The tagline for this series reads as follows:  “Rising star in the professional gaming world, Tess is faced with a choice: stay in the safety of the corporate compound that sponsors her.or follow her missing friend and risk her future in pro gaming.”  There are likely those that might read that and think that this is the story of a World of Warcraft power player, and might pass on this series because of it.  In truth though, there is a lot more to this series than what that might seem.

Instead of being set in the modern day, this is set in the future (no-so-distant?) where humans have evolved to seek out progress over other cultural endeavors.  Realizing the importance of war and conflict as an outlet of human interaction, this conflict is run through fully immersed virtual reality video games, where battles can be fought without any real damage.  This immersive environment is an excellent setting for the world within a world that forms the majority of this issue.  The characters move through different war simulators until only two are left and thrown into a melee fight.  There is more to the story than this, when one of the operators is forced back into the real world, but the combination of real world and virtual world are mixed almost seamlessly together.

While the video games form the basis for this story, this is no simple adaptation of a video game into comic form.  Instead it ties in themes common to futuristic science fiction such as the rise of technology, the evolution of war and a little bit of dystopia.  This is not War Games nor is it the Hunger Games, but it is somewhere in between, an interesting take on the genre which all too often relies on cliches.

Story: Ramon Govea Art: Ariel Medel and Eddie Nunez
Story: 8.3 Art: 8.8 Overall: 8.3 Recommendation: Read

Black Mast Studios and Comixology provided Graphic Policy with a free copy for review.