The Origin Story!
(8.00)24-page comic.
There is now a comic book series to accompany the line of inexpensive action figures available at Dollar Tree. The cover says Feb 2022, but I've just seen it for the first time in my local stores. It is not listed on the website.
The basic story has been previously explained on the figure packs, and in two free animated videos available online. An asteroid strikes the moon, awakening the Kharn mothership and General Diabol. Kharn troops (drones and brutes) and mecha (Synthroids) try to steal Earth's natural resources, but Alpha Team 1 from Final Faction always defeats them.
So what new information do we get from the first issue of the comic series?
First, we're shown the asteroid impact from the viewpoint of several of the Earth characters, and we learn that General Diabol's boss is Queen Melara. Kharn scouts (Synthroids and Crawlers) land on Earth, where scattered heroes fight back.
Sergeant Steadfast tries to fight the Synthroids, is barely saved by his dog Churro, and wakes up in the hospital with a new cyberarm. Waiting for him to awaken is his old academy friend Shift, who – due to her East Asian mystical training – has seen visions explaining the alien menace. (For instance, we learn that Earth's moon originally formed around the hibernating Kharn mothership.)
Shift explains that Earth's militaries want Sarge to recruit special operatives for a final line of defense: the Final Faction. Sarge also meets Dr. Taylor, who has reverse-engineered the alien technology to create the ACRM combat robot (which her son Boyd pilots). She also invented Sarge's cyberarm and Churro's mecha dogsuit.
Meanwhile, the Kharn hive has revived, releasing brutes and drones to steal Earth's resources with their harvesters. The story ends with all of the Final Faction characters fighting back victoriously against the aliens.
We also learn that the creepy guy with the goatee from the first video is not some new alien (as I had thought), but a mysterious Final Faction operative.
The comic comes in a plastic wrap that says 1st Edition. I didn't care much for the cover, but the interior is well done. There's a catalog on the inside front cover showing most of the products in the range. The inside back cover is a parody of the kind of advertisements that used to appear in comics back in the day. The back cover is a preview of the next issue.
Can you game it? Obviously, Final Faction is all about 'special operatives' fighting hordes of aliens in comic-style combat (it's play-violence without any blood). The challenge is that the heroes are unbalanced: some have wingpacks, some have guns, and some have swords, harpoons and baseball bats.
It's silly fun. I enjoyed the comic, and the price is right too at a buck-and-a-quarter.
Reviewed by 
Editor in Chief Bill 
.