By Dustin Cabeal

Remember the first Wolfenstein game for the original X-Box? That shit was great, in fact, that was the last time that Wolfenstein as a franchise was great. Everything since has been utter crap, and this comic is no different. Sigh, I shouldn’t say that. This comic isn’t terrible, but it’s not good either.

The main problem is that it ties into the video game way too much. How can I tell that without having played the game? It’s all the dangling story threads that are going nowhere or worse, being left for the game to resolve. The end of the issue says, “To be concluded.” In case you were wondering still, yes, this is the first issue.

There are three stories in this issue. All three start, two of them get interesting and then all three end without any resolution or even a reason to come back to read more. There are cliffhangers or sorts, but none are successful in getting you to want more. Hell, I forgot about two of them until I started this review. The third one stuck with me because it sucks.

There are times when the dialogue is just a massive exposition dump, like a video game telling you all the bullshit info you need before you run around and shoot shit. It’s unnecessary, it didn’t add to the story and frankly was annoying to read. I read it because I have to for the review, but if I were picking this up for leisure, I would have skipped it instantly, and it wouldn’t have made a difference to the story.

The art is all pretty good. There are three different artists, and only the last one was questionable. I thought Blazkowicz had a clone because suddenly the only blonde haired dude looked exactly like him, same build, same hair, same everything. It was confusing. The rest is just kind of boring. There’s not a lot of detail or variety. It looks okay, but the faces needed help. The art on the other two was good, not great. It didn’t stand out or interest me. It was just there to get the job done on visuals.

Video games are still relatively new when compared to other forms of media, but they suffer the worse problem that faces all media. Not knowing when to let a franchise die. Wolfenstein was a fun PC game with a bullshit story. No one cared, it was just fun to shoot shit and be surprised by the game at times. Not scared, surprised because shit man do you remember those graphics? At some point, it became a franchise, but it doesn’t need to be. This comic has too much random ass shit going on, the Nazi’s winning the war, robo-nazi-bots, zombie shit, the occult, some fucking Cthulu type shit because “hey, it’s popular” and none of it goes well together or is interesting on its own. With video games being relatively new they have the chance not to repeat the same mistakes as comic books as movies and let shit go when it’s past it’s prime. Unlike movies and comics, it’s effortless to spot something limping around waiting for death in video games. You can shine up the graphics, you can release a comic tie-in, but at the end of the day, I would never have paid for this comic, and I recommend everyone else do the same. We don’t need Wolfenstein anymore, sure it’s a cool sounding name, but it’s past its point of relevancy. No one’s remaking E.T., so just let go of Wolfenstein already… please.

Score: 2/5

Wolfenstein #1
Titan Comics