YMMV / Halo: Escalation

• Alas, Poor Scrappy: A number of fans reacted with sadness to Paul Demarco's death, many of whom had criticized him during Spartan Ops.
• Ass Pull:
  • The Absolute Record arc has Halsey hack a Contender-class ancilla (the most powerful Forerunner AI ever built)... somehow.
  • Even after the Terminals of Halo 4 say it's impossible, Escalation seemingly kills the Didact with a Composer even though he was visibly immune during 4's final encounter. Word of God is that he's still alive and technically not composed, but it's still rather jarring.
• Broken Base:
  • Bringing Black Team Back for the Dead and having them Killed Offscreen. A good way of reestablishing the threat of the Ur-Didact and his Prometheans and make things even more personal between him and the Chief? Or merely an emotionally cheap attempt to get rid of potentially loose plot ends? Though the next issue didn't address the main complaints, it did slightly mitigate the offscreen death part by starting off with a flashback depicting Black Team encountering the Didact on Installation 03.
  • Issue 7 seems to be a source of this too: While some readers applaud it for showing some good character development on Thorne's part, others accuse it of being boring filler with no action or plot development.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Spartan Naiya Ray has become quite popular with a number of fans, having a lot more charm and cool moments than most of Majestic.
  • ONI mole Ayit 'Sevi impressed most readers with his sheer cleverness, to the point where many consider him the only redeeming feature of the final arc.
• Narm: The Didact takes a lot of effort to take seriously. When stabbed by Chief through the eye, he screams and then just calmly pulls him off and states he will kill him before throwing him instead. When offering a painless warrior's death to a Spartan, he's promptly shot point-blank in the face, and deadpans, "We're done here," while his head is still smoking. And there's his holding, posing and ranting with an Index that looks more like Skeletor with a shake lift than an imposing visage.
• Pandering to the Base/Win Back the Crowd:
  • After some less than...positive fan reactions to the portrayal of the Elites in Halo 4 and the Kilo-Five trilogy, 343 seems to be trying to give the Elites a better portrayal, showing that the Swords of Sanghelios, the Arbiter's faction, are still in control of Sanghelios and still allied with the UNSC. It also establishes that there are potentially hundreds of Covenant factions that have formed since Halo 3, beyond the largest ones controlled by the Arbiter or Jul.
  • Additionally, contrary to the impressions given off in Kilo-Five, the first few issues show that there are still major conflicts going on between the Elites and Brutes.
  • Issue 16 settles another long standing issue from the Kilo-Five books by fully acknowledging that Halsey is being used as a scapegoat to cover up for the fact that ONI were the ones who green-lit everything in the SPARTAN-II Program. Also, it seems the people who wanted to see Palmer taken down a few pegs get their wish at the end.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Sarah Palmer actually does some pretty badass things in this series, such as bringing down a Lich by flinging her helmet stuffed with grenades at it. She's also willing to lie to Admiral Osman - the head of ONI - in order to protect Lasky^note which also confirms one of the Alternative Character Interpretation options discussed regarding her actions in Spartan Ops. She's also shown to be genuinely distraught over Paul Demarco's death. In Issue 11, when Thorne and Ray get into trouble after being sent on a secret mission without backup (as per ONI's orders), Palmer makes it clear to Lasky that she doesn't want him risking any more of her Spartans unless they're going in full force.
  • In an interesting case, the Janus Key Arc deliberately brings back some of her Scrappy elements (namely of her hatred of Halsey), specifically so that they bite her in the ass and she ends up eating an entire Humble Pie in the end.
• Take That, Scrappy!: Issue 16 is a pretty much Halsey retaliating against all the bias, and false accusations placed on her in the Kilo-Five Trilogy. She shuts Palmer up by pointing out if it weren't for her (Halsey), she (Palmer) wouldn't even have her armor. Plus she correctly points out that ONI and the UNSC had pretty much backed her up throughout the entire SPARTAN project, and that Osman is only using her as a convenient scapegoat.
  • One could also argue that the above Humble Pie incident is this to Palmer.