We’re concluding our look at the Mass Effect comics with the various strips and one-shots Dark Horse published from 2010 to 2013, as well as the interactive ‘Genesis’ comics created for the PlayStation 3 release of Mass Effect 2, and the Wii U version of ME3.
Written by Mac Walters
Art by Eduardo Francisco, Jean Diaz
Colored by Michael Atiyeh
Lettered by Michael HeislerPresenting two action-packed Mass Effect stories, both written by Mass Effect 3 lead writer Mac Walters! Originally available only from MySpace Dark Horse Presents and USA Today, these peeks into different corners of the Mass Effect universe are now collected together for the special price of just $0.99! In “Incursion,” Mass Effect: Invasion’s Aria faces an attack on Omega from the Collectors, and in “Inquisition,” the Citadel’s Captain Bailey is tasked to uncover a traitor in the council’s midst!
‘Incursion’ (with Eduardo Francisco on art) takes place before “Redemption,” and sees Aria T’Loak encountering the Blue Suns mercenary group selling human slaves to Mass Effect 2’s big bads, the Collectors. It’s strange Aria would just stumble on a deal like this, when she’d probably receive intel on it from one of her men, but it was still good to see her “let loose” before “Invasion” and ME3’s Omega DLC: she even manages to take on Harbinger (recognizable here because he’s the only Collector who speaks) in a one-on-one fight. The comic ends on a suitably ominous note, with Aria being handed a datapad containing the Collectors’ estimates of human populations across the galaxy, hinting at their dark plans for us.
‘Inquisition’ (by Diaz) follows C-Sec’s amiable Captain Bailey after the second game, when he’s asked to investigate his boss, the turian Executor Pallin, by humanity’s Citadel Council representative Donnel Udina. It’s a moody comic, largely consisting of shadowy conversations, with the only action (if you can call it that) being Bailey’s physical struggle when he finds and kills Pallin — it’s certainly the only time we see the Citadel’s Presidium lights under “night time” or “dawn” conditions. The story is particularly interesting after the third game, when it was revealed Udina was in league with Cerberus: it makes you realize he probably set up Bailey after learning Pallin was coming close to discovering his secret, and that the Executor was only acting in self-defense.
Written by Mac WaltersCover by Eduardo Francisco
Art by Eduardo Francisco
Colored by Michael Atiyeh
Lettered by Michael Heisler[No official synopsis available for this 8-page comic, which introduced James Vega ahead of his debut in Mass Effect 3, and was released for free via Dark Horse Digital in September 2011. It is included in the collections of the series, including the trade paperback of “Mass Effect: Invasion.”]
“Conviction” finds James Vega in a bar on Omega, drowning his sorrows after the events of Mass Effect: Paragon Lost (the anime film he starred in.) He gets into a fight with a group of batarians, who are angry over the human-led destruction of their colony on Aratoht (as seen in the Mass Effect 2 DLC Arrival), but Admiral Anderson intervenes, and hands him a more productive assignment: guarding the Alliance’s new prisoner under house arrest, Commander Shepard.
The story makes James hotheaded to the point he looks immature, but it is striking to see everyday batarians react to the tragedy on Aratoht, a great example of how the comics can explore events outside Shepard’s point-of-view. Francisco’s art is excellent, although it becomes apparent why he may not have been asked to do more ME comics: all of his aliens come across as spiky and jagged (even the oval-shaped batarians), and in one panel he even introduces a random, four-armed species, despite ME not being like Star Wars and Star Trek, where dozens of new races debut in every film.
Continued belowWritten by Mac WaltersCover by Omar Francia
Art by Omar Francia
Colored by Michael Atiyeh
Lettered by Michael HeislerHe has “a lover in every port and a gun in every tentacle”! Blasto the Hanar Spectre, the most beloved action hero in the galaxy, makes his comics debut with a nonstop thrill-ride of white-knuckle excitement! Blasto serves justice on an explosive platter in this top secret mission to the planet Virmire — accompanied by the beautiful and deadly asari Cerulean Star!
“Blasto: Eternity is Forever” portrays one of the Blasto movies advertised in the games, starring the eponymous hanar secret agent. The joke behind Blasto is the sheer incongruity of a hanar — a race of polite, calm, floating jellyfish — being the interstellar equivalent of James Bond, and how funny you find this comic will depend on whether you laugh at lines like, “Unlikely. This one incarcerated that crazed doctor’s ass oneself,” or, “This one thinks the krogan scum must ask the question — does it feel fortunate? Do you, scum?”
Francia’s art has the same, overly realistic style as “Invasion” and his issue of “Homeworlds,” but it works in this small (14-page) dose thanks to the silly story. He excels at making Blasto expressive, despite the character’s lack of facial features: in one panel he shows skepticism by placing his tentacles on his other tentacles, which is truly amazing. For this reader and fan, “Blasto” was a perfectly slight but silly, and puntastic parody of the Bond movies, as well as the interspecies romances of the games. (Yes, this technically contains — thankfully — offscreen tentacle sex.)
Written by Jeremy Barlow, Mac WaltersCover by Garry Brown
Art by Garry Brown
Colored by Michael Atiyeh
Lettered by Michael HeislerThree blockbuster titles fill this FCBD offering! In R.I.P.D., a seance goes terribly wrong! Then, in Mass Effect, follow a flight-school grad as he breaks the rules to prove himself in space! Finally, check out the police-state landscape of the highly anticipated miniseries The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys!
Dark Horse’s 2013 “Free Comic Book Day” story ‘He Who Laughs Best’ finally put the spotlight on Commander Shepard’s most steadfast ally, Normandy pilot Jeff “Joker” Moreau. The comic reveals Joker became the ship’s pilot when he commandeered it before its first official flight, after an irritated turian general told him “a cripple” would never be allowed to fly such an important ship. Joker avoids being court-martialed and imprisoned for the stunt, after the very same turian general points out he ran rings around the humans’ security protocols, and is therefore the best man for the job.
Brown’s scratchy, ink-heavy art is a great fit for the militaristic characters, and the darkness of space, although his style of not rendering people’s eye pupils means the otherwise charming final panel of Joker realizing his gambit “actually worked” comes across strangely: Joker may have brittle bones, but he’s not visually impaired too. Anyway, it’s a fun story, one I wish Shepard was able to discuss with Joker in the games, and it’s always great to see the original Normandy — with Anderson as her captain — again.
The interactive ‘Genesis’ comics allow ME2 and 3 players to determine what happened in the previous games, without having to go through them, which was handy since the first game (originally an Xbox 360 exclusive) would not be released on the PS3 until after its sequels, or in the Wii U’s case, never released at all. The first “Mass Effect: Genesis” — which was inked by Alex Lei — is a fine retelling of the original game’s story, narrated by Shepard’s voice actors Mark Meer and Jennifer Hale, even though it leaves out the events on Feros (an understandable decision, given the narrative dead end it became), and Urdnot Wrex looks like a potato.
“Genesis 2” unfortunately struggles with the episodic nature of ME2, giving the player nonsensical choices like recruiting some or all of the 12 squadmates, or ignoring their personal problems, instead of going through the major decisions in their storylines. Likewise, they’re forced to choose between saving the Normandy‘s crew or ensuring the survival of all the squadmates in the final battle with the Collectors, when it was possible to ensure no one got left behind. Honestly, I don’t even see the point of its inclusion in the Legendary Edition, other than the need for it to be complete: it comes across as if it was designed to punish Wii U owners.
Well reader, here ends our revisit of the Mass Effect comics. Agree? Disagree? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments, and hopefully we’ll have some new comics to discuss in the near future.
