Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Writers: Faith Erin Hicks, Neil Druckmann
Artist: Faith Erin Hicks
Release Date: 30th October 2013

For a comic book mini-series that has no real beginning or end, ‘The Last of Us: American Dreams’ isn’t a bad read at all.

‘American Dreams’ serves as an introduction to Ellie, the young girl who is one of the main protagonists in the hugely successful videogame ‘The Last of Us’. For the most part, the book serves its purpose well, but while the story plods along nicely and is actually a lot of fun to read, it ultimately becomes clear that unless you have a Playstation and a copy of the game, you won’t get to see the character develop at all past this 4-issue series.

It’s actually really unfortunate that this is a videogame tie-in, because the writing and artwork in ‘American Dreams’ makes for a pretty enjoyable comic book. For something so seemingly ‘throwaway’, it feels like a lot of talent went into this series, but sadly, all the backstory is missing unless you have played the game. As well as that, the book doesn’t really go anywhere, as it is set a year before the events of the game, so as a standalone piece of fiction this mini-series only works to a point.

If you’ve played the game and you loved it, then ‘American Dreams’ is a nice little companion piece. If you’re not a gamer, then you may well still enjoy this, but it may also feel a little pointless come the end.

Rating: 7/10.

The writer of this piece was: Alan Shields (aka Al)
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