Team Fortress 2 in its heyday is nothing short of ambitious, expanding its lore into comics. If you go onto Google Trends and search “comics” as its main term, there’s a fair chance TF2 Comics is under Related Queries. When a mainline property like Loki isn’t trending anyway. But why would people look for a franchise that its makers are better known for regularly repainting? That’s what we’re gonna best guess.
Welcome to a repainted segment of Gutternaut that goes back to its basics. Finding the value that’s mostly covered in dirt.
Team Fortress 2 Comics… Come From Ads
On the off-chance you don’t know what Team Fortress 2 is beyond a name, here’s your primer. It’s a multiplayer first-person shooter game where two color-coded teams of specialized mercenaries compete in Capture-The-Flag or King-of-the-Hill with guns and explosives. Does that sound ridiculous? Good, because unlike most competitive shooters, this game focuses on making everything fun to come back to. The cartoony art style and the classes’ over-the-top personalities are just part of the perfect turn-you-brain-off equation.
So when fans need more, Valve goes all out on the marketing! The ads and animated shorts take the balls-to-the-walls humor up a notch with the classes quirks. Like how the franchise’s face, the Heavy names his minigun Sasha. With each new update comes a little more lore to help flesh the setting out.
Ads… For SAXTON HALE!
Because an ad isn’t enough to contain the likes of the embodiment trifecta of Testoserone Poisoning, Awesome Aussies, and Unomatopeias that is Saxton Hale! But even the first comic strip advertising the Sniper’s update move can’t cut it. But when the Mac Update gets TF2 on more computers… fans see Saxton in his full glory ready to fight Steve Jobs! Because if anybody’s going to give mercs and players useless junk, its gonna be SAXTON HALE!
I’m Not Here Fo- (Deathblow!)
Jokes aside, the comics are more than just ads for updates, they give ironic depth to the characters. Like how the Demoman and his mom are very well off, but she still pressures him to work another job. So when that dynamic gets boring, a sword parodying Highlander adds one that’s actually fun. And yes, you can unlock that talking sword in-game.
Ad break over! Time for the good stuff!
With each ambitious update is sprinkled on lore in a world as ridiculous as the game. In addition to Hale, more characters get time in the limelight like voice in the games’ matches! Which is a wiener measuring contest between the spoiled stupid Mann brothers over a patch of useless land. No wonder their father gave his company to Saxton’s grandfather. Maybe he should’ve waited for the son he hated the least… Gray Mann. He wouldn’t have had to create a robot army for a hostile takeover.
In fact why am I explaining anything; check out the Catch Up Comic!
Wait am I forgetting something?
Main Team Fortress 2 Comics
Which brings me to the main reason we’re all here. A seven-part series of comics post-Gray Mann update in place of an in-game story mode.
In it Gray Mann manages to take over Mann Co. with the mercs and Saxton getting fired. But the real conflict comes down to a MacGuffin arms race between Gray and the Administrator. This Australium is used for just about everything from weapons to invigorating health effects. So potent that all of Australia became more physically and mentally potent. Yeah, Saxton is just the tip of the iceberg of a land that made cloaking devices and teleportation. Along with “moustache science” since Australian women are more regularly born with facial hair. Only problem is, it’s a finite resource that has reached its limit. Bad for both parties because they’re on portable life supports powered by this unobtanium.
So to find the last batches the Administrator gets her assistant Miss Pauling to recruit most of the Red mercs. As for Saxton, he reunites with an old flame to work with his nemesis Charles Darling to get Mann Co. back. Meanwhile Gray hires the older mercenaries from Team Fortress Classic… and the TF2 Medic.
Why Come Back To It?
These comics give each character a chance to shine in Team Fortress 2 fashion. The mercs are of course a bunch of goofballs you can’t help laughing with and at while they’re developing their characters. Like how the gun-loving Heavy is both a loving older brother to his sisters and can see the schemes when a few others can’t. Or how Soldier learns to relax his gung-ho patriotism when he hooks up with Heavy’s sister Zhanna.
What’s that; you wanna know things that’re just a good laugh? Just about everything with Scout oughta do it. Who buys Tom Jones memorabilia with their life savings to resell, when he’s nowhere close to being dead? Also apparently God designed him to a “gift to the ladies” despite pining for Miss Pauling most of the time. Plus Demoman mentally designs his body to produce alcohol that poisons the…
What am I doing telling you about this? Go read the stuff!
But It Doesn’t Have An Ending!
Oh right…
What happened?
Starting in 2016, things started to slow. The latest update was the second-to-last issue of the main Team Fortress 2 comics. That at least has the climatic showdown between Team Fortress Classic and the embraceable morons. With Gray betrayed, the TFC Heavy uses his life-support system to enhance himself only for TF2 (with help from Saxton and Maggie) to defeat him the only way they know how. Quirky, over-the-top, and with splatter! Before Gray dies, he warns Miss Pauling that the Administrator is planning something worse. But Pauling ignores him while delivering a speech.
Surprise! It looks like the Administrator is ready to go out in a blaze of glory with the last hour of her life and Australium. Well now isn’t that a cliffhanger!
…And then the comics all stopped in 2017. Sure there were rumors and supposed leaks, but it never came to pass.
Why?
Best guess it has something to do with changes with the franchise’s owner Valve. You see in 2016, TF2 was starting to get competition after peaking for 5 years. It influenced a new genre of first-person shooter games called Hero Shooters, especially the poster child Overwatch. You know, back before Blizzard tried to overhaul everything in vain. If that wasn’t enough, battle royale games like PUBG and Fortnite started to dominate the market. Fortnite’s other features became such a hot topic, Team Fortress 2 looked like a relic.
There’s also the fact that the co-writers Erik Wolpaw and Jay Pinkerton had other stuff going on. Wolpaw went to (unsuccessfully) write for Psychonauts 2 while Pinkerton left for private reasons.
So Valve decided to reinvest their efforts into other fields, especially its best performing product: Steam. Because why expend the effort to improve or license IPs out when you own the most successful video game service? Along with new ways to support it with VR and the mobile gaming console the Steam Deck. At this point both Wolpaw and Pinkerton came back to write for the launch games like Half-Life: Alyx and Aperture Desk Jobs. But TF2 got no new major updates for years, just seasonal accessories and holiday specials with minimal ads. That’s not even including the game’s issues in the 2020s like bots.
Is There Any Hope?
Honestly, if there ever was an ending planned for the main story, would Valve commission it? Because it looks like they’re more likely to just give it to the fans. They’ve had their eye on modders doing stuff on Steam Workshop including TF2. So in July 2023, Valve releases its first major update in half a decade with the community-created game mode: Versus SAXTON HALE! But it came with bugs…
One of which is how this retcons events in the comics. Basically the RED mercenaries are hired by Gray Mann to kill Saxton. Unlike the comic where Gray gets his child daughter to fight Saxton since robots didn’t work.
(Urgh…) Ma’be dish i’n’t can’in.
Why Fans Love Team Fortress 2 Comics
(Remove ice pack)
In any case, the Team Fortress 2 comics represent the entire franchise at its peak. I mean they started around the time TF2 became a free-to-play game. It was a time to take risks and have fun with characters in the most creative ways. Besides they’ve aged perfectly in comparison to the franchises that took them out of the limelight. I mean, do you ever see people talk about Overwatch comics unironically? There’s always stuff to revisit and have fun with in Team Fortress 2. Sometimes fans can make their own fun on there as part of a big interactive experience.
With a perspective like that, you have to wonder if the final issue is even worth it. Team Fortress 2 doesn’t belong to just Valve anymore, and giving an ending to something that outlived its competitors might be too tall an order. Even if there is a finale in the comics, that’s never going to mean the end of Team Fortress 2. The sky’s the limit to clowning around.
Thanks for coming to the end and as always, remember to look between the panels.