- "6: "What is our true purpose?". 47: "Gain their trust. Take the Institute Down. Revenge."
- ―Subjects 6 and 47, Agent 47: Birth of the Hitman
Agent 47: Birth of the Hitman is the first comic series in the Hitman series. It was written by Christoper Sebela and published by Dynamite Comics. The art was done by Jonathon Lau and Ariel Madel. It was released on November 1st, 2017 and it ran for six issues; the last of which was released June 2018. It was released as a compilation (titled "Volume 1") a few months after the final comic released.
The comic's plot is initially set well before the events of Hitman: Codename 47, but does later include references to the tutorial of the game and later alludes to 47 joining the ICA. The comic revolves around both the machinations of Subject 47 and Subject 6 attempting to free themselves from "The Institute of Human Betterment", Dr. Ort-Meyer, and Providence, as well as giving a conclusive origin story for Diana Burnwood, and how she dealt with her parents' death, and how she got to work at the ICA and meet 47.
Plot[]
47 and 6 are carrying out a contract on behalf of Blue Seed Pharmaceuticals; a company that had accidentally poisoned the local water supply that killed several residents of the Surrey area, including nine year old James Burnwood, the younger brother of Diana Burnwood. 6 sets up a C4 charge on the bottom of the car of Nancy and Peter Burnwood, and note that Diana is not an intended target, but would send a greater message if kept alive. While Diana and jer parents; Nancy and Peter Burnwood, are visiting the gravestone of James Burnwood, Diana is suddenly thrown backwards, being blown away by the car bomb 6 had planted, and 47 had just triggered.
Diana is left unconscious after hitting her head on a gravestone, as well as the mental shock from losing her parents. 6 and 47 flee the scene, discarding their boiler outfits, and report back to The Institute for Human Betterment in Romania. Dr. Ort-Meyer asks 47 to pledge his allegiance to Providence and The Institute once more, reciting a specific mantra, focusing on the killing and the tool that he is, and downplaying his empathy. Ort-Meyer then recalls the Minnulescu incident to 47, and a flashback to a sequence of a young 47 and 6 killing squadrons of soldiers takes place. Said squadron was sent to capture them, and after they succeeded, they burned the whole village they were holed up in to the ground, as well as salting the earth of the people nearby.
Diana wakes up, still shaken from the events at the graveyard in Surrey, and decides to wander the hospital grounds, and after lockpicking the door, enters the morgue to find her dead parents. She sees their bodies for the last time before the comic blends into a scene of their remains being buried. She is now living with her extended family, and now attempting to find a new motivation in life, she wants to find the people responsible for the death of her parents. She opens up her parents' belongings and makes a wall filled with ties to people and events, all connected to Blue Seed Pharmaceuticals.
A young 47 and 6 are eating dinner in the mess hall, when 6 reveals a rabbit for 47 to keep as an apology for the Minnulescu incident, which 47 protests against as some kind of trick. 6 insists on trusting him, and 47 takes the rabbit to his room. Years later, 47 and 6 are leaving The Institute when 47 released a rabbit into the grounds, something 6 notes for being a frequent occurrence. The two are sent to kill a "secret associate" of Alfredo Stroessner, the then-president of Paraguay involved in a military coup. 47 leaves the vantage point, and decides to seek out the advisors himself; Martin Lohrmann and Severin Weiss. 47 makes his way through the coup, disguising as a soldier, and commandeering a jeep. He catches up to Martin and Severin, and after hearing their pleas to live, throws a grenade down the tunnel they're escaping into, and blows them up.
Meanwhile, Diana sneaks out of the house, and walks the streets during the night, in hope of some answers for starting her investigation into Blue Seed. Diana promptly runs into some thugs working for a local crime boss; Savi, who chases her down into an alleyway, making catcalls at her. While pinned down, Diana fights back, and breaks one of the thugs' nose. Savi then appears to see what the commotion is about, walks up to Diana and compliments her fighting prowess, and agrees to take Diana under her wing and find the people who killed her parents. Two weeks later, and Diana complains to Savi that they haven't gotten anywhere, and that her training is unnecessary. In response, Savi throws her to her goons, and beats her up until she yields and concedes that raw strength isn't enough.
47 and 6 are now shown to be in Umea Sweden, on another job to kill Tor Halversom. The assassination is narrated by 6, who gives a brief explanation of the concept of Poetic Justice to 47. Tor is killed by his wine collection, something he prides in showing off to his guests. On the way back to The Institute, 6 gives 47 a dossier on a freelance contract to kill a border officer; Mikhail Slavsky, in Pripyat, a part of Soviet Russia, while 6 talks to a person who will help them take down Ort-Meyer and The Institute. 47 travels to Pripyat and kills all the soldiers present with a sniper rifle, and drags Mikhail Slavsky to the nearby townsfolk to bleed out, as per the client's request. At the airport, 47 meets up with an overjoyed 47, with the client sends over a case filled with M1911 pistols as payment. 6 mentions his meeting went well, and that he found people to help take down The Institute and Ort-Meyer, as well as the hidden hand that gives them their power.
Back over in England, while Savi fixes Diana's makeup, she divulges why she wanted to help Diana, as well as telling her that her "graduation" has arrived, and that she's found an executive from Blue Seed that may be able to tell her what happened. A few days later, Diana gets a payphone call from Savi, and she calls attention to the suited man nearby; Alvin Forrestal. After tailing him for a while, Diana goes up to his office, produces crocodile tears to make the assistant leave the offices, and starts making a ruckus in Alvins' office, holding him at gunpoint while he begs for mercy. Diana relents and instead tries talking to Alvin about what happened at the cemetery. However, before much information is shared, Savi orders a sniper to shoot Alvin in the head, and ousts Diana in the process because she did not kill him, considering it cowardly.
Back at The Institute, 47 and 6 are seen stashing pills meant to keep the clones in order as part of their daily routine. 6 and 47 then go to Czechoslovakia, and kill Michael Lisk, an arms dealer in the region. The assassination involved a falling chandelier, and 47 says that he feels more free after not taking the pills. The two then meet with a leader of mercenaries who will help take down The Institute, but the negotiations fail when the killers want all the money instead of what 6 had brought with him, and in a fit of rage, 47 kills every one of the killers, and 6 chastises him for being so reckless.
The two travel to East Berlin to assassinate another Institute target, as well as to visit the rally of the ongoing riots at the Berlin Wall. They need to nullify their behaviour implants Ort-Meyer has implanted in their neck in order to raid the Institute, and to do so, they need to tear down the wall in front of them. They barge into the office of Gunther Schabowski and apply a C4 vest to his torso. 6 and 47 recite what they want him to say; "Tear down this Wall". The wall is immediately dismantled, and they find the technician, and he builds the two a device to render all implants useless within its range. 47 then kills him to tie up loose ends, much to 6's chagrin.
Diana is hiding away from Savi's thugs, and calls up the police to get rid of thugs posted to stalk her. She enters her home more freely, and then calls up two other thugs and proposes a deal with them to work for her, and to sweeten the deal, money has been left in a nearby phone box. The two thugs pick her up from school the following day, and offer them more money to meet her at the docks for an opportunity to get revenge on Savi for not paying them enough. When they meet up, Diana throws the money away into the harbour, and shows them illicitly obtained weapons, and offers to start a gunrunning business with them, as well as to get rid of Savi.
47 and 6 return from their hit in Berlin, and are asked to be confiscated of the weapons by the orderlies. The two immediately start a shootout, and the orderlies try to detonate the failsafe's, which doesn't work due to the nullifier, and the raid on The Institute begins. 6 rallies the clones to fight back against the guards, and when asked by 47 what their plan is next, 6 admits he doesn't know, and that the guards are suspiciously well-armed. Ort-Meyer chimes in over the intercom, and more elite guards enter the facility, and the raid continues with explosions and gunfire consuming the facility.
After a tirade of bullet fire, 47 decides to give himself up, which 6 strongly protests against. Nevertheless, 47 throws a grenade to distract the guards and give a window of opportunity for 6 to escape through the hole the grenade makes. 47 is sedated, and Ort-Meyer mentions The Constant (Janus) is now on his way.
Diana sends her thugs to mow down a safehouse of Savi's, and Diana tells Savi over the phone that she quits, much to her anger. Not soon after, the thugs kill the entourage of guards she has at her home, tie Savi up to interrogate her, and eventually kill her after an altercation occurs.
Janus, The first Constant of Providence, talks to Ort-Meyer about the fate of 6, and replies that he perished in the fire he created, and The Constant orders all the clones to be wiped of their memories of the raid, as well as of 6, in order for Ort-Meyers' experiments to continue and to prevent further incidents from occurring. 6 is shown in a town nearby in a jacket freezing cold, while Diana sets up her gunrunning business.
47 and the rest of the clones are prepped for their wiping of their memories of the incident, with their memories being jumbled up to prevent further trouble, with Ort-Meyer mentioning that 6 was his tormentor at the age of 12, not his friend, and starts with the procedure.
The comic skips to 1994, and 47 is assigned to kill a target in London, England, and has planted a bomb in the tunnels to throw rebar into the head of the target, some kind of businessman reading a newspaper. Despite immediate medical attention, he dies of his injuries. Partnered with Subject 81, the latter asks why 47 does every assignment at the Institute, and notes that "it gives [me] purpose". The Institute is shown to be in disrepair, much to 81's apparent discontent. 47 is called to a meeting in Ort-Meyers' office, and makes 47 recite the clone mantra, and asks if 47 enjoys his work, to which 47 responds positively to, and calls it his purpose in life. Ort-Meyer, stunned by his answer, tells 47 to leave him alone unless called for again.
Over in Dublin, Ireland, Diana is notified on a pager of her mercenary crew having issues with overtime pay, and holds up a queue at a phone box sorting out the details of her new career as a part-time gunrunner. Diana, now in her final year of University and chasing a psychology degree, works on building her skillset, and notes that she is ahead of everyone in her class by three years.
Diana goes on to detail her hits on Blue Seed Pharma; Richard Torres was driven off a bridge in an accident in 1991, with Andrew Rhodes getting killed by her mercenaries in 1993. She mentions that Savi's men liked her weekly pay, and it kept them motivated, as it very much did the same to her. She goes up to a labourer to deliver pistols in wooden boxes she had been carrying around, and gets her money to give to her mercenaries, and sending them off on another mission in her "Vigilante Empire".
Two years later, 47 hands out the pills given to the clones as part of their routine of compliance, while Ort-Meyer is on a phone call with The Second Constant (Arthur Edwards) with the latter remarking to Ort-Meyer how the clone program is no longer effective and, asides from 47, are slowly dying out six years after "The Wipe", even after moving the clones to the basement of the facility. 47 asks Ort-Meyer for his next job, while the clones around him sprawl about, slowly dying of their condition.
Meanwhile, Diana is out with friends at a bar, when she gets a phone call from her mercenaries on one of their marks; Phil Lee, one of the two heads left at Blue Seed Pharmaceuticals. Diana mentions that she's kept an eye on his movements, and paid a lot of money to an assassin to kill him, as well as whisper the names of her parents to Lee as he died. The operation to kill Phil is a success and she buys the drinks at the bar to celebrate.
The following year; 1998, 47 is putting the very weak 81 out of his misery, as like all the other clones, they have become too weak to perform assassination duties, leaving 47 to be the last clone standing after "The Wipe" had made the rest weaker and weaker. Ort-Meyer is told by The Constant that, following his recommendation, he is to hand 47 over to Providence, something which angers him greatly.
In the same year, Diana is shown to be working at Vincent De Paul Mental Health Care Associates in Dublin, Ireland as a mental health care advisor, all the while still tracking down the remaining members of Blue Seed. In this case, she has hired her mercenaries to find Cheryl Franklin and kill her. However, while her capture is successful, it turns out she had contingency plans in place for precisely this eventuality, and overwhelm Diana in her office with a hired assassin driving through the window, while Diana's mercenaries get killed and lose custody of Cheryl. She calls Diana while the latter is put under fire, and taunts her survival, while Diana escapes the hired gun, leaves the city via plane, and heads back to London to salvage what's left of her operation, only to find her mercenaries dead on the floor too.
47 wakes up, shackled to a bed, and kept in an interrogation-style room at the Satu Mare Research Facility. Ort-Meyer and The Constant are on the other side, when The Constant reveals all contracts between them have been terminated, and that Ort-Meyer has a week to shut down The Institute and other projects. Ort-Meyer enters the room, and sedating 47, removing all memories of him, fearing he may come after him. 47 wakes up hours later, and hears Ort-Meyer over the tannoy, leading into the tutorial for Hitman: Codename 47, where 47 puts on his signature suit, and picks up knives and an earpiece off of a plinth. 47 then takes down the orderly in front of him at Ort-Meyer's request with the knife given to him, and later shoots and garrottes the rest of the orderlies before escaping the facility.
Diana, determined to get answers from Cheryl, gears up and prepares to assault her residence, and hoping to also avenge her younger brother, as well as her parents. She is shown leaving the building with two guns and several more packed into a suitcase slung across her back. Diana proceeds to knock out a bellhop guard with a metal bar, and shoot two pistols at the following two guards who overlooked the elevator, kneecapping them. She dives into cover as more of Cheryl's security learn of her presence and use shotguns and rifles to lay down suppressive fire. She then jumps on top of a bookcase to surprise the guards with some kind of remote control device, but is surprised at someone shooting down the guards.
Laying in the fetal position on a sofa, she reminisces at how she's never had a guardian angel to protect her, and had to protect herself. More gunshots can be heard, and she then hears the voice of Erich Soders, and is shown to be wearing a white suit and holding a silenced pistol. The two head for the elevator to escape the building and Soders apologises for missing Nancy and Peters' funeral, reveals he's been keeping an eye on her, and both escape the building. While driving away, Soders convinces Diana to work for the International Contract Agency; the ICA, not as a killer for hire, but as a part of the handler program. Diana, initially skeptical, agrees to consider his request.
Meanwhile, Ort Meyer informs The Constant of news of 47's escape from the facility, and suggests a solution; to create more clones like 47 for Providence, to which he is initially suspicious of, and notes the coincidence, but agrees to his request, especially that given the circumstances, it seems like a good idea.
47 is then shown killing several people, all the while The Constant warns Ort-Meyer of other scientists attempting to crack the code to recreate his clone army. 47 then narrates over his actions of blending in, and coos at a rabbit in a store window, while he looks on at a family close by. He notes his solitary attitude, and we see 47 leave the shopping area.
One year later, 1999, Diana is on a coffee run, and offers Robyn Gore, a cup of tea. Robyn reveals that, after shadowing Diana for the previous year, she now gets to pick her own contract to take on, and while Diana is initially flustered by this decision, she slides over a file that she claims may be of interest to her; a hit on Franklin Marchand, founder of Brickolage Technologies.
Diana is at her desk on an unrelated contract, where she reveals that she spent five weeks shadowing Robyn, and two months in training in becoming a Junior ICA Handler.
The day of the Marchand contract arrives, and several agents are shown to be at play, all armed with sniper rifles. While "saying hello" to each other (sniping near each others' locations), 47 notices this exchange, and leaves his position to take out the other agents. Robyn and Diana suddenly realise that they have a rival assassin (47) systematically taking all their agents out, and proceed to make more daring target assassination attempts on Franklin. However, 47 rigs a camera to explode and Franklin gets impaled with glass in his neck, and bleeds out, while 47 drives away in a taxi, holding the driver at gunpoint, and running over a civilian to escape the carnage.
Diana is told by Robyn to go downstairs and salvage the operation. However, she notices 47 walking behind her and shadows him, until he reaches a bar. She puts on a hoodie and goes into the bar to meet with him, with her back faced to him, sitting in the booth behind him. 47 threatens Diana to leave him alone, and reveals he knows every exit in the bar. Diana pulls a grenade out of her pocket and takes the pin out to grab his attention, and 47 puts his pistol down. Diana gives 47 a speech on what motivates her, and mentions to 47 that the ICA can give 47 resources for assassinations, and hands him the ICA's card, and leaves the bar.
Diana, now at a cafe nearby, looks on her picture of her dead family, and proceeds to say that 47 is a blank page and that she could do anything with him. It is then revealed the narration throughout the Comic has been a recruitment report for the ICA to induct 47 into the agency. The final panel is of 47 walking down a cobblestone road with the heads of people he's killed, and a bloody skull in front of them. The end.
Reception[]
The comic got fair reviews, and got 3.21 out of 5 from Goodreads, the user-based critics commenting "A well illustrated extension of Hitman lore, although feeling a little lost with pacing at times."
Amazon gave the comic's complete edition a 4.5 out of 5.
Trivia[]
- The first issues' main cover is in reference to the Legacy Cinematic, where 47 uses a sniper rifle in front of a neon billboard, which itself is in reference to this famous promotional image for Hitman: Blood Money.
- Issue 4A's cover appears to be inspired by this promotional image for Hitman: Blood Money depicting Agent 47 with his fiber wire.
- Issue 6A's cover is in reference to this promotional image for Codename 47.
- Issue 5 has 47 in an apartment in Chinatown wearing only a vest; a reference to the very first scene after 47's escape in Codename 47.
- Issue 5 recreates the tutorial for Codename 47, albeit in a truncated form. While it largely sticks to the games' events, Ort-Meyer does not ask 47 to pick up either the Desert Eagle or the AMT Hardballer from a nearby table. The comic opts to remove this part, and simply displays his suit on a plinth, and the guns being replaced with a Fiber Wire and some knives. 47 does however, take two pistols from the orderlies a few pages later.
Errors[]
- The first issue has a printing error on one of the first pages where James Burnwood, Diana's younger brother, is in hospital, with the date being shown to be in 1985. It's actually meant to say "1989". This was fixed in the reprint Volume 1 compilation.
- The final issue has a printing error where Diana addresses Robyn Gore as "Miss Smythe", whereas in all other instance of the comic, she is addressed as "Miss Gore" or "Robyn".
- Issue 3 has a panel where Diana stares out to the London skyline while standing on a river dock, which features the London Eye; this would be anachronistic as the London Eye wouldn't have started development until 1998, which is nine years too early.
- As with the tutorial for Hitman (2016), several cars in the comics are clearly based on early 2000's cars, despite not being around for anywhere up to 25 years.
Gallery[]
| Hitman Series | ||
|---|---|---|
| Classic | Hitman: Codename 47 - Hitman 2: Silent Assassin - Hitman: Contracts - Hitman: Blood Money - Hitman: Absolution | |
| World of Assassination | HITMAN - HITMAN 2 - HITMAN III | |
| Promo | Hitman 2 Christmas Game - Hitman: Sniper Challenge - HITMAN: Sniper Assassin | |
| Mobile | Hitman: Vegas - Hitman: Sniper - Hitman GO - Hitman Sniper: The Shadows | |
| Films | Hitman - Hitman: Agent 47 | |
| Literature | Hitman: Enemy Within - Hitman: Damnation - Overachievers - Agent 47: Birth of the Hitman | |