To quote Travis Beacham’s introduction “People, after all, are what makes the best mythology feel truly sprawling and alive….Because, like I said, the story is in the world; not the other way around.” This is why Pacific Rim and the prequel graphic novel Tales from Year Zero are so rich. This is a world about the human characters and their struggle and relationship with the people around them.

There are four stories in Tales from Year Zero, that give some background on the origin of the Jaegers, Stacker Pentecost (played by Idris Elba), K-Day (the day the first Kaji arrived in San Francisco), and finally Raleigh Beckett’s relationship with his brother intertwined with Stacker’s story. These, again, are all human stories with personal stakes for the main character in every story. These stories do not have a happy ending showing this is a real world, with real stakes and consequences.

What I love is that it gives some (further) background to Stacker. He’s one of my favorite characters and you really get inside his head to see what makes him tick. He’s a hard ass, but a hard ass that cares. This book gives you the detail as to why he’s a hard ass. He’s a man who’s lost so much.

There are also new characters, with stories just as heartbreaking. The Jaeger origin story, to me, is the best story in the book. At its core it is a love story that would play out in real life. The dynamic shifts between the male and female characters over the course of the story, which to me is great writing and something you rarely see in comics. This goes back to a conversation I was having the other day with people saying how easily people give up on relationship instead of trying to make them work and here both very reluctantly give up on each other.

It you want an even more rewarding experience into the world of Pacific Rim, then dive head first into this graphic novel. Even if you don’t see the movie, Pacific Rim: Tales from Year Zero is more than worth a read.