The Fall of Reach story has already been told in prose form. Did you feel like that freed you up from some pressure or did you think fans might want a comic-book recreation of the novel?
O’Connor: Our fans always want to see the written word brought to life in other forms, movies, animation, you name it. Comic books are such a satisfying storytelling method – where you not only get to enjoy the technique and character of the art, but to be surprised at how a scene you may have imagined differently, is interpreted by the artists and colorists. Sometimes, often, in fact, the surprises are better than your own imagined version.
Reed: One of the first things that was discussed on this project was that it wasn’t going to be just a copy/paste of the novel to comic book format. I get the chance to approach scenes in a more visual manner than they need to be with prose. In a novel you can do two people talking for pages, and it’s interesting. But in comics that’s page after page of close up shots of people’s heads, and you have to be more visually inventive than that.
What scenes from the novel will you be expanding on?
Reed: Since very little is getting a 1:1 transfer over from the novel, that’s a tricky question to answer. Like film adaptations, you’ll see lots of beats you recognize, but in slightly different form. We do see some brand new stuff as well, specifically in these first few issues we expand on the character of Robert Watts, the traitor the Spartans are tasked with capturing on their first mission.
O’Connor: This will be a fairly faithful adaptation, without too many drastic variations, but the order of revelations will be adjusted to suit the format and the staging of “shots” and scenes will probably bring a few surprises with it. That said, we’re not going to deviate too far from the excellent Eric Nylund novel.
Since this is essentially Master Chief’s origin, readers will get to see what he looks like before he dons his iconic armor? What was the process for nailing his pre-SPARTAN look?
Reed: Yes, John -117’s face is exposed for a great deal of this series. The look really came from Felix Ruiz and his talks with Microsoft’s key Halo guys. The fun of John is that we first meet him as a kid, so we get to age him up over the course of the series.
O’Connor: This isn’t as controversial as it sounds. Eric’s novel very deliberately describes the young MC (yes, I just said that) and the comic-book version is faithful to that description, with a lot of input from 343 which usually goes along the lines of “Tougher, braver, colder, more disciplined…” etc. But we’re working with amazing artists and writers at Marvel and they usually nail it.
Part of Master Chief’s allure has been that he’s so mysterious. How did you balance that keeping him enigmatic with trying to create some emotional connections between him and the other characters in the book?
Reed: The novel did a really good job of fleshing Master Chief out and making him more than a faceless guy. We first meet him as a boy, and we know him as John for most of the story. It’s funny how much empathy you get for someone when they stop being a rank and become a name. In the comic I’ve tried to build on what Eric Nylund laid out in the novel, and steal a few more peeks inside John’s mind as the story goes along.
O’Connor: His allure in the games is certainly enigma, in part that enigma is fueled by the genre – first-person games put you “inside” the character and seldom deviate from that perspective. In the novels, however, the Chief is a perfectly fleshed-out character with a real personality and history, relationships and a gamut of elements that are contrary to the FPS gaming experience.
What’s your favorite moment from the Halo games?
O’Connor: I have so many, it’s hard to pick one. But if I were forced, it would probably be the first moment after crash landing the Bumble Bee escape pod on Halo in the first game. You come out of this wreckage and look into the sky, where the silvery arc of the Halo extends above you – the effect is literally dizzying and I remember thinking, “this is just the beginning. “ And so it was.
Reed: In Halo: Combat Evolved, It’s probably a tie between the first encounter with the Flood, and the run at the end, as everything goes to hell.
Halo 2: The beat when — even though you knew it was coming — you find the second Halo. I mean, the game’s called Halo 2, there’s going to be a second Halo. But it was still just such a great “oh hell” moment for the characters that it was fun for me as well.
Halo 3: I loved the fight on Earth and the battle to get into the portal off world. The scope of that fight, with the big ships flying over the city, and all hell breaking loose — it’s beats like that you play games for.