Reviews and Comments

Somehow it managed to make worse some things like misogyny regarding Meryl, downplaying her character to almost an absolute zero in comparison with the actual game, where even if she's objectified she goes through a character arc building. From her initial rookie behaviour with trembling hands, till the more fleshed out warrior that she is at the end of the game (even if she ends up working as the damsel in distress trope), which then can be seen as the more professional soldier in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

Mei Ling also serves almost no significance in the story, although it would be hard to give her some space, giving this was a 12 issue comic with tight timing for its narrative, and giving that she served the purpose of moral boosting/psychological help and saving the game in the video game.

Then there are also some minor tweaks in the story to make it work as a text. Psycho Mantis fight looses the 'second controller port' part in order to be beat, and we can observe some psychological manipulation through hallucinations by his part on Solid Snake, which is an interesting, yet obvious way to deal with the scene. The parts where you need to backtrack aimlessly (when Sniper Wolf shoots Meryl, and when Solid Snake needs to freeze and heat the PAL card) and are resolved soundly.

With all it had, though, it made for a boring piece, a bland adaptation which didn't bring anything new to the table, the art direction was interesting and a a really good fit. When it comes to the rest of the narrative aspects it lacked. It even has pieces of propaganda in favour of the US military against Iraq, the comic was released during June 2004, very little time after the invasion of said country. The ending and battles loose any aspect of the deconstruction of the hero Kojima injected into its story, and by the end of this work we feel as if we are the good guys doing the good things, instead of some pawn in the military industrial complex, it praises blood and action, and it is not critical of it one bit.