Review by Frank Plowright
Resistance is a first person shooter game for PlayStations introduced in 2006, and two follow-ups had cemented its popularity when this graphic novel tie-in appeared.
An alternate Earth was in the 1950s invaded by an alien race known as the Chimera. Their technological level is in advance of Earth’s, space travel being possible, but not so advanced that there’s absolutely no chance of repelling the invasion. A potent weapon the Chimera have is a virus that transforms humans into mindless beasts, but an experimental US technique has succeeded in rendering some immune to the virus.
Mike Costa’s plot concentrates on a small group of vaccinated US soldiers sent on a mission to retrieve people and effects from the US army base in Anchorage, now in Chimera possession. Some characters are new, but the likes of Sgt Joseph Capelli are transferred from the game.
It might be based on a 21st century video game and feature aliens and the occasional swear word, but the tone of Resistance resembles the serialised war strips of 1960s and 1970s British weekly comics. The embattled soldiers come up against threats that are all types of monster, and lethal whether singular or en masse, but the visual spectacle is largely absent as Ramón Pérez keeps the art dingy like the game. Because there’s no movement it makes for dull pages, and even the threats that ought to thrill fail to elevate the enjoyment.
For fans of the games Costa includes cameos of other leading characters from them, but for the most part you’d be better off playing than reading. The back-up strips by different artists focussing on the backgrounds of the soldiers from the main strip are a little more interesting, but still not different enough to make Resistance worthwhile.
