Halo Escalation is coming in TWO days. Here are a couple of pages from the book:

What’s interesting to note of the two-page spread is that it’s Majestic team, sans DeMarco. (To find out about him, get Escalation #3). It’s certainly good to see 4/5 of Majestic intact!

Also, note the UNSC Hawk is also present. Not just one, but SEVERAL! If you’re not familiar with this ship, it was in Halo Wars:

This brings us even closer to the talk of the UNSC Spirit of Fire being in Escalation. Consider this, it looks like UNSC ships are fighting UNSC ships. One might draw the conclusion that Serena, has of course gone rampant and left orders for the ship to attack anything that came in the vicinity of the Spirit of Fire after her death. With the crew of the Spirit of Fire presumably still in Cryo sleep, this would be the only way to protect them while they are awoken. Now, the Hawks and Shortswords should be piloted by humans right? Maybe. It could be that Serena made a way for those ships to be controlled by the Spirit of Fire temporarily, again to give enough time for the crew to wake up from Cryo Sleep and take over. VERY curious this is indeed!

For those of you who need more of a refresher on the Hawk, Mega Bloks did come out with a set for this back in 2010:

 With the prospect of the Spirit of Fire coming into play in the comic book, this series is going to get MUCH more interesting and even BETTER!

Now I always say you should support your local comic book store first, and I hold true to that. However, if you can’t find one locally, you can pre-order this directly from Darkhorse HERE.

-Sal

Okay, once again SPOILERS! I can’t stress enough how this review will have a HUGE SPOILER in it!

Read on at the risk of spoiling the comic book for yourself! You’ve been warned!!!

As the enemy forces move in on the delegation’s location, Spartan Scruggs takes a hostage. He’s quickly dispatched by Palmer. This isn’t even the biggest spoiler…

First, I’m still against a Spartan rebelling. See, this is one of the VERY REASONS why Halsey’s Spartan II’s are and always will be better. They were trained from childhood. Their minds grew accustomed (some would say brainwashed) to protecting the UNSC no matter what. The Spartan IIs loyalty is without question.

Spartan VIs having been recruited as adults have all of those experiences and baggage they bring with them.

This next part however IS the BIG SPOILER!

Palmer needs to get the delegation away. This means having to split up forces. She will go with the delegation while the remaining Spartans are to stay behind and fend off the attacking forces as long as possible so as to allow the delegation to get away.

This includes Paul DeMarco. Yes, THAT Demarco, Fireteam Majestic’s leader from Halo 4’s Spartan Ops. He mans a Covenant surface to air turret and valiantly staves off some enemies. However, his station is overrun and destroyed by a Banshee.

Now some might have thought DeMarco was a jerk in Spartan Ops. However, he proved himself there. I’m really surprised he was killed off. Or was he? We do see several coffins at the funeral ceremony, however they are not named during it, so we readers can not be certain DeMarco is one of them. Regardless, it’s a BOLD move to an albeit minor but important character. I wonder how this will impact the rest of Majestic. Speaking of, I am a little surprised that we haven’t heard about them in the Escalation series. I do hope they are brought into the story.

This is a good read. It’s mostly fast paced and we get to see Spartans at their worst (Scruggs) and at their best (DeMarco) and points in between (Palmer).

I can’t wait for the next issue! Spirit of Fire!!!

-Sal

 The ongoing Halo Escalation series has a very interesting story coming up in issue 5. Now by the preview, we see it moves into issue 6 as well.

Here is the cover without the Dark Horse logo and other text on it, followed by a brief summary of the issue. SPOILERS!

This cover was done by none other than Sparth of 343. It’s a beautiful shot of Pelicans flying over. We know this isn’t Requiem as that has been destroyed. So where might this new Forerunner location be and what is it called?

Issue #6’s title is: A Spy in the Ranks
It’s on sale May 28 for $3.99 and is 32 pages.
Halo Wars of old meets the Halo of the present when the UNSC infinity attempts to gain the Spirit of Fire, a ship thought lost more than 30 years previous, from Vata ‘Gaiat.
Petra’s search for the spy may mean her death and the Haloverse might be thrust into a new war!

-Sal

Dark Horse Comics has release 6 pages of the upcoming Halo Escalation #3 comic book, due to release on February 26. The following is the cover and those 6 pages. Enjoy!

I’m excited for this. UNSC, Arbiter and Brutes! As well, this gets us closer to #5, which promises to be a BIG event in the Halo franchise!

-Sal

Issue 2 picks up right where issue 1 left off. The dignitaries, Lasky, Palmer and Spartans are currently in a parts depot looking to be extracted.

We readers are introduced to another Spartan. She is Spartan Ray. She specialized in Communications before she became a Spartan and is the one most qualified for what Lasky needs at the moment.

In the meantime, the depot has been found by the renegade Covenant forces. Here we are introduced to “Shipmaster” Gajat. Followed by Tek, a Skirmisher. Okay, so we were told previously that all of the Skirmishers were wiped out during the battle of Reach. I for one am HAPPY they are back in Halo. I really liked the look of the Skirmisher. As well, I found it hard to believe ALL of them would have been subjugated to Reach. Now during this interaction, we find that there is a HUMAN that seems to be running the shots. Hmm, very interesting…

Meanwhile in orbit, the Infinity, Arbiter’s group and the Brutes have lost contact with Lasky and the rest on the surface of the planet. At this time, we also find out the name of the new XO (Executive Officer /second in command) of the Infinity. His name is Bradley. That’s his last name.

Back on the planet, the rouge group of Covenant burst into the depot only to find the other group having temporarily escaped. Palmer takes one part of the group, while ordering Scruggs to take a second part of the group. Scruggs group lags behind a little. (This is important to note.) Both groups fall under attack from a Covenant Lich and it’s soldiers. Palmer gets the other Spartan’s grenades and tosses them into the Lich (via her helmet).

In the meantime, Lasky and Ray are searching for a communication station so that they an contact the fleet in space. They are almost caught by surprise by an Elite, but end up taking him out. They find what they need and Ray makes a discovery that the network itself is jamming the signal.

Palmer, Scruggs and the other Spartans are fighting off the Lich’s soldiers and win that battle. Lord Hood is suspicious of how the rogue group kept finding them so quickly and suspects there is a spy among them. He finds a UNSC tablet among the body of a dead elite.

Meanwhile, Lasky and Ray are making their way take out two more elites and steal their Banshees. What’s great here is that we see BOTH the classic Banshee and the updated Reach/Halo 4 style Banshee. Man, I’m LOVING how this story is bringing continuity together!

The rest of the rogue group where Lasky and Ray were are leaving in a hurry. They seek to intercept the VIP delegation.

HUGE SPOILER! Scruggs radios to Palmer that the other location they are going to is secure. This among the bodies of dead Spartans and Brutes. Seems HE may be the spy….

Okay, I have to say this tory is INTENSE! Mystery, action, intrigue! It’s a fantastic story and I can’t wait to see what happens in issue #3. The art again is well done. The pacing of the book is frenetic is a good way as it keeps you reading to see what happens next. That final reveal bothers me a bit. I would NEVER under any circumstances think a Spartan would be treasonous. Then again, he’s a Spartan IV and not a Spartan II, like Master Chief.

Whoo-boy! This series is going to be exciting for the third issue! I HIGHLY recommend getting this series. It may certainly have implications for the next game in the franchise.

-Sal

Darkhorse has delivered another epic Halo comic book series in Escalation.

In issue #1 we’re introduced to a few new characters. First up we find out about another Spartan Fireteam named “Jackknife”. It’s led by Spartan Scruggs. Scruggs looks like a cross between Jun from Darkhorse’s Halo Initiation and Frank O’Conner, 343 Halo franchise development director.

Spartan Commander Sarah Palmer is prevalent in the story and first shown in battle…sort of.

Several of Halo 4’s spartan armor are shown as well, which is nice to bring further into the canon.

One thing I think could have been improved upon is the height difference between Lasky and Palmer. Consistently Palmer is shown to be the same height as Lasky. We all know Palmer is nearly a foot taller than Lasky. Maybe I’m nitpicking though.

Lord Hood makes his appearance again in Halo, which is very nice to see. Admiral Osman (whom we know from the Kil0-5 trilogy a well as an episode of Spartan Ops) is also in the book. Now you just know if ONI is involved, something MUST be up!

A brief review of the happenings of Spartan Ops as well as Lasky and Palmer’s actions with regards to Dr. Halsey. Very surprisingly, Palmer does NTO throw Lasky under the bus, but rather takes one for him.

Now we finally get into the meat of the story which is about a high profile meeting between a Brute Chieftan and…THE ARBITER! YES!!! Finally, the Arbiter is BACK. ANd he looks MAGNIFICENT in this issue. His armor has been upgraded. He looks much more badass!!!

As can be expected the Brute Chieftan is untrusting and wary of the Arbiter. This is in part why the UNSC is present, not only to have escorted the Arbiter, but to make sure nothing goes awry with the meeting.

Suddenly the meeting comes under attack. Palmer and the rest of teh Spartans assigned to this mission jump to action. It’s some rogue band of Covenant. Are they part of Jul M’Dama’s group, or something else? One thing that’s cool is that we see the Jackals as we knew them from the classic Bungie trilogy of Halo games. Long beaks!

Spartan DeMarco from Fireteam Majestic is on this mission. It’s not know if he lost his position as team leader or if Jackknife is a compilation of team leaders for this high-profile mission.

The Arbiter, Brute Chieften, Admiral Hood, Lasky and the Spartans run for cover and find refuge in a parts depot. That’s the end of the book.

Now let’s talk a bit about art style and color. I have to say I enjoyed this art style even more than I did Halo Initiation’s art style. The only thing that is a slight mark is the slender Spartans. Other than that, no complaints. The inking is well done and color choices are fantastic.

Oh, I should make note that we see Brute armor from Halo ODST/Reach in here, as well as some of the classic Elite armor, notably the Flight armor.

This was a great opening to the series. I love how each era is represented in this book, bringing it together. That makes this much more cohesive in terms of continuity. The writing is definitely on par with what we know of Halo.

All in all an excellent read and visual delight! I highly recommend getting this series. This issue’s been out for a month, so it may be hard to track down. However, I believe you can still order this through Darkhorse itself.

I’ll be reviewing issue 2 tomorrow, so come on back for some more Halo comic book goodness, brought to you by Darkhorse!

-Sal

-Sal

Darkhorse will be releasing the next Halo comic next month. I’ve shown the following two covers previously on the blog, so these are a reminder. The last cover is Halo Escalation #2’s.

Escalation #2 cover:

REALLY liking these covers!

Issues will cost $3.99. Look for these at your local comic book store!

-Sal

I picked mine up this morning.

Thus ends the short mini-series of Spartan Palmer and her first mission action as a Spartan.

The cover is excellent. The story moves almost too fast. Again, this was necessary due to the mini-series being only 3 issues long. Getting to see Davis in his gold colored armor for the first time was nice.

I’m happy with the series, though I’d have liked to have seen it stretched into 6 issues. With the story that was told, it could have easily been made into 6 issues. Ah well, can’t wait for the next Halo comic book series “Escalation!” (As I previously previewed HERE.)

-Sal

Halo Waypoint has released another in the entries of the Halo 4 Essential Visual Guide. This time it’s Jul ‘Mdama, the leader of the Storm faction of the Covenant.

To learn much more about Jul, especially regarding the events that lead UP to Halo 4, read the Kilo-5 trilogy. So far the first two books are out. Glasslands is the first, with The Thursday War being the second. The third book will be out in a scant few months.

-Sal