: When 343i tries to make something awesome, it comes across as poorly written
: fanfiction.
: "The UNSC Infinity is awesome because it is longer than any other ship
: in the UNSC! It also has shields and Forerunner engines and a whole
: battalion of Spartans and can ram Covenant capital ships in HALF!"

This, so much this. I thought I'd give Initiation a try and already by the second issue the whole thing has degenerated into preposterous nonsense that would be right at home in some pre-teen's first attempt at a fanfic. It's also final proof that Brian Reed has no place writing Halo. This sort of absurdist storytelling where anything can happen as long as it fits the writer's definition of "cool" might be okay in a Marvel superhero comic, but it ruins a setting with any pretense of realism.

Spartans, who we're told are an entire military branch now for some reason, have no rank structure at all? The UNSC's biggest and most secretive project apparently makes no background checks for its construction crew, conveniently allowing a posse of rebels on board? Jun is there, obviously for fanboy pandering, but nothing apart from his name and his tattoo indicates that he's Jun. He might as well be anyone else as far as his behavior is concerned. And then there's the Spartan IVs. I thought the idea with them being recruited from existing military forces was that they've already got the necessary training? Apparently not, since their future commander (who apparently has totally awesome leadership skills which we never see but hear a lot about) makes the same mistake as a six-years old MC in his first day of training, i.e. failing to work as a team?

Yeah, I think Reed needs to go is the Halo franchise is to maintain any semblance of storytelling integrity. Since no one else can apparently do it well (apart from Bungie), they should just get Nylund back. Let him name his price if that's what it takes, I think Microsoft can handle it.