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TEAM FORTRESS 2: Series Rec/Recommended Reading List
Team Fortress 2 is a video game that was released by Valve in 2007. It's a team-based first-person shooter that became free to play in 2011 and remains one of the most popular online action games of all time. Jokingly referred to as America's #1 war-themed hat simulator, the game doesn't take itself seriously in the least. You play as one of nine classes of mercenary hired to fight over a New Mexico gravel mine in an alternative version of the late 1960s/early 1970s in which Australia has long ruled as the world's technological superpower thanks to its deposits of wonder-element Australium. Mostly, you strategize with your team, shoot at the opposing side, and collect funny hats.
The game is a hoot, but it didn't spawn such a passionate fandom on its own. As staff at Valve put it:
This labyrinthine story includes century-long revenge plots, secret parentage, wizard roommates, Welsh crooner Tom Jones, corporate takeovers, classic comic homages, friendship, romance, loyalty, cross-species male pregnancy, and a whole lot of naked mercenaries (occasionally slathered in honey).
Along with a series of several official animated shorts, the online comics have gone beyond supplementary material and proved to be a hit with readers who have never played the game. Because, as team handler Miss Pauling discovers while trying to get the mercenaries on board with Dungeons & Dragons one Hallowe'en, games just aren't everybody's thing.
The comics are all available for free at TeamFortress.com, and the webpage handily separates the collection into two categories. There's TF Comics, which is a plotty seven-issue miniseries (six issues published to date) in which a usurper has taken over the mercenaries' company and Miss Pauling needs to get the team back together to save the day. The other category is Update Comics, which are short one-shots released to accompany new items or events in the game.
Nothing But Plot: The TF Comics Miniseries
If you want to dive into the main plot of the comics, it's a straightforward leap.
• The Catch-Up Comic (a handy primer on everything you need to know about the universe)
• Team Fortress #1: Ring of Fired
• Team Fortress #2: Unhappy Returns
• Team Fortress #3: A Cold Day in Hell
• Team Fortress #4: Blood in the Water
• Team Fortress #5: Old Wounds
• Team Fortress #6: The Naked and the Dead
The Scenic Route: Selected Game Update Comics
If you're interested in spending more time with the characters and world before diving in, or just want a sample, I've compiled a shortlist of one-shots that build up to the main miniseries and summarize the major events of the game.
• Meet the Director: A documentary filmmaker visits the New Mexico Badlands and interviews the group of mercenaries employed by RED to fight the mercenaries of BLU over ownership of a gravel mine. In between are two women in purple who, unbeknownst to RED and BLU, are calling the shots on both sides.
• Loose Canon: The Engineer employed by BLU visits his employer and learns about the shared history of their two families.
• Bidwell's Big Plan and The Contract: An introduction to Saxton Hale and the state of business at Mann Co., the manufacturer that keeps the mercenaries supplied with the cheapest specialist weapons money can buy.
• A Smissmas Story: A look at how the mercenaries' war wreaks havoc on the nearby community of Teufort.
• Scream Fortress Presents: Cautionary Tales of Reading: A Hallowe'en special revealing a mercenary's history with the supernatural, and followed up by further clashes with perpetually broke and put-upon wizard Merasmus in Doom-Mates, Blood Money, and Gargoyles & Gravel.
• Blood Brothers: In which the Gravel War is changed forever by a hostile takeover.
• A Fate Worse Than Chess and Shadow Boxers: With RED and BLU no more, the mercenaries regroup to fight the forces of automation and learn about some troubling plans. This comic then leads straight into the events of the miniseries.
Once again, the full collection of comics can be found online for free here, and I'm happy to field any questions about the series if your interest has been piqued or your fancy tickled.
The game is a hoot, but it didn't spawn such a passionate fandom on its own. As staff at Valve put it:
TF2 didn't start with a lot of story. There wasn't room for one. But as the updates got more ambitious, we found the perfect way to explore the mercs' world: comics. Over the years, the comics have spawned ancillary characters, then assistants to the ancillary characters. Companies mentioned in passing became global empires three generations old. The game that started as a handful of guys in a desert shooting at each other slowly blossomed into the most labyrinthine story in Valve history.
This labyrinthine story includes century-long revenge plots, secret parentage, wizard roommates, Welsh crooner Tom Jones, corporate takeovers, classic comic homages, friendship, romance, loyalty, cross-species male pregnancy, and a whole lot of naked mercenaries (occasionally slathered in honey).
Along with a series of several official animated shorts, the online comics have gone beyond supplementary material and proved to be a hit with readers who have never played the game. Because, as team handler Miss Pauling discovers while trying to get the mercenaries on board with Dungeons & Dragons one Hallowe'en, games just aren't everybody's thing.
The comics are all available for free at TeamFortress.com, and the webpage handily separates the collection into two categories. There's TF Comics, which is a plotty seven-issue miniseries (six issues published to date) in which a usurper has taken over the mercenaries' company and Miss Pauling needs to get the team back together to save the day. The other category is Update Comics, which are short one-shots released to accompany new items or events in the game.
Nothing But Plot: The TF Comics Miniseries
If you want to dive into the main plot of the comics, it's a straightforward leap.
• The Catch-Up Comic (a handy primer on everything you need to know about the universe)
• Team Fortress #1: Ring of Fired
• Team Fortress #2: Unhappy Returns
• Team Fortress #3: A Cold Day in Hell
• Team Fortress #4: Blood in the Water
• Team Fortress #5: Old Wounds
• Team Fortress #6: The Naked and the Dead
The Scenic Route: Selected Game Update Comics
If you're interested in spending more time with the characters and world before diving in, or just want a sample, I've compiled a shortlist of one-shots that build up to the main miniseries and summarize the major events of the game.
• Meet the Director: A documentary filmmaker visits the New Mexico Badlands and interviews the group of mercenaries employed by RED to fight the mercenaries of BLU over ownership of a gravel mine. In between are two women in purple who, unbeknownst to RED and BLU, are calling the shots on both sides.
• Loose Canon: The Engineer employed by BLU visits his employer and learns about the shared history of their two families.
• Bidwell's Big Plan and The Contract: An introduction to Saxton Hale and the state of business at Mann Co., the manufacturer that keeps the mercenaries supplied with the cheapest specialist weapons money can buy.
• A Smissmas Story: A look at how the mercenaries' war wreaks havoc on the nearby community of Teufort.
• Scream Fortress Presents: Cautionary Tales of Reading: A Hallowe'en special revealing a mercenary's history with the supernatural, and followed up by further clashes with perpetually broke and put-upon wizard Merasmus in Doom-Mates, Blood Money, and Gargoyles & Gravel.
• Blood Brothers: In which the Gravel War is changed forever by a hostile takeover.
• A Fate Worse Than Chess and Shadow Boxers: With RED and BLU no more, the mercenaries regroup to fight the forces of automation and learn about some troubling plans. This comic then leads straight into the events of the miniseries.
Once again, the full collection of comics can be found online for free here, and I'm happy to field any questions about the series if your interest has been piqued or your fancy tickled.
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