Overtime

For the comics posted online by Respawn, see Comics.

Overtime
Cover for Issue #1
Release date	Issue 1: June 02, 2021 Issue 2: July 21, 2021 Issue 3: October 06, 2021 Issue 4: March 30, 2022
Author(s)	Jesse Stern
Artist(s)	Neil Edwards, Keith Champagne, Antonio Fabela, Bengal, David Nakayama
Publisher	Dark Horse Comics

Overtime is a a four-issue comic book mini-series that is a part of Apex Legends' lore.

The story takes place on a Saturday in 2733, Sometime between Season 6 and Season 7

Issue #1

“	The Legends from the battle royale video game find themselves pulled together to rescue the city from Mad Scientists, brutal assassins, and the sudden and sinister grip of the Syndicate, a corrupt cabal attempting to fix arena outcomes in their favor. Will the Legends hold up to their celebrity status and be the heroes Solace needs?

This issue was released on June 02, 2021.

On a Saturday in 2733, Crypto and his team took last place in Apex Games. After briefly participate in the award ceremony, Mirage offers Crypto drinks in his bar. While Crypto declined initially, he eventually decides to accept Mirage's offer. Afterwards, Mirage tags along with Crypto who is going to meet a developer of high-end tech. In the club, the developer approaches Crypto, holding a metal briefcase. When Crypto inquires if his desired information is within the briefcase, the developer states no, adding that he could send it over online instead. Rather, the developer wants protection from Crypto, noting that Crypto is a Legend, and he knows how to hide and hack. The developer further elaborates that he works in a design laboratory for a Boss Willis, and Crypto quickly catches on that the developer is part of the Syndicate. Suddenly, Revenant enters the scene and attempts to stab the Developer, but due to Mirage's intervention, hooks onto the metal briefcase instead. When pressed by Mirage, Revenant reveals that the Syndicate hired him to kill the developer. A fight quickly breaks out between the three Legends, before Crypto stuns Revenant with his EMP pulse, allowing him, Mirage, and the informant escape with the briefcase. When the developer demands his briefcase back in his hand, Crypto states that his EMP is suppose to fry whatever that's inside, but the developer corrects him, saying the briefcase is shielded. Revenant eventually catches up to them, and using his totem, seemingly summons a pack of prowlers to attack the three. Eventually, Revenant manages to capture Crypto and offers Mirage to trade Crypto for the briefcase. However, Mirage chooses to jump off the roof with the briefcase...

From a distance, Wattson watches the fight, with a figure behind her saying their blood is on her hands.

Issue #2

“	Three Legends walk out of the arena and into another night full of mayhem and partying. Surely, some days on the outlaw-filled planet of Solace must be safe . . . right? Unfortunately for our heroes, there are assassins, robot-scrappers, and worse prowling the neon lit streets. They will need to work together if they want to survive.

This issue was released on July 21, 2021.

Rewinding time back to the award ceremony, Lifeline complains to Octane about how others only care about winning, and Octane replies he cares more about staying alive. As they sign autographs for fans, the duo realize that DOC is missing. As it turns out, it got lost, until it crashes into Pathfinder, the duo's teammate for the recent match. After this, Lifeline and Octane plan to go to a club; Pathfinder wants to come, but Lifeline explains that the club's doorman dislike robots. Arriving outside the club, Lifeline gives the doorman a password and some pick-me-up from DOC, and gone in. As it turns out, her old band, The Flyer Liars, is playing on that night, and Lifeline is playing as a guest.

Meanwhile, Pathfinder encountered a fight in a back alley. When he interrupts the fight, the three men immediately stops - as it turns out, they are scrappers, and is pulling a ruse to capture Pathfinder for Boss Willis. However, right as the men jump on them, the prowlers (last seen seemingly summoned by Rev in Volume 1) dashed by, providing an opening for Pathfinder to grapple out of the alley. Landing by the club, he seeks shelter in the club, but the scrappers soon catch up and start a gunfight in the venue, resulting in Lifeline getting shot. While Octane tries to fight back, the scrappers grabbed Pathfinder's chassis and escape. Going back to Lifeline who is dying, Octane is surprised that Pathfinder's mind got transferred onto DOC, and thus unable to provide first aid to Lifeline. Deciding they need a tracker to get Pathfinder's chassis back, Octane contacted Bloodhound for help. Eventually, Bloodhound managed to find the scrappers, who at the moment are trying to take apart of the robotic legend. Meanwhile, Octane hurriedly carries Lifeline to the hospital; when they arrive, the hospital went out of power...

Issue #3

“	When one of the Legends leaves the Arena with a mysterious package, two others follow to see what their suspicious competitor is up to. The Legends trail him to his lab and their confrontation unleashes chaos on Solace's city streets. They'll need to stop this new threat, but first they must survive it.

This issue was released on October 06, 2021.

Rewinding time back to the award ceremony, a dropship carrying Boss Willis is told to hold in pattern, as the Legends are landing for the Apex Award Ceremony. From the dropship, Rampart grumpily watch Gibraltar held the trophy aloft, before being called by Wattson to help sign some autographs for their fans. Wattson, who kept her eye on Caustic, notice Caustic received a bag of items from a masked person, with blood dripping from it. Alerted, Wattson and Rampart follow him and reached one of his hidden labs on Solace, and Rampart decide to search for a backdoor, and found the way in the form of the music club (first seen in Vol 2), currently empty. While walking through it to reach their destination, Rampart wonders why Wattson is not happy with Caustic. Aside from what happened during the Broken Ghost, she is also especially mad that Caustic is manipulative. Rampart replies that Wattson should cut him out of her life, but Wattson replies that it is because he cannot be trusted, she must keep an eye on him. Within Caustic's lab, the mad scientist is recording a journal about prowlers as he look over a Prowler that he has kept caged and starved for around a week. Wattson and rampart tried to sneak around the lab, but are caught by Caustic. A fight starts between the three, which caused the Prowlers to escape the lab and run around the streets (thus, what is shown in Vol 1 is not actually Rev summoning prowlers; they just happen to be there)

Elsewhere, Gibraltar, Loba, and Bangalore are celebrating in a fancy restaurant. Looking outside the window, Bangalore notices a man that ran by outside has Jackson's jacket, and the three quickly rushed out to give chase. Catching the man, the man revealed that he stole it from a patient within the hospital. Bangalore calms down and offers to take the jacket back, but the man warns the trio about the approaching prowler stampede. Gibraltar quickly activated his dome shield, but he is unable to save the man from the prowler's attack. Suddenly, they are approached by an armed trident, who says the man is his underling. Bangalore decided to take on the trident, resulting in a running battle along the streets. Using her smoke, Bangalore sends the trident crashing into a transformer, and thus caused a power outage (first encountered in Vol 2).

Heading to the hospital at Bangalore's request, all the aforementioned legends meet up. It is then a dropship crash land onto the hospital...

Issue #4

“	The legends of the arena have been swept up in a night of total chaos as multiple crises come to a head, threatening to destroy Solace. Will the few gladiators left standing be able to work together to save their grungy neon city or will they be defeated by the Syndicate, orchestrating chaos across the galaxy?

This issue was released on March 30, 2022.

Rewinding time back to the award ceremony, Wraith decides to skip out the ceremony and teleports to a vantage point above the ceremony. Noticing a dropship acting weirdly, Wraith entered into the phase dimension and observe the dropship discreetly, while also taking note of how her fellow legends spend the night, be it from joyous occasions to running for their lives.

After Mirage escapes from Revenant (Vol 1), Wraith decides to reveal herself to Mirage. When asked about the briefcase, Mirage states that he has no clue, but guess it was something to do with Crypto's missing sister; when Wraith wonders how Mirage knows about this fact, Mirage states he does listen. He then reiterates his desire to protect the briefcase. When Mirage mentions "Willis", Wraith says that name is bad news -- Willis is a mobster turned Syndicate official. Meanwhile, Revenant drags Crypto toward Willis' Dropship that landed nearby. Crypto offers to pay triple of what Willis offer, but Rev replies Crypto will not be able to beat what Willis promised to him — in exchange for the delivery, Willis will de-activate the source code that connects his consciousness to Rev's body, allowing him to die.

Mirage's curiosity got the better of him, and he opens the briefcase, which reveals it is an encrypted comm unit. Deciding to join the fight, Mirage took up Rev's earlier offer to trade Crypto for the briefcase as if he wants a cut of the reward, and Rev responds with a stab - and the Mirage turns out to be a holo; Mirage is by Crypto in reality. By then, Boss Quentin Willis had came out of his dropship along with his guards. Confronting Crypto (whom he revealed to have known to be Tae Joon Park), Willis inquires about Mila, in which Crypto snapped back about how Willis is trying to manipulate the Apex Games. Decrypting the communications unit and activates it, the screen surprisingly reveals Mila Alexander on the other end. As Willis explained, the comm unit - specifically the comm channel to Mila - is what the developer believed to be the only way to secure protection from Crypto. Cutting the connection, Willis takes both Mirage and Legend onto his dropship and flies it high above the sky. He is about to defenestrate both Mirage and Crypto, when Wraith teleported in and started a fight with Willis and his goons. As a result of this skirmish, the dropship is damaged; while Crypto and Mirage escape through Wraith's dimensional rift, Willis crash lands the dropship onto a local hospital, levelling it (Vol 3). Acting quickly, the Legends in the hospital utilize their abilities to protect and rescue those within the Hospital. Crypto swaps DOC and Pathfinder's conscious back to their own chassis.

Bloodhound eventually digs up Willis from the rubble, who instead taunts back at the legends and the witnesses, even when his plot to fix the Games was revealed. He begs Revenant for assistance, but is impaled by the simulacrum instead, who reminded Willis that he has promised death. Rev then finds the comm unit and handed it back to Crypto, but it was heavily damaged; Crypto resolves to repair the comm unit to find his sister. Bangalore, after checking the Jacket's embroidery, confirmed that the jacket does belong to her brother, and feels renew in her search for Jackson.

The sun comes up. The fourteen legends are prepared for their next game.

Critical Reception

The Overtime comic series has been overwhelmingly derided since release. Criticisms have mostly focused on the art, penciled by Neil Edwards and inked by Keith Champagne. Art within the comics frequently traces promotional assets, such as screenshots and character renders, as well as an instance of fan art being plagiarised. Continuity has also been seen an issue, with characters frequently coming off-model, including a panel in the issue #2 that features Octane with fully fleshed out legs.

Inker Keith Champagne received notable criticism from fans upon the first issue's release for a perceived lack of effort. On Instagram, he eventually locked a post celebrating the comic's publication, acknowledging the criticism with humor. Despite this, he would make no further mention of the series on social media, even as subsequent issues were published.

Gallery

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  Cover for Issue #1

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  Cover for Issue #2

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  Cover for Issue #3

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  Cover for Issue #4