Living life on the ledge.
Creative Staff:
Story: Christofer Emgard
Art: Mattias Haggstrom, Robert Sammelin
What They Say:
Leading up to the events of the highly anticipated new Mirror’s Edge game comes an exhilarating comic prequel that delves into the story of Faith, one of the most celebrated heroines in video games! Dare to enter the fast-paced, high-stakes world of life on the mirror’s edge!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Serving as a prequel to the upcoming game, Mirror’s Edge: Exordium is my first comic experience with the property. I can’t say that I played the original game itself, though I did sample the demo at the time that it came out and enjoyed the overall idea of it. My gaming skills simply aren’t in that direction so I never followed it up, though I admired its visual design and intent of gameplay. So with this series I’m really looking at it as its own work, connected to other properties that I’m not involved with, and curious to see how well it stands up on its own. The opening issue may have a few gaps to be sure about the way of the world, but with a simple background piece on the first page it manages to catch a new reader up quickly so you can just get on with the story itself.
The book revolves around Faith, an up and coming runner that’s being held back because of Noah, the leader of the group. She’s not able to be part of the larger interconnected network, which offers up its own challenges for runners and others, and that only gets to be worse here as she starts getting involved in datagrabs without permission from him. Some of that protective nature is warranted as we learn that her mother was Erika, a rather important person from the first series that was even noted by Dogen, one of the bigger criminal bosses of the city that operates out of the high rises. Unfortunately for Faith, the datagrab she goes on gets underway in a solid and engaging way as she distracts security but she ends up running into a deal happening on a separate rooftop with some of Dogen’s men, and that means they can’t just let that slide.
It’s no surprise to see her get an offer to work for Dogen considering her heritage and meaning there for him but also the general skill that he’s already heard about for her to get as far as she has. This sets up the basic problem of the book for Faith; she wants to be a runner, to prove herself but is going to be intentionally held back by Noah. And that means what she wants to do is going to be out of reach for quite some time. Yet the potential to be a runner of a different sort for Dogen is on the table and his forthrightness about her mother is appealing, even if she knows she can’t trust him. Just the fact that he’ll interact and put faith in her abilities raises him above Noah, though it shouldn’t. It’s fairly familiar material to be sure and you can see some of how it will all unfold from the get go here because of the overall dynamic with the restrictions being placed on her. So it just becomes a matter of whether the trappings become engaging enough.
In Summary:
And those trappings are some of the hardest things to bring from one medium to another. The appeal of the games is the mixture of puzzles and movement/action as the characters move across the rooftops and other areas. We get a minor race challenge here about midway through and that shows how it can be done, though it’s not something that really conveys the same feeling. It’s a linear and straightforward piece that doesnt’ draw you into the movement simply because it can’t like the game does or a movie could. So the focus and strength has to be elsewhere. This installment tries to lay the foundations of the area and it succeeds in a light way, which allows the character side to move forward. There’s not a lot of strength or uniqueness here but it sets the right notes and plays them well enough. I’m admittedly curious to see if it can be taken up a notch or two into something more or if this is pretty much going to coast from here. But it does have me curious.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: September 9th, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
