Ender's Game: Battle School is a graphic novel based on Orson Scott Card's well-loved book called Ender's Game. I have not read Card's original novel, so I went into this graphic novel without any prior knowledge of the source material. In the end, I was pretty impressed with the story and it has the makings of a great new series. This was originally released as a five-part comic book series.

The story centers around a young boy of eight years old named Ender Wiggin. In a world where people are only allowed two children, he is a dreaded ‘third' and that makes him a social outcast. However, it turns out that Ender has almost superhuman abilities when it comes to battle in their flying suits. He is entered into a Battle School with a bunch of other children as they prepare to help defend against a pending attack from aliens. I suppose there isn't much of an age limit when it comes to saving all of humanity.

I thought this was a pretty neat story that took the basic idea of a new kid in school and turned it into a wartime prep drama. Ender comes off as being kind of scrawny and it makes the other kids pick on him and beat him up. It all changes when they get into the virtual reality combat simulators and Ender starts whipping them all. Unfortunately, Ender has plenty of personal drama going on that further complicates matters. He's a pretty complicated young guy with a lot of promise.

Since this story focuses mainly on introducing the characters and establishing the setting, there isn't a whole lot of action besides what happens during training times. The virtual reality training missions were pretty cool the way it depicted the characters flying around in their suits and shooting at targets as well as fighting with each other. It reminded me a little of Iron Man and his abilities.

Although all the characters in this story are children, the book doesn't come across as childish and the children don't really act like children. You could take the same personalities and dialogue and apply it to late teen or early 20's aged men and women and it would have worked just the same.

The artwork in this book is quite impressive. It combines some hand-drawn graphics with what looks like computer-generate backgrounds that use gradients and fades for enhanced effect. It looks sort of like what you'd see online in a Flash-based animated comic. The look of the art fits very well with the science fiction genre and is very easy on the eyes.

In the end, I liked Ender's Game: Battle School. The next volume in this series is called Command School, so I may have to check it out. I really need to read Orson Scott Card's original novel one of these days, too.

Recommended: Yes