Halo Graphic Novel by Various

This graphic novel is based on the Halo series of Games by Bungie. None are about the man character, John 117, but about other characters and other parts of the story.

The first story in the book, "The Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor", tells of a covenant Elite Spec Ops commander called to aid the Covenant of a ship called the Infinite Succor. The Covenant suspect that the humans have attacked and nearly taken over the ship. But when he boards, he discovers that it isn't the humans, but the Flood that have boarded the ship, although some of them have infected human bodies as hosts.

The Spec Ops commander wants to simply blow the ship up to wipe out the infection of Flood, but he is denied permission and discovers that the Infinite Succor carries a Legate on board who will not release the ship until he can find a way to discover if the SOC is free of the Flood Infection. Once he does, he must find a way to rescue the Legate and destroy the ship before the Flood can break free. But can he do this by himself and still get the Legate to safety?

The Second Story is called "Armor Testing" and shows how the Earth forces field test armor meant for the Spartan units. But is such testing more dangerous to the tester, or to the people attacking it, or to those monitoring the test? At the end, we find that the armor will be going to John-117.

The Third story is called "Breaking Quarantine" and involves Sergeant Avery Johnson, trapped alone in an artifact infected by the flood. He has two choices, die there, or somehow fight his way out. But can he do so totally on his own? This story is dinstinguished by being totally without words.

The Final story is "Second Sunrise Over New Mombasa" and while the city is utterly deserted in the game, this story shows it before it was deserted, and why the people fled.

For a graphic novel, it's not a bad set of stories, but if you haven't played the games, like me, the stories appear a bit disjointed and not good matches for each other. Each is completely different in style, graphic design and storytelling, which is because each is done by a completely different writer and artist. But it makes the changes in storyline and art style seem jarring, as if each new story is a shock to the eyes.

However, if you aren't a fan of the games, or even if you are, unless you are a raving completist, this book is not going to be high on your list of stuff to buy as a game tie-in. It doesn't add much, and you can definitely get by without it. I see no reason to recommend it, as I didn't even find the stories all that interesting.