Call of Duty Black Ops III #1 is the start of a new series written by Larry Hama and published by Dark Horse Comics. It’s the official comic prequel to the game of the same name and is set in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. It opens up with John and Eamon procuring weapons from an arms dealer in the slums, and despite being frustrated about it it’s easier to purchase them than smuggle them in. Suddenly the arms dealer is killed on the spot and even though the 2 take care of the killer they also recover their money since the dead dealer will no longer need it. And besides, they can’t wait around because they have to rendezvous with Dylan Stone but when they arrive on the scene there’s already a bloodbath and all that’s left is for them to help Stone destroy the evidence and burn the bodies. That’s not the worst part as he informs them that the leader of those who ambushed him, a Russian woman, escaped and he doesn’t know who she is. Their objective in Tashkent is to hunt Timur Abulayev, a triple agent for Polish Intel. Can they complete their objective efficiently or will this mysterious redheaded Russian woman thwart their plans?

I was waiting for even a minor explanation as to why the arms dealer was killed at the start of this issue by the man with the Spetsnaz Spring Knife until I realized the sole purpose was to reference the knife. If there’s one thing that makes COD addictive for some players it’s being able to unlock new weapons, attachments, etc. and so this issue apparently wanted to capture that feeling with the numerous weapon references. So I can’t even say that the problem was the blatant way in which this was done but no attempt was made to create a cohesive chain of events. Characters pop in and out of nowhere with weapons effectively changing events in an extremely simple way.

SUMMARY

Call of Duty Black Ops III #1 is a perplexing issue with the way the randomness in which certain events occur takes away from any semblance of a cohesive story. And as a result the name dropping of weapons is blatant since that appears to be the only explanation for these events. And the dialogue takes away from this just being a fun action packed issue so it feels like being stuck in a multiplayer chatroom with 10 year olds and unable to mute it. It’s not all bad because the redhead is actually intriguing and the action has momentum later in the issue. However, I’m hoping that next issue is an improvement.

Release Date: 11/4/15

Writer: Larry Hama

Artist: Marcelo Ferreira