Halo: Lone Wolf, a new Dark Horse-published miniseries by Anne Toole and Kieran McKeown, follows the Spartan sniper Linda-058 during a mission to neutralize a human traitor on a lost world.
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Although most of the Halo games and tie-in media prominently feature Master Chief (aka John-117), we have gotten brief glimpses of other Spartan soldiers that survived the Human-Covenant War. Many of these Spartans even appeared in supporting roles in Halo 5, but the bulk of their characterization comes from tie-in comics and novels like Lone Wolf.
Linda-058 is the lead character of Lone Wolf, a sniper able to work independently of her team. Her superiors send her to a remote planet where a human traitor from before the Fall of Reach was recently discovered with other missing survivors. It’s made clear that Linda-058 is chosen because of her stoic and detached personality, as her primary mission is to kill the traitor over the rescue of the other survivors.
Toole frames Linda-058’s personality through her interactions with Athos, the AI that accompanied her on a mission. While Athos continuously encourages her to reveal herself to a pair of humans she’s tracking, Linda-058 keeps to the background, picking off threats when she can and prioritizing her mission over protecting humans from Covenant attacks. We can debate the morality of Linda-058’s actions, but it’s interesting that she operates in a much more grey area than other Spartans. Master Chief is always depicted as being able to finish the job, but it seems that Linda-058 takes prioritizing the mission to a much more uncomfortable extreme.
Kieran McKeown’s art is mostly serviceable, although there are sometimes issues figuring out which Covenant aliens were which at times. Most of the issues with the art come from the rather generic designs of both the humans and Linda-058’s armor. The latter part isn’t McKeown’s fault, although I do wish the creative team had found a way to make her look a little more distinctive in the field. Snipers are supposed to blend into their surroundings, but a sniper can look very visually dynamic in action, and this was a missed opportunity from the creative team. It’s a shame because Halo is one of the few video game shooting franchises with distinctive characters and action shots, and this comic didn’t feature either.
Lone Wolf is an interesting chapter in the Halo franchise. While not necessary by any means, the creative team infuse Linda-058 with enough personality to make the comic compelling, and it’s always fun to look into the expanded Halo universe.
Published by Dark Horse Comics
On January 2, 2019
Written by Anne Toole
Art by Kieran McKeown
Colors by Dan Jackson
