Fight Club is considered by many to be one of the best movies ever made. It was a truly brutal story with one hell of a plot twist, and it took the film world by storm. The book, on the other hand, isn't all that well-known: while it wasn't bad by any means, Chuck Palahniuk (the book's author), admitted that the film is the better version of his story.

There are some key differences between the two, with the ending itself being the biggest one. The film's ending was left relatively open, but the book's ending is much more concrete.

Fight Club 2, a new comic from Dark Horse, has the unenviable task of trying to continue the story of something that clearly had a definitive end. While there were plenty of questions surrounding the Narrator and Marla near the end of the book, they weren't the kind of questions that fans ever expected to be answered.

So, how does Fight Club 2 answer those questions - and, more importantly, has it successfully revived a series that already ended once?

In short, no...not yet, at least.

Warning: spoilers for the ending of Fight Club and minor spoilers for Fight Club 2 #1 follow.

Fight Club 2 picks up 10 years after the events of the book: the Narrator is now 'Sebastian,' and lives with Marla and their son in an 'idyllic' white-picket reality. Sebastian keeps his split personality, the infamous Tyler Durden, locked away with a seemingly never-ending supply of prescriptions, though its those same prescriptions that are slowly eating away at his unraveling marriage.

It's soon revealed that Tyler may not be quite as dead as Sebastian thinks - and, while the question of what Tyler's up to is ultimately answered within the pages of issue #1, the payoff is somewhat lacking. Issue #1, as a whole, is dominated by setup: the book needs to introduce Sebastian's child, his new life with Marla, his addiction to prescription medicine and the supposed return of Tyler. It's a lot for the book to handle, and by the end, it still feels like the story hasn't really started yet.

The story's biggest problem, however, is that it all feels unnecessary. The original Fight Club novel ended with the Narrator finally besting Tyler, but Fight Club 2 goes out of its way to push the series backwards. Sebastian is exactly where he was at the beginning of the book, without having learned anything from the events at the end of the story. Marla getting married makes no sense, and the fact that she actively complains about dying her hair and straightening up goes against every aspect of her previously-established character. The only character to seems to have made it through intact is Tyler, and he doesn't get enough screentime to really do much of anything.

The art itself isn't all that bad, but it too carries quite a bit of baggage. Like it or not, people are going to associate Fight Club with the movie before the book, and it's a bit disappointing that neither Edward Norton's nor Brad Pitt's likenesses are featured here. Even worse, it actually leads to some confusion: the book assumes that you'll know who these characters are just by their looks, but without their iconic looks from the film, there's no way of telling who's who. It's not a huge problem, but it's definitely a noticeable one.

Otherwise, the rest of the book looks good, and there are some great stylistic choices that manage to keep the book from feeling flat: the colors pop, lines are crisp and some 'live-action' elements help add some depths to the visuals. That being said, Fight Club 2 #1 doesn't really do much of anything new, or anything to set itself apart from other comics on the shelf.

Fight Club 2 is saddled with a ton of baggage, no matter what. It doesn't matter if the comic is based off of the book; most people are simply going to assume that it's based off of the film. Even without the film, the story of issue #1 feels extraneous: the characters and the world feel like they've been reset solely because the authors needed a story to tell. As a result, Fight Club 2 feels like a major step backwards.

There's a chance that Fight Club 2 could end up doing something subversive and really turn everything on its head - however, if that's what issue #1 was going for, it failed. It's far from the worst book out there, but there's a hollowness that pervades the entire thing. The first Fight Club was a fantastic story, but Fight Club 2 just feels like a shell of its predecessor.

Story:

★★☆☆☆

Art:

★★★☆☆

Overall:

★★★☆☆

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