Gears of War #1 Review

Gears of War #1
Videogames get a bad rap for having bad stories when compared to other mediums such as books. It could be because a lot of videogames are a little lacking in the plot department, or it could be because even if a game has a great story, it is completely butchered by someone, such as Uwe Boll, who has no understanding of how to handle a great concept.

The Gears of War comic seems to follow the same trend of taking a good idea created in the videogame world and completely butchering it, knowing that even if it is awful, people are still buying the name. Sure, Gears doesn't have an amazing story in the ways the "Halo" or "Bioshock" games do, but the overly macho heroes fighting off a mysterious monster horde on a futuristic planet is still entertaining, except when transfered over to the pages of a comic book, apparently.

The art is mediocre at best. The story involves a lame search and rescue mission that ends in a fight with the Locust. The first issue in a comic arc usually are slow and get things moving for the next few issues, but this story seems to have no direction other than to rescue survivors who have gone missing and return to the human stronghold. It is possible that an exciting threat will arise, or that a new important mission will sidetrack the Gears from getting back to base, but so far it seems as if nothing is happening that couldn't be summed up in one short level in the Gears of War videogame. Hopefully the writers have something much larger planned, because if they don't, this could be a very short series.

2/5 stars

"Gears of War" brings the battle to comics

Lets talk video games for a moment as a nice break from the daily grind of the rat race that is comic book blogging.

Well, it's not really a break since we're still previewing a comic but at least we finally don't have to talk about Spider-man, Batman, Ant-Man and all the other "Man"'s (yes, Wonder Woman is a man) in the comic-verse.

On October 8, gear-heads can wet their palettes for the locust-style mayhem and carnage with a new on-going series from DC/Wildstorm based upon the hugely popular game, "Gears of War."

The series is said to connect the events of the first installment with the beginning of the sequel, the cleverly titled "Gears of War 2," which is set for an early November release.

"Gears of War" will follow ultimate badass Marcus Fenix and his team of ragtag soldiers who make the Delta squad as they fight their way through the locust horde trying to stop the destruction of earth.

Sounds sweet, I know, but will the series be as good as the game?

"Halo" was made into a 4-part miniseries last year with writer extraordinaire Brian Michael Bendis at the helm. You could almost hear the cash rolling in, it seemed like such a sure-fire success.

Yet, we still await the release of the ever-elusive concluding chapter after mediocre sales, at best.

Who knows though? With "Gears of War" being written by actual game writer, Joshua Ortega, who's worked previously on titles such as "Death Dealer" and artist Liam Sharp weilding the pencils, it would seem that this new series could just stand a chance.

The first arc, which comprises of six issues, will be the deciding factor, but "Gears of War" seems to be on the right track to be a killer book. Only time will tell.