SNIPER ELITE: RESISTANCE #1 REVIEW

Writer: Keith Richardson
Artist: Patrick Goddard
Colours: Quinton Winter
Letterer: Jim Campbell
Publisher: Rebellion


Rebellion are a video game company, who got into the comic book game when they bought the rights to long running anthology 2000AD. Sniper Elite, a third person tactical shooter, is one their best known series – a sniper based game which utilises impressive “bullet time” action. The company has build upon the IP with a series of novels, and now a comic book with Sniper Elite: Resistance.

During the Second World War, an elite sniper is airdropped into occupied France, to aid the French Resistance in sabotaging the deployment of a new Nazi weapon.

Sniper Elite is a hugely enjoyable video game series. Compelling gameplay, varied environments, and a mechanic which allows players to shoot the testicles off a Nazi in glorious slow motion.  Seriously - there's a trophy for it.

Sniper Elite: Resistance is a sound, absolutely fine comic. It does nothing wrong...but it’s the sort of comic that you might expect to be used to promote a video game.

The story opens with some flash-forward, demonstrating the abilities the hero will later unlock. Then we get a short sequence, with basic character background, and an explanation of the upcoming mission. A tutorial follows, where the conversation, movement and basic combat is demonstrated. Then we’re straight into the shooting, culminating in an end-of-level boss.

Patrick Goddard’s art is even full of chunky, horizontal panels, ideal for reading on a scrolling browser.

Sniper Elite:Resistance is perhaps most easily compared to Strange Brigade, another Rebellion video game recently promoted through a short comic. That comic has multiple characters based on the broad strokes of character classes, with non-stop combat culminating in a boss fight.  Strange Brigade also uses the format of a game, but laughs at the tropes.  

Resistance is well executed, with nice clear art and decent dialgoue.  It begins to suggest layers to its main character, but at the moment he's little more than a placeholder.  It's sound, but doesn’t feel very original.