Review of: LAST OF US AMERICAN DREAMS

BOOK STATS:
Paperback, 104 pages

Published October 30th 2013 by Dark Horse Books (first published July 31st 2013)

ISBN13: 9781616552121

Edition language: English

Collects the Last of Us: American Dreams, issues 1-4

Nineteen years ago, a parasitic fungal outbreak killed the majority of the world's population. In one of the few remaining quarantine zones, thirteen-year-old Ellie begins her new life as a ward of a military boarding school, where a friendship with fellow student Riley leads to her first trip into the outside world. Beyond the walls of the regimented civil order they know, Ellie and Riley are soon confronted with the violent way of life of the insurgent group the Fireflies--and with the monstrous victims of infection!

 So. First of all, I love The Last of Us. Its atmosphere, its human drama, the infected, the landscapes, music, art, EVERYTHING. But this comic? This comic was a waste of time. I had seen some of its art and was encouraged by the good reviews it had. It was supposed to throw some light into Ellie's past, her time before meeting Joel, even before the little DLC that we got after the game, where we have this adventure with Riley. but this comic offers NOTHING. You really don't need to read it to understand anything because it gives up nothing.

The comic was published on 2013, and the DLC Left Behind is from Feb, 14th, 2014. So it looks like the comic paved out the way for the DLC set up, maybe they had it already planned out, but the downside is that if you don't read the comic you miss out on nothing, and reading it provides nothing, so...

In the comic book we find the girls meeting at the military school, doing their first escapade, Ellie meeting the man from the mall that "appears" on the DLC, and then meeting some Fireflies. We can see Riley trying to go with the Fireflies, which we already knew from the game; and the fact that the leader of the Fireflies knew of Ellie's mother, which we also knew from the game.

The story telleing is nothing from the other world, in fact it is very simple and kind of poor, at least compared with the one in the game. It's just the girls running around, finding themselves in sme iconic locations from the games, and then getting in some action with the fireflies. Nothing more. All perfectly skippable and not relevant. For me, reading this comic book has provided me with very little to non intel. Also, not a good comic book for me. Maybe I had high expectations as it was a Last of Us thing... but it really has failed short of my expectations.

My video review is here