Team Fortress 2 - Hat Fortress 2: America's #1 War-themed Hat Simulator

[Make America Dumb Again]

It’s been seven fucking years, folks. But I’m glad that I lived long enough to see the conclusion.

Whether you feel good about the comic or not, the amount of hype built around the final volume cannot be denied, and I think they delivered.

“It’s over, isn’t it?”

 

[thhrang]

It’s been seven fucking years, folks. But I’m glad that I lived long enough to see the conclusion.

Whether you feel good about the comic or not, the amount of hype built around the final volume cannot be denied, and I think they delivered.

“It’s over, isn’t it?”

 

[Star Classic]

Interesting... the TF Team actually retroactively went back and edited Issue 6 to fit in continuity. See below:
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(The other teams/mercenary groups is not a new concept in the comics - this guy just forgot it being foreshadowed in prior issues.)

Important bit: Valve actually went and changed the name of 'Team Vanguard' in the above panel from Comic 6 to "Team Ajax". See for yourself.
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Also note, a statue for Team Fortress is clearly missing, probably removed at some point because they are considered laughingstocks of the mercenary world.
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I think the writers attempting to clear up and streamline the lore of multiple mercenary teams is them trying to leave the door open for if Valve ever decides they want to do something serious with the IP/universe again - I.E. if there's ever another game in this universe, it will be following one of these other groups.

I still don't really understand. There's 1 or 2 Pauling lines in the comics that refer to the mercs as the best of the best. I guess that might be exaggeration for the sake of the teams morale but at the same time how can it the worst team when you have people like Medic and Engie who can both revive the dead and keep the living live longer?

I'm gonna go with the idea that both statements are true. Maybe the mercs are cheap to hire/clone (respawn theory) and the mercs we play as the really crappy watered down clones which explains all the 0 kills and dance parties breaking out mid game. The REAL original mercs always happen to survive which in a sense makes them the best. It's also a little disheartening since it seems to imply that only the TF team was disbanded and the other merc teams just went along their merry way. Are the other teams even involved in red vs blu?

As for doing new stories, beyond what I said earlier I'd also really like to see a single-player FPS with the TF2 art style. Maybe it could be something like Agent Gunn or Half-Life but with a TF2 skin. Honestly given Source SDK I don't get why the community hadn't jumped on the idea sooner unless there's some sort of complication behind doing so. Maybe if I got off my butt and learned Hammer and SDK I could make it myself lol.

 

[thhrang]

how can it the worst team when you have people like Medic and Engie who can both revive the dead and keep the living live longer?

Maybe people in-universe just discount the team as bottom-of-the-barrel due to several of their member's eccentricities and don't double-check these aspects, or consider these positives not worth it in totality with the other teams being largely considered more properly competent? But it is also worth noting that the person calling them the 'worst-of-the-worst' is the villain who gets beaten by them.

E:
Also, this exchange between Engie and Pauling.

It's also a little disheartening since it seems to imply that only the TF team was disbanded and the other merc teams just went along their merry way.

TFC Heavy: "We spent six months huntin' down her best. Echelon, Citadel, Team Ajax, for God's sake. We got 'em all. We beat her. All she had left was you rejects."
Teams A, C, and E are dead at the hands of the TFC crew (who are all themselves also dead by the end of #6). Doesn't seem to mention specifically what happened to Team B or D, so they might still be around? But who knows. The TF Team ostensibly actually gets the happiest ending of all the notable merc groups, because they don't end up dead.

As for doing new stories, beyond what I said earlier I'd also really like to see a single-player FPS with the TF2 art style. Maybe it could be something like Agent Gunn or Half-Life but with a TF2 skin. Honestly given Source SDK I don't get why the community hadn't jumped on the idea sooner unless there's some sort of complication behind doing so. Maybe if I got off my butt and learned Hammer and SDK I could make it myself lol.

God, you mentioning Agent Gunn makes me wish they would bring back the Saxxys. I still don't understand why they stopped doing them, it's literally free publicity, all they have to do is run a website and give an in-game item to the winners.

 

[Anonitolia]

It’s been 7000 years…

Honestly, it was a good comic. My only real gripes were a few out of place lines and maybe the art being slightly off in some places. The comic’s ability to tie up almost every single loose end in a funny, satisfying, and relatively sensible manner years after they were relevant should be studied in decent writing classes everywhere and the Smissmass celebration is probably the best ending they could have given the cast after so long in limbo. Them using Pyro as an audience surrogate near the end was especially clever— keep him mysterious while simultaneously speaking to the audience. Seriously good shit.

I reread the entire series before reading issue 7 and it holds up. There are slight hints of it being made out of sync with the rest, but it makes up for them tenfold and retains enough sincerity and incredible charm to overshadow any spots it missed. Beyond elated that they didn’t go the “every ending to a lengthy series in the past 10 years” route and fuck up what came before to such a degree that it makes you wonder how you didn’t see the ending’s betrayal coming.

I’m a casual TF2 player at best, but I’ve always been a huge fan of the setting and the characters and this has been an absolutely great send-off. It’s more than stellar knowing its contemporaries, even. This damn game is the lightningest lightning to ever bottle and it’s awesome that it even exists.

God bless Valve for delivering.

Spoiler: slightly unrelated tangent

The “seven years later” bit almost made me believe that they intentionally held off releasing the seventh issue until seven years after they posted the sixth for a second (before remembering the leaks and obvious trouble it had in development). Would be funny if they were just messing around with the audience for a while and had this finished at the same time as the other six, but didn’t post it until now just for the timing. Ah well, as it is it’s just a neat happenstance.

 

[thhrang]

Them using Pyro as an audience surrogate near the end was especially clever— keep him mysterious while simultaneously speaking to the audience. Seriously good shit.

Pyro wasn't the audience surrogate, you can see him in the first-person groupshot.

There are slight hints of it being made out of sync with the rest, but it makes up for them tenfold and retains enough sincerity and incredible charm to overshadow any spots it missed. Beyond elated that they didn’t go the “every ending to a lengthy series in the past 10 years” route and fuck up what came before to such a degree that it makes you wonder how you didn’t see the ending’s betrayal coming.

I agree with this 110%. I am so very, very glad that they didn't fuck it up. It gives me even more hope for the quality of projects like HLX, seeing Valve actually properly handle their legacy IP in [Current Year] without shitting on what came before. I suppose I should've seen this level of quality coming though, because it's Valve, and they proved themselves with their IPs back when Half-Life Alyx released and was reverent to its' source material as well. Erik Wolpaw, who co-wrote this comic (and the others as well IIRC), also worked on HLA, so I suppose it makes sense.

 

[reptile baht spaniard rid]

Finished reading.

Spoiler: Spoilers

It's been a while (what, 7 years?) since I last really sat down and digested the comics, but I did re-skim some, re-read the wiki summarizations for each, and re-read the 6th issue in full before diving into this one just to jog my memory up. Maybe I missed some foreshadowing before, but them pulling a deus-ex-machina with Soldier suddenly having an entire cave of Australium felt kinda cheap in the moment and bothered me a bit (as in, it felt like they just heavily diminished the drama of the prior issues). However, after finishing it, I think that's part of the message they were going for with the Administrator and Zepheniah that people here have already pointed out. Soldier's Australium Cave isn't used to suddenly save either of them, they both die, and Pauling is heavily implied to excavate and dump it all in the ocean per Engie's advice. There's probably a way to wax philosophical about this but honestly I'm still just not over the rush of having finally been able to read Issue 7. I can't believe this is real. Maybe my thoughts will change a bit when it settles more but God, I think I'm satisifed.

I liked the feel-good Smissmass ending too.

Closer to 8.
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Comic 6 was released 10 days before Trump got the nuclear codes.

Comic 7 was released 30 days before Trump got the nuclear codes again. Basically 8 years apart. What a ride.

Do you think Olivia realized she was one of Hale's trophies?

All-in-all it was a better wrap-up than I was fearing, though of course I could always go for more. None of the characters felt like they betrayed who they were.

Other things I noticed - Scout's hallway has a picture of him and his mom, later a polaroid shows Spy looking at it.

Spy asks Sniper if he can fly the plane, but the next scene has Miss Pauline's hands on the controls (Sniper is sitting co-pilot/instructor). It appears to be a Cessna, it'd likely be way overweight.

The Administrator has a painting of herself as The Archangel Michael defeating Satan (Mann) commissioned and over her bed.

The three "intro slides" with the girl crying between two dead (parents?) - is that the administrator as a young girl? Is that the only hint we get to the underlying issue?

 

[thhrang]

It appears to be a Cessna, it'd likely be way overweight.

The Team Fortress Comics are best known & renowned for their strict adherence to realism.

The three "intro slides" with the girl crying between two dead (parents?) - is that the administrator as a young girl?

I believe so, there's really nobody else it would realistically be.

 

[soy woah jaque]

This last comic felt like a reddit karma farm more than anything. The humor was mostly recycled and over the top cheesy, the way they wrapped up the main plot is incredibly lame and I would have preferred the awesome cliffhanger over this

On the bright side, it's nice and relieving to get closure (it's a miracle they even finished the comic in the first place), the visuals were very good, some of the backstories were interesting enough and the fan service was nice

Posting my take here too, this last comic definitely does not hold a candle to the previous ones (and they weren't perfect either) and I would call it complete trash if it weren't for the circumstances. Given the current standards however, it's decent closure, and that's probably the best we're gonna get, merry christmas

 

[thhrang]

The humor was mostly recycled

I don't really know what this means. Comedy is subjective and all but it made me genuinely laugh several times.

and over the top cheesy

Complaining about 'over the top cheese' in a TF2 comic is like complaining about water being wet imo. I went directly from re-reading Issue 6 to Issue 7 and all of the bits felt natural, at least to me.

the way they wrapped up the main plot is incredibly lame and I would have preferred the awesome cliffhanger over this

I disagree with this. The throughline is everything ends eventually, to not hang onto pointless grudges; by the end of things, the Admin didn't even remember why she was torturing Zeph (the comic cover arts very heavily imply it was because he killed and/or sabotaged her parents to get a leg-up in arms manufacturing), and despite having the means to save the Admin and keep the cycle of torment going, Pauling has a pretty good character moment and decides to let it end (this is also why I'm not particularly bothered by the reveal of Soldier's-Australium Cave-Ex-Machina; it is funny that all of these characters were fighting tooth and nail for the last of the Australium for the sake of a pointless feud, meanwhile the retardest of all retards was sitting on a literal goldmine of it, and it wasn't used to magically bail any of the characters out). It builds on what the game itself was originally based around even way back in 2007 - there was never any point to the Gravel Wars, it was just an excuse for the teams to fight. As the lore got expanded, they very comically hammered home the pointlessness with a whole bunch of supplemental details. And finally, with the grand reveal of the Administrator's plan, her goals are also shown as being practically pointless - to torture an old man for a reason she no longer remembers, forcing him to stay alive and using up the rest of the Australium to gloat to him. I feel this is fitting. On the surface I suppose I can imagine some people equating this to a 'subversion of expectations' Last Jedi-type deal, but I really don't think it was. This was done with tact, by the original (comic) writers, with love for the source material, it fits with the throughline that has always been there, and most importantly, it respects the reader. I believe it is a genuinely good send-off for all the characters.

 

[Mike Matei's Penis]

I wish Australia was as cool as it was in these comics

 

[thhrang]

I wish Australia was as cool as it was in these comics

 

[Counterfeit Obol]

Details I liked about the final comic:

• How the conflict began and ended around an only child (Zeph and Olivia).
• How Gray technically "won" the Mann fortune the way his father intended (Olivia inheriting a trust courtesy of Saxton), but by that point Olivia doesn't even know about the "tradition" and wants nothing to do with his schemes. She's just glad she can carve her own path.
• The perils of clinging to the past sort-of echoing the community's obsession with the game (okay, this could just be me).
• Soldier not caring about marrying a Commie and starting a family with her, out of genuine love (as filtered through Soldier's head).
• Spy genuinely proud of Scout being a better father than him.
• Saxton ultimately dying on his own terms (we think).

 

[SillySherman]

Comics opens a few plotholes (How does Zepheniah Mann's spirit haunt Harvest if he's been kept alive all this time), but the ending is decent, and thankfully not some cynical intellectual le war goes on forever thanks to evolved monkeys like the 4chan leak led us to believe.

Also Old Saxton still beating the shit out of animals in 2024.

 

[Terfmaster9000]

I'm a force-a-nature
Go, let's go!
Play ball!
You're like a car crash in slow motion.
You fat bald bastard!
Would you look at you? I mean look at you!
Diagnosis? You suck!
I broke your stupid crap, moron!
(Is, is anybody even paying attention to me?)

Anyone else pushing this thing? thing?
Home freakin run, batta swing! swing!
Just caved in your skull, boing! boing!
Wohoo!
Boom, I'm back, dummy! dummy!
Clock just got cleaned, rummy, rummy
Would you look at me? look at me! look at me!

Play ball, major league, push the frickin cart
Pop quiz: you and me,
sorry behhh you're dead.
Ding dong! Nice shot!
I will never. Stop. Killing you.

 

[Lizard Machine Bugs]

I'm pretty convinced that the whole 'everything happened so The Administrator could mindrape Zeph for 100 years' was a total asspull rewrite added during the eight year hiatus so the writers could be like 'uuh idiots, we fucked the game over for a decade on PURPOSE cuz metaphor.' So what, his ghost just isn't a thing now? Makes me wonder what the original concept for the ending might have been.

Deus ex Soldier just having australium in his pocket the entire time is also like really shitty writing.

I don't mind the Deus Ex Machina, as it doesn't solve the plot, even if Solider didn't have any Australium things would have played out more or less the same, it certainly wouldn't have any effect on the happy ending since the Australium doesn't play into any of the Mercs retirement. It's also in spirit of what a Deus Ex Machina is supposed to be, it either provides a happy ending or is used for comedic effect, and while not the funniest thing ever it adds levity to the situation and connects back to people mistaking Australium for something worthless only to later realize what it is.
All Solider having Australium provides to the story is giving Ms Pauling the choice of giving to the Administrator, putting the onus onto her to resolve the conflict instead of the conflict just withering away unceremoniously. And for what it's worth I like her arc in this and I like her talk with Engie, so I don't mind the Deus Ex Soldier.
Nor do I think the writers are trying to say 'uuh idiots, we fucked the game over for a decade on PURPOSE cuz metaphor.' Especially since none of them worked on the game, they're graphic novelists and writers, not game designers. In fact the quality of the conflict doesn't matter, Zephinian wanted his sons to fight and try to kill each other, what he didn't want was a stalemate.
Although I would have liked more Engie and Gray overall, but I did think the Administrator had a pretty good showing throughout the comic.

 

[Patrick Bait-man]

You know what, this is probably the best outcome we could have hoped for in terms of how the comic and series as a whole could have ended.

It's not nihilistically cynical like that one leak suggested a few years back, nor is it blindly optimistic in it putting up the idea that the glory days are still around. As shown in the story, the original purpose for this entire thing has gone on for so long that it's been diluted into nothing. That doesn't mean it never meant anything to begin with because it did at one point, however, there comes a point where we gotta recognize that the best course of action for everybody is to move on to more promising things in our lives. There will be more games for us to enjoy, even if they're increasingly rarer events. Bitter-sweet and inglorious, yet better than trying to continue whatever stalemate that's been going on for over ten years at this point.

If the Administrator and Zepheniah are representations of the "Community" and "Game" then Saxoton Hale is a representation of the OG Fan who's come back to fix the entire company only to find out he loves the thrill, not the entity himself. So he gives it to whatever janitors remain to have as much fun as he can before he dies with the people he loves. That's probably what the Devs of the original TF2 envisioned the spirit of the franchise all those years back.

Thanks for the memories, you were a good son, real good; maybe even the best.

Except there is no other game like TF2 and there never will be another game that can replicate it. Art isn't replaceable, and watering down TF2 to a "thrill" is insulting; almost as if it were just external stimuli that could be swapped with anything else laying around. We don't treat films and other media like that in society, yet for some odd indiscernible reason video games are made the exception and you're expected to cycle through them like a raccoon scavenging for it's next disposable meal through various dumpsters.

I'm so tired of hearing people say "just move on" to a truly special game like TF2 that's been repeatedly beaten over the last 8+ years by both the company that birthed it and the community that claims to so dearly love it (usually from those that don't have a connection with TF2, how easy for them to say). How can I "move on" when I'm staring deep into it's black, mangled eyes.

It seems that the bittersweet ending of the 7th comic is making us forget about the abysmal state of the game itself (if only that wasn't the case, if only). While the TF comics have been resolved and the artists / writers have made their peace with the game, Valve the greater entity on the other hand hasn't (no, Valve is not Miss Pauling ffs) and will continue to puppet TF2's dismembered body until the day CS:GO and DOTA 2 are completely and utterly dead with no detectable pulse; torturing it for God knows how long with constant bloat, a broken matchmaking system, a ruined one-of-a-kind artstyle, stripped balancing, and a new community of clueless degenerates that don't have the slightest fucking idea of how truly wonderful this incredible game used to be.

No, I will not move on; if I'm going to move on, it won't be until the day they put TF2 out of it's misery and I can rest easy knowing it's legacy will not be tarnished any further. In the meantime while we still have it, I can only hope and will even attempt to try myself (c. TF2 Emporium thread) that it recovers to some extent and doesn't have to end on such a depressing note.

It is said that the Administrator and Zepheniah Mann are representations of the community and TF2 itself, but I beg to differ; it's a representation of Valve and post-MYM TF2 with the difference being there was no happy ending; it just, kept, suffering.

Ranting aside, the 7th comic is wonderful and it just made this one of the best Christmases Smissmases I've ever had and I'm choking up inside just thinking about that ending shot of the mercenaries gathered together at the table. I'm genuinely shocked we actually got it after eight long years and I couldn't have gotten a better present.

 

[ReceiveAndAsk]

To be clear, by 'Move on', I mean hope for Valve ever giving big attention to the game. No, there won't be any more Valve-made content drops for the game. Yes, the game will still be played for years. Game on.

And this was clear to anyone with a functioning brain for years now. This comic is directed at the copeniggers, to remove any doubt that they are done with the game.

 

[GNU Abyss]

Comics opens a few plotholes (How does Zepheniah Mann's spirit haunt Harvest if he's been kept alive all this time), but the ending is decent, and thankfully not some cynical intellectual le war goes on forever thanks to evolved monkeys like the 4chan leak led us to believe.

Also Old Saxton still beating the shit out of animals in 2024.

He didn't look particularly alive in any of the post-resurrection panels. Could be some sort of Australium Zombie whose spirit got brought back from the dead, but the body is too decayed to get back inside it so he just roams around and the spirit manifests physically during Halloween.

 

[soy woah jaque]

Yes, the game will still be played for years. Game on.

Honestly I would genuinely prefer if valve pulled the plug rather than keep this castrated, sanitized and bloated version of the game in limbo forever, but it's actually way easier and more profitable to keep the game in life support than to shut it down, especially with all these gambling addicts buying crates

Maybe if the bullshit from jungle inferno and meet your match was reverted, and the game itself was in a much better state with better balance changes and less bloat, limbo wouldn't be so bad, but as it is, I'd rather put it down than to stay in uncle dane's shitty watered down version of tf2. If valve servers shut down, there could be a rise in good community servers and the sourcemods could get more support (like tf2 classic)