The protagonists in the Far Cry video games are often boring, fairly blank characters; though they do have back stories, motivations and personalities, they don’t tend to be particularly interesting.

It’s generally the case that the most interesting characters in any given Far Cry title are the villains; the big bads who tend to run entire islands, often cruelly, but with buckets of charisma. Who remembers boring, rich kid Jason from Far Cry 3? Barely anyone. But the psychotic, evil, undeniably charismatic bad guy, Vaas? Everyone remembers him.

So in the new, Manga-style series from publisher Tokyopop, it’s no surprise that the villains are the focus. Yet, if this prelude issue (a Free Comic Book Day exclusive) is anything to go by, we won’t be seeing said villains in their usual form.

In Far Cry 6, the dictator Antón Castillo is memorably played by Giancarlo Esposito, but when this story takes place, he’s just a kid.

Working in the island nation of Yara’s tobacco fields in 1967, here Antón seems like a kindly, compassionate kid who looks out for his fellow workers, with them all, his sister included, being forced to work at gunpoint.

Antón’s sister is keen to escape their forced labour, but Antón wants to stick around so he can free their father, a political prisoner.

However, something supernatural is on the way, giving neither young Castillo any choice in whether they stay in the fields or not…

This was quite an intriguing issue, with some phenomenally expressive art (by A-Wan Lab) and absolutely stunning colours (the work of Elisa Bartolucci); setting up an out of continuity, ‘what if’ style story, it does feel like it could genuinely go anywhere, and I have no clue where the story will be headed where the series starts, so writer Ryan Nichols has certainly achieved an air of unpredictability already.

It’s a really interesting way of handling the source material, and apparently more villains from the Far Cry series will be featuring over the course of the issues that follow.

I’m definitely intrigued to see where this is headed, even though I’m not the biggest fan of Far Cry’s stories when it comes to the video games.