Featured Article Summary #193

The Halo Graphic Novel is a graphic novel anthology by Marvel Comics and Bungie, set in the Halo science fiction universe. It was Halo’s first major entry into sequential art and introduces parts of the world that had not appeared in other media. Most of the book is made up of four short stories created by different writers and artists, with each story exploring a different side of the universe and connecting to the game in indirect ways. Alongside the stories, it includes a large art gallery with work from Bungie, Marvel, and independent artists. Published on July 19, 2006, it was praised for feeling like a unified collection while still offering varied content. Its success helped lead Marvel to announce Halo: Uprising and other future Halo comic projects. The Halo Graphic Novel began when Microsoft and Bungie explored ways to expand the Halo franchise, especially through sequential art, with a draft comic first assembled by Eric Trautmann’s team. After Bungie disliked the draft, it took control of the project—building a “dream team” of writers and artists—and used the game’s story bible to create stories that fill in gaps and show off events occurring off screen. Bungie then pitched the graphic novel to Marvel, working with Marvel development director Ruwan Jayatilleke to help bring it to publishers and readers. The Halo graphic novel includes 128 full-color pages and contains four main stories. Each story has an introduction from the creators, sharing ideas or experiences related to the plot and Halo lore. After the main stories, there is a 26-page art gallery with artwork from both Bungie and other comics artists. “The Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor” is set in Halo: Combat Evolved and follows Covenant commander Rtas ’Vadumee and his team as they respond to a distress call from an agricultural ship. Instead of human attack, they find the Flood have infested the ship and are trying to escape, and ’Vadumee fights through the creatures, burns the Flood by steering the ship into the sun, and escapes as the only survivor. The story aims to highlight how dangerous the Flood are and to better show how the Covenant military operates, while carefully staying within Halo canon during its writing by Lee Hammock. Armor Testing happens right before the game Halo 2 begins, when the UNSC tests a new version of SPARTAN powered armor. A retired Spartan, Maria-062, is brought in as a favor to jump from Earth’s atmosphere and fight UNSC special forces to evaluate the suit before it reaches Master Chief. The idea was inspired by the book Skunkworks, and the story was written by Jay Faerber with art by W. Andrew Robinson and Ed Lee.