We’re in part two now of a five-part series. The thing about this series is that each issue is a standalone story. Kinda cool. Last month we got to see twenty seconds of a pilot’s firefight while waiting for backup. This month we get to see the repercussions of being a hothead and forgetting that you’re part of a team, where survival is based on trust and selflessness. I didn’t know what to expect when I opened this. I guess that I was kind of surprised when I found out that it wasn’t about combat, but instead was about your actions outside of the battlefield. Kinda made me think a little. I didn’t relate to the main character of this story or anything, he’s a jerk, but it definitely made me appreciate the fact that I’ve never been a glory hog. So yes, there’s a moral at the end. Actually, the moral is kind of peppered throughout. Jim Mahfood writes and illustrates this issue of Hawken: Melee. Since everyone’s initial thought when opening a comic is “hmm, I like the look of this”, or “this is interesting”, or “you know what, I don’t like this”, I’ll admit that I was instantly attracted to the art. Since that is, in fact, the first thing that I saw, that’s a good thing. Unless you want to count the cover that was drawn by Jock (which is awesome). But that isn’t why I read it. Mahfood’s art style definitely matches the script of this issue. I got the impression that I was watching an even more poorly dressed Vanilla Ice walking around spouting some of the dumbest nonsense ever spoken. This guy makes every mistake that you can possibly make. He’s found a way to make his entire team dislike him. Honestly, I don’t think that it would be hard to dislike anybody that has his bad habits.

I enjoyed this issue for what it was, but I don’t think that it was anything groundbreaking. It was cool to look at, but I would have preferred that it, in some way follow in the same direction that the other Hawken books have gone. I’m not saying that it needed to be more violent, God forbid that I sound like some kind of warmonger, but I definitely wanted to see some more action. Or maybe I just wanted to see a little more action that didn’t involve some fast-talking super-douche that didn’t know when to shut up. The message was definitely important, and I get the reasoning why someone would need to see the negatives of being a jerk, but I just don’t think that this was the right format to get that point across. So this issue was interesting. I hope that that is enough incentive to get you to go pick this up, because it’s definitely worth a read. But if I were doing a group review on this, I think that I’d slap a “Borrow” on it.

Score: 3/5 

Writer/Artist: Jim Mahfood Publisher: Boom/Archaia Entertainment Price: $2.99 Release Date: 12/18/13