THUN’DA RETURNS AT DYNAMITE!

IN COMIC STORES EVERYWHERE THIS COMING AUGUST! 

May 17th, 2011, Runnemede, NJ – Thun’da makes his return to comic books this August from Dynamite!  Written by Robert Place Napton with art by Cliff Richards and an INCREDIBLE cover by Jae Lee!  As a bonus, this over-sized issue also includes the original first Thun’da story with fantastic art by the one-and-only Frank Frazetta at no extra cost!  Be sure to pick up Thun’da #1 in August!

In August’s Thun’da #1, a Military helicopter crash lands in a remote valley in Africa.  A lone survivor awakens with no memory of who he is or what he was doing there, but he’s wearing a uniform and is a skilled combatant.  From the wreckage he learns only his name — ROGER DRUM.  As he explores his new surroundings he is confronted by a bizarre lost world of dinosaurs and other strange creatures.  Drum must learn to survive in this terrifying new reality while coming to terms with fragments of a past he isn’t sure he wants to remember.

“What excited me about THUN’DA is the aspects that differentiate him from other Jungle Lords,” says writer Robert Place Napton.  “One of the coolest elements of the original story that we are expanding on as we move the character into the modern day is that he is a CIPHER — ROGER DRUM has amnesia as a result of his crash in Africa so the details of his past life are murky.  He was like JASON BOURNE before there was JASON BOURNE, so we are picking up the baton on that aspect and taking it a step further.  He has military training, he’s a bad ass, but instead of being pitted against other combatants he’s facing the dangers of a LOST WORLD so even with all his skill, he is facing challenges he’s not prepared for, with the added burden of being haunted by his past.”

 “This project came as a gift to me,” adds artist Cliff Richards. “Since I was young reader, Frank Frazetta´s drawings always fascinated me. I couldn’t be happier about Thun’da and I bet the readers will love the book!”

 “Robert Place Napton’s story will surely please all Thun’da fans everywhere,” says Dynamite President and Publisher Nick Barrucci.  “The interior art by Cliff Richards is unbelievable in how much passion Cliff is pouring into every page.  We don’t want to give away a lot yet, but these sketches by Cliff says a lot.  And the Jae Lee cover is just amazing!  And with a 48-page count sold at regular price, readers can also enjoy the first Thun’da story by Frank Frazetta!”

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About Dynamite Entertainment:

DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT was founded in 2004 and is home to several best-selling comic book titles and properties, including The Shadow, The Boys, Green Hornet, Vampirella, Warlord of Mars, Bionic Man, Game of Thrones and more!

In addition to their critically-acclaimed titles and best selling comics, Dynamite works with some of the most high profile creators in comics and entertainment, including Alex Ross, John Cassaday, Garth Ennis, Michael Avon Oeming, Mel Rubi, Marc Guggenheim, Stephen Sadowski, Mike Carey, Jim Krueger, Greg Pak, Brett Matthews, Jae Lee, Matt Wagner and a host of up and coming new talent!

Dynamite recently won the Diamond Gem Award for Best Publisher Under 4% of market share for 2011!

DYNAMITE is consistently ranked in the upper tiers of comic book publishers and several of their titles – including Alex Ross and Jim Krueger’s PROJECT SUPERPOWERS – have debuted in the Top Ten lists produced by Diamond Comics Distributors. Several of their titles have also hit The New York Times Best-Sellers list: The Boys, Vampirella Archives, Robert Jordan’s New Spring and Wheel of Time graphic novels. In 2005 Diamond awarded the company a GEM award for Best New Publisher and another GEM in 2006 for Comics Publisher of the Year (under 5%). The company has also been nominated for several industry awards, including the prestigious Eisner Award.

In Avengers Academy #29, Wiz Kid assembled the mutant students to talk about what they felt about and were going to do about the treatment of the Utopia X-Men kids. Hazard is there, but she says she isn’t a mutant. X-23 is there, but she’s not a mutant. She’s a clone.

But why aren’t the Avengers Academy kids (minus Reptil who got his powers from a magical amulet) considered mutants? We’ve seen some back story and have seen/heard when they first manifested their powers and that just screams mutant. During puberty? Check. Great stress? Check

Hazmat’s first manifestation sounds extremely close to Rogues. She’s in her room with a boy and goes to kiss him, powers manifest and the boy is hurt. Hazmat might get a pass because she said her parents worked for Roxxon and thought she had been exposed to a chemical as a child.

But the others appear to have been born with their abilities. So why aren’t they mutants? If they aren’t mutants, then what are they?

By the rules of the Marvel Universe, they should be mutants.

Why weren’t Wiz Kid and Ricochet in Utopia when the island was formed? They are both mutants. All the mutants went to San Francisco and the kids had classes on Utopia. Why weren’t Wiz Kid and Ricochet invited?

Only mutants that appeared in the X-Men books got invited?

What defines a mutant? Wasn’t it always being born with the genetic differences that would manifest as powers? That’s what it sounds like with the Avengers Academy students. Veil manifested her powers as an awkward teenager in a moment of great stress. Mettle was revealed to have metal skin when he had a surfing accident and a chunk of flesh was ripped away. Finesse seems to have inherited the same abilities as her presumed father, Taskmaster, which would technically not make her a mutant since one of the rules (which may have been overturned) was that children with identical powers weren’t considered mutants. And Striker manifested his during a moment of great stress when someone tried to molest him.

The idea behind Hope was that she was the first new mutant since the Scarlet Witch’s “no more mutants” proclamation. Since Hope returned to the present there have been the five “lights”, new mutants manifesting their powers during puberty and moments of great stress. Sound familiar?

Are the Avengers Academy kids mutants? If so they didn’t lose their abilities during M-Day and it means that the possiblity of there being others like them out there exists. So what makes Hope Summers so special then?

But what does the aftermath of this event mean for the other respective titles involved in it? Today, take a sneak peek at what’s to come next in LEGION LOST.

“The Lost Legionnaires find their way home to the 31st century! And what they find is the worst thing that could ever happen! If you don’t believe me, check out this exclusive art from the next issue!” series editor Brian Cunningham told THE SOURCE.

Below, take an exclusive first look at LEGION LOST #10, in stores on June 13th.

But what does the aftermath of this event mean for the other respective titles involved in it? Today, take a sneak peek at what’s to come next in TEEN TITANS.

“The teens find themselves thrust into a very unlikely (and awesome and mysterious) locale in issue #10 with no visible means of getting home, which will give them some time to reflect on what they’ve done. Red Robin, especially, will examine his own culpability in the Culling Affair, and what effect it will have on the continuation of the team as it currently stands,” Editorial Director Bobbie Chase revealed to THE SOURCE. “Kid Flash discovered something unusual – a mystery about his past, in the hands of someone from the 31st Century who seemed to know him! How does Timber Wolf know more about Bart than Bart knows about himself?”

Below, take an exclusive first look at TEEN TITANS #10, in stores on June 27th.

Key Review Points

Pros:

• Humourous interplay between Toph, Sokka, and Toph’s metal-bending students.
• Gurihiru art team does a great job of combining the animation’s visual aesthetic and their own style.
• Surprising soap opera romance developments sure to thrill fans of certain characters.

Cons:

• Main overarching plot about the brewing tension between the Earth and Fire Nation doesn’t progress in any significant way.

Publication Details

• Publisher: Dark Horse Books (a division of Dark Horse Comics)
• Publication Date: May 2012
• Script by: Gene Luen Yang
• Art and Cover by: Gurihiru
• Lettered by: Michael Heisler
• Avatar: The Last Airbender created by: Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino
• Format: 80-page full-colour trade paperback
• List Price: $10.99 US (digital review copy provided free-of-charge by the publisher)
• Availability: On sale on 30 May, 2012

Cover and Interior Page Previews (Click to view in larger size)

  

Full Review

In February’s Leaving Proof review of Avatar: the Last Airbender–The Promise, Part 1, I wondered how far writer Gene Luen Yang (Animal Crackers, American Born Chinese) was willing to take the The Promise‘s seeming parallel with post-World War I Europe, with the Fire Nation standing in for Weimar Republic Germany and the Harmony and Restoration Movement as an analogue for the somewhat retaliatory Treaty of Versailles. We don’t get the answer to that question in Avatar: the Last Airbender–The Promise, Part 2 as the narrative shifts its primary focus—from the Avatar’s attempts to introduce a workable détente between an increasingly belligerent Fire Nation and a vindictive Earth Nation—to a rather lighthearted Toph Beifong subplot introduced in Part 1. The change of pace and the move away from the grim footing of The Promise‘s first installment are welcome, although towards the end, the story about Toph Beifong’s upstart metal-bending academy starts to wear a little thin.

Part of the book is devoted to showing Aang and Katara’s efforts at finding a diplomatic solution to the disagreement between Fire Lord Zuko and Earth King Kuei over the status of citizens in former Fire Nation colonies before the sabre-rattling turns to all-out war. These sequences don’t really advance the plot significantly; arguments from the first book are repeated and one gets the sense that the characters involved are simply waiting for the inevitable showdown (or last-minute compromise deal—this is an Avatar: The Last Airbender book after all, more nuanced than many other action-heavy fantasy properties).

The bulk of the book is devoted to a story featuring master earth- and metal-bender Toph Beifong, with the help of the always amusing Sokka, preparing her first class of metal-bending students for a fight against a rival school of fire-benders over the ownership rights to their dojo. Yang gets a lot of mileage from the humourous interplay between Toph, Sokka, and the misfits that are the students of Toph’s recently-founded metal-bending academy but as entertaining as this subplot is, I couldn’t help but feel that it would have benefited from being trimmed down somewhat. All but the most novice readers will suss out early on how the confrontation between the student metal-benders and the fire-benders will shake out, and Yang’s belabouring of the point about how terribly over-matched Toph’s students are only really serves to telegraph his intentions with the story.

The soap opera romance aspect of Avatar: The Last Airbender gets fair play in this book, with some surprising developments (some that may have implications on the lineage of certain characters in The Legend of Korra) that I’ll leave to readers to find out when the book comes out at the end of the month.

As in the first installment of The Promise, the Gurihiru art team (illustrator Sasaki and colourist/designer Kawano) does a great job of combining the animation’s visual aesthetic and their own distinct style. Certain characters like Aang and Toph look particularly slimmer and taller than they’ve been portrayed in the cartoons and previous comics, but readers should keep in mind that this story takes place over a year after the conclusion of the animated series, and that characters will have to have grown and matured physically.

Sokka and Toph’s adventures in Avatar: the Last Airbender–The Promise, Part 2 are a fun distraction from the overarching conflict at the core of this mini-series, but this installment will likely read much better as part of the larger story of The Promise. Bring on Part 3!

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Artist Khoi Pham returns!

May 16, 2012

I have been a Spider-Fan since my earliest comic reading days. Even though I don’t regularly make mine Marvel anymore, occasionally I have a soft spot for the wall crawler and family. I am generally annoyed following the reboots and cross overs of Peter Parker, but sometimes it is nice to see what is happening on the peripheral edges of the Spider-Myth.

This series started with several different Spider-Women

Spider-Woman is a mantle that has been passed around since the late 70s when Jessica Drew burst onto the scene. The late 90s Spider-Woman is fun because it brings in Jessica Drew, Julia Carpenter, Charlotte Winter, and of course Mattie Franklin into the story line.

Mattie was a fan of the local hero Spider-Man. When she was bequeathed by mystical power in a ceremony, she first tried to impersonate her hero. Over time she became her own hero. That motion toward her independence was under the tutelage of Madame Web and Jessica Drew.

This is a series that did okay when it was fresh on the comic shop shelves, but one that isn’t referenced often in the modern comic shop conversation. When Spider-Woman discussions arise, they tend to focus on the red and yellow Jessica Drew which is a classic choice, but not the only young woman to have carried the mantle.

Mattie’s penchant for changing uniforms may also degrade her status as a Spider Icon. In a fairly compressed amount of time she changed outfits numerous times. She didn’t quite have a new outfit with each issue, but every story arc seemed to have its own style.

Some of the styles were related to the more famous blue and red spider fellow, while some were just zany. They featured a youthful glee at having newly acquired super powers.

During the late 90s run, Mattie and company was drawn primarily by Bart Sears on pencils. John Bryne wrote the series. Although issue #10 Bryne’s story with guest artists’ Erik Larsen and Randy Elliot.  The series has a vibe that would appeal to Erik Larsen fans throughout. Bryne told a fast paced story with zany characters and quick resolutions. British born Bryne did a fine job crafting the story.

Besides the Spider-Women past and present the series also had a few wild villains. Shape shifters seem common place in comics. This particular elder was channeling the Savage Six, combining Rhino, Ock, and Venom all at once. Another oddity was Flesh and Bones which is almost too disgusting to describe yet absolutely fun. This is a character set that must be seen to be believed. Mattie’s rogue gallery also included the looming danger of Charlotte Winters, Harry Osborne, and other familiar faces.

Flesh and Bone is a crazy character

This series of Mattie Franklin Spider-Woman is not heralded as iconic and legendary. It would be a strange comic shop where masses are huddled around in deep discussion. That’s a shame. This series exists in its own corner of late 90s Marvel Comics. It isn’t bogged down by cross-over or forced event. Instead it is an exploration of Bryne handling a Marvell character in a new way. This is a series that should be sought out by Spider fans that want to read a series without worrying about other titles.

While I’m a Spider-Fan, I find myself enjoying stand alone stories or at least stories that don’t require me to buy several titles at once and reassemble the reading order like a puzzle. This Spider-Woman provides that.

This is a series that is accessible and available to new readers.

In an age of trade paperbacks, it is easy to pick up story arcs and play catch up with classic series. Although not all comics are readily collected. I appreciate that Spider-Woman isn’t easily found in a handy volume. While it might make easier to pick up and share, I enjoy the scavenger hunt. It is too easy to turn to an on-line retailer and pick up the series. For more of a challenge, visit back issue bins and cobble  together this series. The 1999 series only sports 18 issues making this a fun comic to seek out. You might be surprised how many dollar bins feature this comic series.

Spider-Woman History

• Jessica Drew, the original Spider-Woman, left the role in the early 1980s. As of the late 2000s, she has returned. Like countless other comic characters she doesn’t stay away well.  This version of the character starred in her own animated TV series in 1979. First appearance in Marvel Spotlight #32 (1977). Even in the 1999 series Drew suited back up when her powers were being restored magically.
• Julia Carpenter, a former member of the superhero teams the Avengers and Omega Flight, who becomes the second enigmatic Madame Webb.
• Mattie Franklin, who briefly impersonated Spider-Man before receiving her own short-lived comics series and appeared in the 2007 Loners miniseries. First appearance in The Spectacular Spider-Man #236 (1996).
• Charlotte Witter, a grand daughter of Madame Webb, is a super-villain who used the name briefly before being defeated by Mattie Franklin that reasserted the name with various quick costume changes. First appearance The Amazing Spider-Man vol. 2, #5 (1999).
• Veranke, queen of the shape-shifting extraterrestrial race the Skrulls, who impersonated Jessica Drew over a long period of time and was a founding member of the superhero team the New Avengers. Because everyone was a Skrull underneath so why shouldn’t Spider Woman be too? First appearance New Avengers #1 (2005)
• Another version of Mary Jane as Spider-Woman is featured in the Exiles series.
• Spider-Girl May Parker, daughter of Spider-Man in an alternate future.
• Spider-Girl is currently Anya Corazon who took the mantle after the Marvel Civil War. She had previously been Araña, a hero tied into the mythical side of the Spider-Mythology.

Toxin has the over sized, unrestrained look that is similar to the unfettered Venom. The visual is similar to the Daniel Way version of Venom.  The Hulkish Blob-like shape of Venom makes an abrupt distinction between the versions of Venom. Toxin’s over sized amorphous shape is even more free form. It isn’t a look that I care for but overall the story is strong enough that I can over look it.

It is still curious that the Savage Six is only a five part arc. Given the name, it looks like a sixth part would round things out nicely.Inevitably shaping the arc for the trade paperback will probably be fine since Remender works well in five issue units.

This is a fight heavy book. Betty and Peter do have a heart to heart about living with Flash.Flash is connected to the people in his life. There is little mention of the Secret Avengers–but also a good reason why Flash can’t call them in to help.

The last page reveal is a shock for Betty but it seems inevitable for the reader. It is still well done.

Published by: Image Comics
Written by: Nathan Edmondson
Art & Colors by: Nic Klein
Lettered by: Jeff Powell

This starts off in one direction and ends up somewhere else by the end and it’s hard to get a handle on just what it is.

Edmondson is quickly becoming a master of the spy comic. It’s a genre he’s obviously comfortable and he can approach it from new angles. Dancer is an example of that. The story starts off simply enough, focusing on a shooter named Alan Fisher. Then we meet his girlfriend, a dancer named Quinn, and we start to develop an idea of where this series is going. It seems like it’ll center around Quinn finding out what Alan does, as he’s compromised and is now being hunted.

But the last pages really throw a curveball into the works.

The story is solid. Edmondson writes a solid comic. It’s interesting and the two main characters are fleshed out enough for us to start to latch onto them. The one negative is that there’s no clear direction for what this series will be about. I’m also a little unsure about Quinn’s reactions to learning about Alan’s job. We hadn’t seen their relationship enough, so it’s hard to be convinced that she would that easily accept the revelation and not try to run.

With Quinn’s red hair, and dance background, I couldn’t help but start drawing parallels to the Black Widow and I have to wonder if that’s the direction this will end up going. Which wouldn’t be a bad thing because Edmondson has demonstrated that he can approach the espionage genre from new directions.

It’s the last pages. They got me very interested in seeing what is going on.

Klein’s art is very solid. He’s got the technical aspects down. The panels flow smoothly and are easy to follow. There’s no jumps in the flow, matching up well with the script. He does really well with the last page, having the two men in the same positions. It was a very well laid out page.

Dancer #1 receives
3.5 out of 5

Memorial #5
Published by: IDW Publishing
Written by: Chris Roberson
Art by: Rich Ellis

I really like this series, and the world being created. The patchwork nature of it leaves all the cards on the table. Em is a good character, serving as a good point of view onto the world. I’m calling it now, Em is the missing sister.

4.5 out of 5

Wolverine And The X-Men #10
Published by: Marvel Comics
Written by: Jason Aaron
Penciled by: Chris Bachalo

I don’t like that this was a tie-in issue. But at least Jason Aaron made it good. “You’ve got a Krakoa? Where’d you get a Krakoa” is probably the best line all year. Bachalo makes the talking head sense extremely interesting. It’s a great looking book. Love the little bits of Krakoa popping up everywhere. Decent philosophical discussion but I still feel like there isn’t any meat to it.

4.5 out of 5

Morning Glories #18
Published by: Image Comics
Written by: Nick Spencer
Art by: Joe Eisma

At last some things are starting to come together and make a little bit of sense. Took long enough. There’s a major Lost vibe to this series now, a good team and a bad team. It’s still more confusing then it needs to be though. Eisma’s figures are still pretty stiff.

3 out of 5

Uncanny X-Force #25
Published by: Marvel Comics
Written by: Rick Remender
Art by: Mike McKone

Really, really liked McKone’s art in this issue. Some of his best. Story was just okay. I get what Remender is trying to do with the “are we murderers” angle but he’s not selling it that well. I liked the White Room, it was great up until the Omega Clan was introduced. No thanks.

3 out of 5

X-Men Legacy #266
Published by: Marvel Comics
Written by: Christos Gage
Penciled by: Rafa Sandoval

So the Avengers think it’s okay to show up at a school to keep an eye on it and make sure no one there gets involved? None of them have an issue with that? Did everyone involved with this event take bad-writing pills? At least it looks good.

2.5 out of 5

The Punisher #11
Published by: Marvel Comics
Written by: Greg Rucka
Art by: Mirko Colak

My biggest issue with Punisher books was “how do you keep it interesting”. Frank Castle is basically a one-note guy. He kills criminals. End of story. The more you try to build a rogues gallery, the more time these people escape, the more inept the Punisher looks. And there’s only so much material with the character. So I like what Rucka is doing. He’s using the Punisher, not as the main focus/character, but as the force around which everything rotates. It’s a great way to handle the character and keep the book interesting.

4 out of 5

Captain America #11
Published by: Marvel Comics
Written by: Ed Brubaker
Art by: Patrick Zircher

Nice to see Diamondback again. I like the angle that she’s working with SHIELD. Good place for her. I’ve always liked the Scourge concept and nice to see it back again. Excellent art by Zircher.

4 out of 5

Read: Demon Knights #9, Fairest #3, G.I. Joe #13, Scarlet Spider #5, The Ultimates #10, Batgirl #9, Ultimate Spider-Man #10

The free comic, which is supposed to fill in readers on the events that occurred between the end of 2003′s Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne and the just-released Max Payne 3, is written by game lead writer and Rockstar Games VP of Creativity Dan Houser and Sami Järvi (a.k.a. Sam Lake), the lead writer on the first two Max Payne games developed by Finland-based Remedy Entertainment. The book’s art team consists of Spanish illustrator Fernando Blanco (Manhunter, Army of Darkness) on line art, Matt Wilson on colours, and Greg Horn on covers.

Before we start looking at what this partnership between Rockstar and Marvel means in the grand scheme of all things comics, if you’ll indulge me, here’s a brief backgrounder on my experience with the Max Payne series: The first two entries in the franchise are probably two of my favourite games on the PC. I really enjoyed the deliberately cheesy noir-styled writing coupled with what was then the novel “bullet time” mechanic and rock-solid third-person shooter controls. A large number of other gamers did, too: Max Payne and its sequel, Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, sold a combined 7.5 million copies (on PC, PS2, XBox, and Game Boy Advance) and the original game has recently been ported to the Android and iOS smartphone and tablet platforms.

Despite my history with the popular video game franchise—or perhaps because of it—I regarded the announcement of Max Payne 3 warily for a number of reasons. While the first two games were developed by Finland-based Remedy Entertainment (although Max Payne 2 was developed in conjunction with Rockstar Vienna), Max Payne 3 was to be a wholly “in-house” Rockstar Games production made by the publisher/developer’s Vancouver studio. The early preview screenshots and videos of the game, which revealed a new, generically bald-pated look for the protagonist and a rather baffling decision to set the majority of the game in the tropics, made it look less like a true successor and more like a different third-person shooter altogether that had the Max Payne franchise tag haphazardly slapped onto it. I also felt that the original developers had taken Max Payne’s story to a satisfying (if somewhat open-ended) conclusion with the sequel, and that a second sequel would likely result in diminished narrative and creative returns (a.k.a., “The Curse of the ‘Threequel’”). I do try to approach popular entertainment like comics and video games with as open a mind as possible, though (you have to, if you want to write about them for any length of time), so I set my predisposition aside in reading Max Payne 3: After the Fall.

While we only get a relatively brief read with After the Fall that consists almost entirely of exposition by way of flashbacks, the fact that the actual Max Payne game writers are directly involved in the creation of the comic means that the comic book faithfully retains the franchise’s dark humour and that it will almost assuredly avoid the kind of sloppy and embarrassing canonical slip-ups that can often be seen in video game novelizations and similar types of tie-ins.

Bungie and Marvel's "The Halo Graphic Novel" was a critical and commercial hit

More important than how the comic book eventually pans out creatively or technically however—although I have to stress that what we’ve seen so far of the comic book is nothing less than well-executed and solidly entertaining work—is what this collaboration between Rockstar and Marvel represents in terms of its distribution and revenue model. This isn’t the first time Marvel has teamed up with a major seventh-generation video game developer or publisher to create a licensed comic book, of course; 2006′s The Halo Graphic Novel that Marvel created in conjunction with Halo: Combat Evolved developer Bungie Studios was a surprise critical and commercial hit, debuting at #2 in the Nielsen BookScan sales charts for graphic novels sold at bookstores (the highest-ranked debut at the time for a non-manga/non-movie tie-in title) and at #33 overall on Amazon. But The Halo Graphic Novel was sold and distributed like it was just any other graphic novel or trade paperback, via the usual online and brick-and-mortar sales channels. Max Payne 3: After the Fall is entirely digital (although very limited edition print copies will be made available in raffle drawings) and it is free to read or download, requiring no purchase of the video game it is tied to. Whatever profit Marvel makes from this joint venture will have come from Rockstar Games’ development and marketing budget for Max Payne 3.

The first "inFAMOUS" game sold an estimated 1.2 million copies

I’ve made the argument before that the graphic novel-style cutscenes in video games represent a new and vital arena for the showcasing of comics and sequential art, and indeed, if one were to consider the graphic novel-style cutscenes such as the ones in the Max Payne and inFAMOUS franchises as examples or variants of sequential art in their own right, their readership would rival that of the best-selling comics of all time. Comics-inspired cutscenes, much like a game’s musical score, can serve as a vital part of a hybrid medium like video games. Max Payne 3: After the Fall may be distributed as a digital comic book and a free marketing enticement separate from the game, but for all narrative intents and purposes, it is really an extension of Max Payne 3‘s in-game cutscenes and pre-rendered cinematics.

What graphic novel-style cutscenes and Marvel/Rockstar’s Max Payne 3: After the Fall show us is that sequential art doesn’t have to be a stand-alone enterprise, nor does the cost of its purchase have to be born directly by the reader. Just as certain video games have introduced legions of new and young listeners to classical and orchestral music, the right video games also offer comics creators the opportunity to reach audiences who might never even consider reading a comic book on its own. And as a marketing enticement, it works, too: I might have previously viewed Max Payne 3 with a slightly cynical gaze, but the extent to which the game and comic book’s writers have tried to link it to the previous installments in the series has me softening my stance a bit, and for the first time since the details of its development were publicly confirmed by Rockstar Games three years ago, I’m actually considering getting it.

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