in a privileged position, but it used to be more subtle than literally saying specific technological breakthroughs are the direct result of genetic programming.


 * It's also emblematic of a problem that tends to plague long-running comic books and TV shows - the trend of making everything so "connected" and "meaningful" that the universe begins to feel small. I was perfectly fine with the idea of the Spartan-IIs being created, or John and Cortana meeting one another, just when they were needed by sheer coincidence. They didn't need to be part of a contrived millennia-long master plan. --Jugus (Talk  | Contribs ) 00:19, 18 August 2014 (EDT)


 * It seems pretty clear that Escalation is telling the stories that future seasons of Spartan Ops were supposed to tell. Future seasons were obviously planned, given the whole "Season 1" label we got, but these seem pretty definitely scrapped in favour of Escalation. To relegate such monumental story developments to a side-comic most players will never have even heard of is really irritating, even more so when elements like John's reunion with Blue Team and grief over Cortana's death are totally glossed over. I understand that the levels of Spartan Ops got pretty repetitive, and I'm sure that was a reason why future seasons were shelved. But if they had foregone episodic-based missions and instead focused on making the seasons as good and as long as they needed to be to fit the story, then these plots could have been given the spectacle, quality, and availability that they deserved. - Black Mesa.jpg Halo-343   (Talk)  21:25, 13 August 2014 (EDT)


 * That is most likely the case. I don't know if some of the previous story arcs would've been as long or exactly the same as they were in comic form (the Petra side story would've most likely been ditched had the story been told in the Spartan Ops format) but it's probable Escalation is built on the basic outline they had for the future seasons. Another reason for Spops' cancellation after S1 may have been the money and effort going into the Master Chief Collection, particularly the enormous undertaking that is Blur's remastering of the Halo 2 cutscenes. --Jugus (Talk  | Contribs ) 00:19, 18 August 2014 (EDT)


 * You know what? The gameplay already felt a bit detached from the cutscenes. They should have just made a series of animated episodes, and released them episodically, like Forward Unto Dawn, or on DVD ala Legends. That would have been fantastic. --  Qura 'Morhek   The Autocrat     of Morheka   00:26, 18 August 2014 (EDT)

Issue 9
Wow this was a loaded issue! Seems as if we now know (not confirmed) who broke Chief's visor. Looks like the Constraint field isn't working for Didact or he'd use it again. Anyways fun stuff! -- Names Gall. Sam Gall

I admit it was a fun read. And it was revealed that the Didact killed black team which helps rectify that issue and put to rest something that made the fans (including me) angry as hell. But it just makes me think, shouldn't they've placed that scene in issue 8? It seems as though they did the same thing in issue 4 where there was a scene that occurs after everything else, but was done in such a way that it made it seem pointless, unnecessary, or unintended. I don't know. But whatever the case I liked the issue but I'm not feeling that cliffhanger where John-117 is once again being treated as a rag doll.-- Killamin7  [Comm |Files ] 18:35, 27 August 2014 (EDT)


 * I tend to be light on praise even where praise may be due, but I have very few positive things to say about this issue or the whole 72 Hours arc. Somewhere along the way, and that's right after Issue #7, Escalation, up until then mediocre to decent, went into full camp mode. At this point I'm fully convinced I don't like Brian Reed's writing and that making him Halo lead writer was a baffling decision. I had a bad feeling from Initiation and its super Spartan who can her face slammed to a metal wall or breathe in space and here that same sort of schlock goes into overdrive. Reed is capable of decent writing, like Issue #7, but when he's doing story-driving content or action it's like he never left the Marvel verse (and what I think about that is further detailed in my Issue #8 rant above). 343i has released quality material and I commend them for their efforts to tie the games and the "expanded universe" together, but why is it that they can't seem to hire decent in-house writers? Broadly speaking, when you look at their releases, most of the ones that stand out from the rest have been written or otherwise produced outside the studio (Forerunner Saga, Forward Unto Dawn, and from what we've seen so far, Nightfall as well; and as much as I dislike the Kilo-Five Trilogy for what it does with the universe and the characters, at least it's not schlock).


 * Things just happen and nothing feels connected or planned out — it's like the story is being made up along the way. Why did the composed New Phoenix residents see one of the slipspace artifacts on Requiem? We may never know. An apt analogy to the story quality would be a kid playing with action figures. I can just imagine lil' Brian Reed sitting on the floor picking things from the toy box that is the Halo universe — Spartans, the Didact, Halos, Composers, Monitors, slipspace portals — and just smashing them together. Bam! Crunch! Kablam! Hey, who are these guys? Spartans with black armor? That's kinda cool but I don't really know them so THEY'RE DEAD! Then the Chief and the Spartans go through the portal and there's, like, a ton of new Composers! But then the Didact uses his special stomp attack! Then the Didact steals a Halo to kill all humans because he's sooo evil!


 * Reed (like Traviss) has people zipping across light-years through portals to no ill effect (if you could build instant-transit portals people can step through without being atomized due to exposure to slipspace, why bother having starships at all)? Why does a Halo have a portal connection to the Composer's Forge when the Composers had been long abandoned by the time the Halos were built? Even if you could, would you really have a portal you can just step through on an installation where there's Flood in containment? A Halo, no less, can now apparently be summoned by a monitor completely unrelated to the Array (though I kind of like Static Carillon). Compartmentalization? What's that? The Didact wants to use a Halo because... the series is called Halo so why not? MacGuffins and superweapons of the week galore.


 * At this point the Didact's lost pretty much any dignity he may have had left from the Forerunner Saga, broken as he may be from the Gravemind's torture - he might as well be Skeletor. He's just a big, buff dude with a couple of special comic book powers and completely devoid of the gravitas and tragedy of his portrayal in the novels. I get that they're intentionally going for the supervillain/nemesis angle, but I believe this was the wrong approach — they should've never made him something that you can go toe to toe with in a fight, much less hurt with something as mundane as a knife. The Forerunners should be far above anything like that.


 * And I still hold that the format was the wrong one for this story — this material would've been best served by a full-length novel. If they couldn't get an author to write one in time (or if Reed insisted it be he who write the story and nobody else because he's lead writer now, damnit) they could've at least trimmed the surrounding filler stories about secondary characters and stretched this arc over at least two or three more issues. As much as I liked Issue #7, having a similar low-key issue dealing with the Chief's return to Earth and reunion with Blue Team would've been much more called for. That they have a main character/plot continuation story this crucial squeezed between the otherwise unconnected Spartan Ops crew stories reeks of poor planning.


 * I'm thinking the Black Team scene had to be in this issue because they wanted to have the Didact's dramatic reveal at the end of the last one. Alternatively, the scene may not even have been originally in - maybe Reed pulled a Bioware due to the unexpected fan outrage and added an "Extended Cut" of Black's fate. After all, in the previous issue, the transmission implies that it is the Prometheans that "are appearing out of thin air" and are "slaughtering the Spartans". Hard to know for sure, but I don't think it's too far-fetched to speculate they added the scene to pacify the fanbase. Although I still disagree with the decision to kill Black off like this (they could've at least given their send-off its own story or comic) I have to admit it does more to justify their deaths than mere Knights. --Jugus (Talk  | Contribs ) 00:58, 28 August 2014 (EDT)


 * Honestly, I found this issue to be okay (still better than Initiation). I really liked Escalation issues 1-7, although the art style has always been my pet peeve with the series (and terrible panel placement). And at least the cover art of the comic, kind of, almost happened. And I don't know if it's just me, but the art style seems to have improved by a lot for the most part. And I'm glad that we got some clarification on Black Team's death.


 * However, in the entire past two issues, Static Carillon seems to be the only character with an sort of personality. The Didact's portrayal has also been ridiculous. Like you said, Reed is trying to make the Didact a typical, campy comic supervillian from the 60s. I'm surprised he wasn't petting a Crawler on his throne in issue #8. Next he will be twirling his space-moustache while stealing candy from humans. Not to mention his super-stomp. Or the fact that he just randomly appears behind/in front of the Spartans twice this issue. And I don't know if it is due to perspectives, but the Didact's height seems really inconsistent. It seems like Reed skimmed one book (maybe) from the Forerunner Saga before writing these comics. Why would the Didact ever use a Halo?!?! I also don't like that Blue Team seems to be able to hold their own, but Black Team was killed with ease. And I still don't understand how a knife was able to pierce the Didact's combat armor. They could have at least had him "unlock" his helmet and give him an evil monologue so the Chief would just be stabbing face, not armor. Once again, I think the series would have benefited if each issue was longer. I'm still really nervous that Reed is going to kill of Blue Team in Escalation. - NightHammer (talk) 01:41, 28 August 2014 (EDT)

I'm glad to know i'm not the only one to see that Black Team's death was altered a bit. I assume its from fan back lash.Kal825B (talk) 09:16, 28 August 2014 (EDT)

"they wanted to have the Didact's dramatic reveal at the end of the last one."

- Jusus

But a dramatic reveal only works when you don't know it's coming. And even casual fans would think it was obvious that the Didact was still going to be alive. Which means Black Team's death still feels needless. A bit less easy perhaps, given the fight Didact put up against John while distracted by enacting his genocidal plans, but still needless.

Not having read the story yet (or any of Escalation, really, beyond preview pages) I don't understand what the Didact's plan is. He's on a Halo, presumably with the full authority to use it that being a Forerunner entails, but he also has a whole mess of Composers at his disposal now. One makes the other redundant. I get that, in-canon, the Didact wasn't expecting to run into 859 Static Carillon, but from a storytelling point of view it means one or the other of these plot points are going to be dropped. Either he tries to take Gamma Halo to Earth, which renders the Composers pointless, or he leaves it behind and tries to bring the Composers to Earth which means Gamma Halo didn't need to be in the story. Gamma Halo was enough of a threat, why introduce this new story element? Unless it's because they're needed to compose something very specific before being abandoned - namely, in my full expectation and dread, Blue Team, souls implanted in Promethean shells and turned against the Master Chief.

There was also some speculation previously that the Monitor would turn out to be a repaired 343 Guilty Spark. I'm a little glad that it isn't - it gives 343 the chance to make his eventual fate and possible return to the series a much more dramatic story. I would like to see the Didact pick up a Monitor assistant - someone who carries out his orders, and is a more capable threat than the Covenant remnants. Maybe we could see Jul 'Mdama feeling threatened by being usurped as the Didact's emissary, and trying to either reclaim his place through earning his "god's" favour or by taking out Carillon himself? But of course, I fully expect the story to end with the Didact out of commission, the Composers Forge destroyed, and John once again the last Spartan-II, completely undoing the potential the series is trying to set up. --  Qura 'Morhek   The Autocrat     of Morheka   17:37, 28 August 2014 (EDT)