New Era

NewEra.jpg Era
'New Era' is the term for the more recent Operator comic pages posted online after the long hiatus. It appears that a few elements of 'Operator' have undergone some redesign. Notably, Armours seem to have been completely redesigned, and military uniforms appear closer to actual WW1 uniforms.

Notably, Ash's role as the narrator is now far more obvious, with occasional panels showing him typing on a typewriter. The narration boes appear to be from his point of view, as he mentions people that he does or doesn't know personally. It is difficult to tell, but in these panels he appears to be older than his depiction in the main series, implying he is writing about events in the past.

The introduction of a definite timeline is New Era's other distinctive feature- the first page mentions that the calendar restarted at the turn of the 20th century. Therefore, 1900 becomes NE0000, 1914 becomes NE0014, etc. This confirms the conflict in 'Operator' as being an analogue of World War One. It's not certain if this will be retconned into the original comic. The first panel of New Era shows the triggering event for this change- multiple humanoid shapes, roughly matching the silhouette of the giant 'Operator' machine, falling to Earth. It is made clear that these machines also boosted technology development and led to the creation of Armours.

New Era so far focuses on a different main character to the previous comic- an American special operative named John D. Kadigan.