The Human Revolution is still raging.
All the usual concerns about comic books inspired by video games aside, The Deus Ex universe is rife with opportunities for spinoffs and side stories, and publisher Titan Comics has built a reputation for publishing comics that generally do justice to the source material. That’s reason enough for fans of the franchise to check out the first issue of Deus Ex Universe: Children’s Crusade. What they’ll find is a comic not unlike Dark Horse’s recent Call of Duty: Black Ops III tie-in – competent but thoroughly unremarkable.
This mini-series bridges the gap between the previous game, Deus Ex: Human Revolution and the upcoming Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. This first issue opens with series protagonist Adam Jensen joining the ranks of Interpol’s Task Force 29 and doing his part to stop terrorist attacks and quiet the escalating conflict between cybernetically augmented people and “naturals.” There’s a fairly dense mythology to wade through ere, and to his credit, writer Alex Irvine is able to wade through the material and make sure that Deus Ex newbies are able to follow the conflict. The downside is that the book is frequently cluttered by Alex’s narration. The numerous captions impede the flow of the story and give the book a detached, clinical feel at times. And because the book is framed from Adam’s point of view at all times, there’s little sense of what the other characters are thinking or feeling.
There’s certainly plenty of action in this issue to keep the plot humming even when the narration does its best to slow things down. Artist John Aggs captures the distinctive cyberpunk aesthetic of the games well enough. It’s a bit disappointing that so much of the action in this issue involves straightforward gunplay, but occasionally the characters make use of their augmented abilities. This series unfortunately suffers from the same flaw so many video game-based comics still encounter – the coloring isn’t up to par. Proper coloring is essential to capturing the moody glow and lighting of the games, and that element simply doesn’t survive the transition from game to paper.
The moments that stand out the most in this issue are the little ones – the moments that offer a more subtle insight into Prague society and how the civil unrest is affecting the average man on the street. For example, there’s a gripping sequence where a mother relates how she put herself into debt in order to buy her blind daughter a pair of cybernetic eyes. Moments like that give this series a warmth and humanity it otherwise lacks. The book needs more of that going forward.
There are far worse options when it comes to filling the gap until Deus Ex: Mankind Divided hits than reading this prequel comic. Deus Ex Universe #1 is a competent but largely unremarkable tie-in that doesn’t do enough to make the reader connect with the characters. There are moments when the comics shows a warmth and emotion, however, and they offer hope that this series can become something more as it unfolds.
