Beta Ray Greg Presents: HALO – Lone Wolf Issue #1

PART One…

“Sent on a covert mission without the rest of her team, Spartan Linda-058’s skills in infiltration and marksmanship are called upon to end the threat posed by a wanted scientist on a distant planet. With only an ONI AI at her side, Linda must fight through both the dregs of the Covenant and the hostility of a lost human settlement to stop the rogue scientist in his tracks. “

Guys. I love all things HALO. Always have, always will. In high school I was introduced to HALO games by fellow SoBro Herbie Brooks and later on HALO books by a buddy of mine Caleb. Games, comics, full novels later, I’m still trying to get all the HALO canon I can get. So get in there and let’s chew some fat.

DARK HORSE Comics Brings you…

HALO : LONE WOLF Issue #1

We open with Spartan Kelly running down the side of a building. There’s text bubbles from another source, “…this isn’t a race.”. As Kelly makes a smart-ass comment, she steps around a corner *BLAM* dropped by a Linda sniper shot, “shoulda known…”. Yeah, yeah you should have. So I can assume this is a Blue Team training session. Training ends with Linda double tapping Kelly with the sniper rifle while falling backwards off a cliff. Ice cold.

Linda-058 is called to a meeting. She is told of an ONI scientist (thought KIA) that disappeared during Reach at the same time as USNC PROMISE OF DAWN disappeared (thought destroyed at Reach). ONI recently got a distress signal, on a wayward planet rifled with Covenant, from the scientist Dr. Chen…with THE PROMISE OF DAWN. Convenient. They work under the assumption it’s a trap. Linda is to go alone with an AI. Stops whatever Dr. Chen is up to and/or make sure what he knows or has can’t fall into enemy hands and get what civilians out…but Stopping Chen comes first. Classic ONI.

Linda-058 lands on the planet. They find a desolate site and bodies. One is USNC and he’s a new addition to the chaos. The Spartan-II scouts the area and waits. She knows the colony will retrieve his body. We’re introduced to two women. I will take a assumption they’re related. They load up the deceased and make comments about how ‘Chen was right’. Hmmmm. One panel shows a foot that’s not human. The women are being follows. BLAM! Body drops. Kigyar down. The girls hear it and start to book it. Panel pans out to see multiple Covies on the move.

Linda drops a few more Kigyar before one gets to the women. She has a shot but she lets them defend themselves. The AI disproves of Linda’s methods and how she reads the defense. As the AI lodges a formal complain, Linda “Clever Girl”-ed (see 1993’s Jurassic park) a Kigyar*. Moving on the girls with the dead guy make it back to the camp and are greeted by a teen. He says Dr. Chen hasn’t stopped asking about their return since they left. But they did everything Linda figured they would do, led her right to Chen’s camp.

*

As they lay out rando dead guy’s body for display, they discuss where they found him and if they think it needs to be cause for alarm. Dr. Chen takes this for a moment to give a “we’re humanity last hope” speech to any one that would listen. BLAM! Linda-058 strikes a Covenant drone. Hordes of drones. Chen instructs them to pull the screen. Linda remarks that they are fighting…just in time.

The Jackals are making their way to the door that’s closing to the compound. Linda drops them. An Elite sees an opening. Two humans open fire trying to draw his attention. Last panels show Linda-058 with a Jackal in her hands. Someone asks “are we done….?” With a trained rifle on Dr. Chen, Linda says “No.”.

Great set up. Great issue. A little clunky on the storyline here and there. I would have like a little more Spartan-II action than just Linda. Solo Spartan stories are fun, but a good Blue Team story is better. Over all I enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to more the next issue!

7/10