Product Description

This story starts at the conclusion of the blockbuster video game, Halo 2. This must-read novel reveals how the Master Chief, while onboard a hostile ship headed towards Earth, battles against Covenant forces! Interwined with Master Chief's interstellar one man war is the saga of a great American city's rebellion and downfall, two disparate lives' collision and shared fate, and the Covenant's hunt for an ancient relic of untold power and value. With hope dwindling and the fate of humanity hanging by a thread, is there any chance for a future? Written by one of the hottest authors around responsible for Secret Invasion, Secret Wars and Powers this collects Halo: Uprising #1-4, and Marvel Spotlight: Halo.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7036 in Books
• Published on: 2009-06-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 168 pages

Review
Halo is again and again described as a multimedia experience. If you don't know what that means, then you probably don't care, and there s no problem in that. It won t hamper your enjoyment of Halo: Uprising, assuming this violent sci-fi/alien-invasion series is your cup of tea in the first place.

Suffice to say, Halo is a first-person shooter video game. A longer description would be more appropriate for the phenomenon, but again: If you were really interested in it, you'd probably already know about it. Halo: Uprising serves as a bridge between Halo 2 and Halo 3. As such, there's definitely a feeling of joining a movie in medias res here, and there's little in the way to bring you completely up to speed. Not that you really need it. The story is simple enough to follow along and enjoy: Aliens are attacking Earth, and humans are the good guys.

That's about all you need to understand, although perhaps knowing more would help you glom on to the series opening. In it, a human astronaut has been captured in Mars orbit (this is an unspecified future date) and, before the aliens are about to kill him, he reveals one thing they must find if their invasion is to succeed: a key hidden in Cincinnati.

Meanwhile, back in Cincinnati, that astronaut's brother, unaware of anything that has transpired, is working as a hotel concierge. One of the guests in his hotel is a celebrity singer, a bold, brash woman who saves his life when the aliens attack. As the city is strafed with alien fire, the pair make their way to presumed safety, eventually realizing that they hold the key the aliens are searching for.

Brian Michael Bendis has shown over and over again that he is a terrific writer. But here, paired once again with the simply wonderful artist Alex Maleev (the two previously worked together on a classic Daredevil run), he wisely turns over several pages entirely to Maleev. Maleev takes the ball and runs with it. His artwork is stunning, capturing the cold void of space, the elegance of alien machinery, and the bleakness of futuristic American cities blitzed by warfare. He gives all of them a special flourish.

On its own, Halo: Uprising is an intriguing yet ultimately unfinished read. It's a bridge, after all, and the ending comes just as the reader is finally getting to see the main characters fleshed out and forming real attachments to them. The next installment in the story will be eagerly anticipated. - John Hogan --Graphic Novel Reporter

Customer Reviews

Maybe it won't meet your expectations, but it'll still be a good read.
I enjoy Halo. I love graphic novels. Now, the two have been mashed together with a couple of legends in charge. Should be the perfect combo, no? That's what I thought when I pre-ordered it. Turns out it didn't meet my expectations, but it didn't completely destroy them either.

Chronology:
One thing that was good is that it created a connection between the story arcs in between Halo 2 and Halo 3. There was a bit of a gap in between those two games that left many of us wondering how we got to that opening cutscene in Halo 3. Then the gameplay started and I'm sure many of you, like myself, brushed that to the side and started to whip some covenant behind. To be honest, even after Halo 3 was finished, the story void between the two games didn't even enter my head. After all, if you are playing Halo for the story, your priorities are different from the typical gamer. All that said, when I heard about this novel being released my curiosity was piqued.

Writing:
I'm a little iffy on the writing. It started out fairly lacking and through the first half of the comic I felt that the writer (Bendis) rushed things to get this little project out of the way. It doesn't feel like a labor of love in the least. A few clichéd moments, a couple of them nearly sent a literal groan out of me. All in all, it feels rushed and less than what I've come to expect from Bendis. As we enter the middle of the story things pick up a bit. A few clichéd moments are still sprayed in, but not nearly as bad as the beginning. Bendis really lets his talent shine as we near the end. His foreshadowing techniques are impeccable, leaving you smiling and nodding once they are elucidated. This is subjective, but I think he did a great job with the ending. The story was shorter than expected, but satisfying, nonetheless.

Artistry:
This was done well. Not going to say it would be in the upper echelon of the graphic novel art, but definitely above average. The drawings have that dark gritty graphic novel feel that fans of the scene have grown to know and love. A few scenes seem rushed here also, and it makes me wonder how much time they were given to complete this project originally. That said, it is only a few scenes; the vast majority of the art is outstanding. I wouldn't say Maleev has outdone himself, but he did a quality job.

All in all, I wasn't blown away, but I wasn't disappointed. This is a step forward for video game stories in different mediums, and after the latest Uwe Boll flick, I think you will agree that it is a breath of fresh air.

Very Good Read
The point of these Halo graphic novels is to illustrate the point that the series isn't simply about shooting aliens; there's a greater underlying purpose to your actions as Master Chief when you play the XBox games: saving humanity. You may be just a single person when you pick up that controller but you're not the only person in this war. Many civilians are caught in the crossfire.

To me, this seemed like a longer, yet somewhat less emotional, version of "Second Sunrise Over New Mombasa" from the first Halo Graphic Novel. I enjoyed the longer read but still wished it was double its actual length. The fact that it's less emotional than "Second Sunrise" isn't saying too much because "Second Sunrise" was very, very good and this is worth reading, too.

Finally, the art in this is phenomenal. While the main female character's choice of clothing may make you raise an eyebrow, remember the time period (2054). I'm most likely going to use this as a guide when I decide to draw things from the Halo universe myself.

Solid fan fiction
"Halo Uprising" is a hardcover reprinting of issues #1-#4 of the "Halo Uprising" comic and it tells the story of two brothers Ruwan and James Ackerson and pop star Myras Tyla who are involved in the invasion of Cleveland by the Covenant. James is the sole surviving soldier who has been caught on a raid to a Covenant Dreadnought, and after being tortured tells the enemy that they need The Key Of Osanalan, and that they can only find it in Cleveland where James' brother Ruwan has relocated after the destruction of Mombasa.
As Ruwan is sitting in a hotel's bar, it is attacked, and here he meets pop star Myras Tyla, and together they escape, are captured, and then escape again. After their second escape they run into some Earth forces that are defending Cleveland, and Ruwan spills the beans that The Key Of Osanalan is totally made up, and so far the story is only half over.
Intertwined throughout this story is another story in which Master Chief is making a superhuman raid on a Covenant Dreadnought trying to kill a Covenant Prophet.
I read this graphic novel because of the war story, so the main problem for me is that being unfamiliar with the Halo universe I kept feeling that I was missing something. The whole Master Chief storyline was unnecessary and kept grinding the main story to a standstill, for me that is. Another is that there wasn't enough James. I would have liked to have seen some his story before his capture. The writing as a whole is pretty good, although a bit awkward at times. Although I have to admire Maleev's detailed artwork, his people are all individualistic and easily told apart; and it is often quite spectacular, still, the artwork is also quite often very muddy and stiff, not quite flowing as it should in a comic and with some of the detail lost in the murkiness. The ending however is a solid wrap-up to the story.
"Halo Uprising" also reprints the promotional "Marvel Spotlight: Halo" in which Brian Michael Bendis, Alex Maleev, and Halo creators Frank O'Connor and Brian Jerrard are interviewed, with a good sampling of artwork accompanying each of the interviews, with a portfolio of Maleev's original artwork for "Halo: Uprising" ending the book. I would say that this is good fan fiction, but, if like me, you are unfamiliar with either the Halo universe, or the artist's or author's work you should stay away. This book just doesn't work as an independent work, but fans of "Halo" will probably like and raise it a star or two.