Wow, it’s been a minute since I’ve posted anything!
Maybe I’ll let it last a month… or not.
While I’ve been on my sabbatical, I’ve been in a bit of a
Mass Effect fix. Mass Effect: Andromeda is right around the corner, so a
revisit was needed. Heck, since the beginning of year, Bioware has been my
go-to developer for a bit. I played
through Mass Effect again and it is still really good. I played some of Jade
Empire last month and decided to face the Collectors again with Mass Effect 2.
Somehow, I lost Mordin again. A tear was shed for the cool salarian. Right now,
I’m finishing off the trilogy with Mass Effect 3.
While playing the games, I started to think about a couple
of Mass Effect trade paperbacks I picked up some time ago. I think it was at
McKay’s but I really don’t remember. It was a while before I really read them. They
were tie-ins done by Dark Horse around the time of the Mass Effect sequels and
they center on certain characters from the series. Today, I thought I’d give a
bit of an overview of these two trades.
Mass Effect: Redemption was released around 2010. It
contains one storyline. The next trade, Mass Effect: Evolution, was released in
2012. It not only contains a four-part storyline but two short stories. Mac
Walters, the creative director for the games, handled the story for these two
trades and later ones that I won’t be talking about today. John Jackson Miller
handles the script and dialogue. The artwork for Redemption and Evolution was
done by Omar Francia. Incursion’s artwork is done by Eduardo Francisco while Inquisition’s
artwork is done by Jean Diaz. The colors and letters for all the stories were
handled by Michael Atiyeh and Michael Heisler.
Here’s a small rundown of the stories:
Mass Effect: Redemption
This storyline pretty much centers on how Shepard’s body got
into the hands of Cerberus, a pro-human black-ops group. A few months after the
Normandy SR-1 was destroyed, Liara T’Soni (one of Shepard’s teammates) headed
out to look for Shepard’s body. She got word that Shepard’s remains are in
stasis and they’re in the possession of the Shadow Broker, a person who funnels
all sorts of stuff through the galaxy. Unfortunately, she’s not the only one
looking for them. A race known as the Collectors and Cerberus is also searching
for the body. With the help of Feron, a drell informant who has many ties to
different groups, she’s able to get it. Feron is captured by the Collectors
though and handed to the Shadow Broker. In the end, Liara hands Shepard’s body
to Cerberus since they actually want to revive him in order to fight the
Reapers.
Uh, Miranda? What happened to your face?
Mass Effect: Evolution
This story centers on Jack Harper who is later known as the
Illusive Man. It takes place in 2157 during the end of the First Contact War
between humanity and the turians, a powerful alien race. In the story, he and
his mercenary team encounter Reaper technology for the first time during a
battle with turians. The Reaper monolith was in the care of turian scientists.
It changes Ben, one of his squadmates, into a subservient super-soldier while
Harper experiences visions, can understand unknown languages, and has his eyes
changed. Before more can be known by
Harper, humanity and the turians end their war. Ben, who’s pretty much changed,
stays with the turians.
Saren... not that bad when he's not indoctrinated.
Still, Harper is worried what the monolith could do, so he
and another squadmate head into turian space. There, they find Desolas, a
turian general, in possession of the monolith. We also run into Saren, a turian
Spectre and the villain from the first game. Desolas takes the monolith to an
ancient turian temple and uses it to change more of his people. As more and
more turians are changed by the devices, Harper and Saren realize what the monolith actually is. He and Eva try to destroy it, but
she ends up getting killed. Ben, who was able to keep some of his mind in
check, ends up sacrificing himself to take the device out. In the end, Harper
takes Eva away and Saren has the temple destroyed by a bomb. The story abruptly
ends with Harper, now as the Illusive Man, leading Cerberus.
Mass Effect: Incursion
This 8-page story takes place before the Collectors
destroyed the Normandy in Mass Effect 2. It’s a day in the life of Aria T’Loak,
the head of Omega. Her bodyguards get word of something going down on Omega
involving a gang called the Blue Suns. Aria thinks more is going on, so she
accompanies her men. When they reach the meeting site, it turns out that the
Blue Suns are selling humans to some of the Collectors. A fight breaks out with
Aria and her men taking out the Collectors, the slaves, and most of the Blue
Suns. After some interrogating, it’s revealed that the Collectors are harvesting
humans and they aren’t just stopping with Omega.
Dang.
Mass Effect: Inquisition
The final 8-page story looks at another small character from
the series: Captain Bailey of C-Sec (Citadel Security). It takes place after
the events of Mass Effect 2. In the story, Councilor Udina… wait, Councilor “Jackass”
Udina, gives Bailey a job to do. It turns out that Executor Pallin, a turian
who’s head of C-Sec, is involved in some seedy business with the Council’s
enemies. “Butthead” Udina tells Bailey check out Pallin’s office and Bailey
reluctantly takes the job. He heads to Pallin’s office at night and finds a
couple of other C-Sec officers dead by Pallin’s hand. Pallin swears he’s
innocent but a fight breaks out and Bailey kills Pallin in self-defense. In the
end, Bailey delivers this information to “Poopoohead” Udina with some doubt on
Pallin’s villainy. “Idiot” Udina blows it off and promotes Bailey to the role
of Commander and head of C-Sec.
OPINION
While I had some qualms here and there, I thought these two
trades were fine for the most part. One good thing I cans say about all of the
stories is that they felt entrenched in the Mass Effect universe. Not only did
we have familiar characters, but the looks, the tech, and the different jargon
felt right. I guess that happens when you have someone so involved in the games
heading the thing. Even when the storytelling and some art weren’t gelling
well, things at least felt right.
I liked that the
stories tried to further look at characters and things not touched on in the
games. It would have been hard to even try recreating things involving Shepard,
so I’m glad that companions and other NPCs get some time to shine. In
Redemption, we see how involved Liara was in getting Shepard to Cerberus. We
even see her become a bit more hard-edged here. She isn’t just an asari
historian anymore. The two short stories were also nice in that they featured
two interesting characters. With Aria, we just got to see how ruthless and
powerful she was. The short with Bailey was the better of the two though. Not
only was it an interesting story, it also explained what happened to a
character from the first game.
Of the four stories, the one that really stood out to me was
the Illusive Man’s story. Not only did it give some background on the
character, it took place during a pretty untouched time. While we get info on
the First Contact War in the games, we really don’t see any of it there for
obvious reasons. We even find out why the Illusive Man is the way he is in the
games. Not only do we get info on the Illusive Man here, but we see what Saren
was up to at this time as well. I actually forgot he was in the story and was
pretty surprised to see him here.
I have to say that I’m pretty mixed on the artwork as a
whole. I do like that it does at least get the look of Mass Effect right. The
aliens looked right for the most part. The action is also pretty nice at times.
That being said, there were times were things got pretty inconsistent. It’s
kind of all over the board with the art. The place where I really noticed the
lackluster art was really with Redemption. The others’ artwork had its issues
but Redemption was the one that really got to me. There were times where folk
didn’t look right during that story.
At least Aria looks okay.
I don’t have too many problems with the trades. Not all of
the stories hit the mark in a couple of places. There was a part of me that was
actually a little bored by some of the stories. I didn’t run into this with the
short stories but I did with the four-parters. Redemption is actually my least
favorite of these four. While it is an important story to the franchise, some
of it just drug on at times. I also think the lackluster artwork also made it a
chore to read as well. As for Evolution, there is a part of me that wishes we
got more with the Illusive Man. After his stint on Palaven, the story ends and
we don’t know how Cerberus came to be nor how he got to be in charge of it.
In the end, these were two fine trades. While they aren’t
perfect, they filled that Mass Effect fix for me. We got to see lesser
known characters get fleshed out a little bit. I know there is some more Mass
Effect stuff out there, so I might check it out here if I ever get my hands on
it. I do have a copy of Mass Effect: Paragon Lost on DVD. Maybe I’ll finally
crack that open and see if my sometimes nemesis/ally, “Word-of-Mouth,” was right about that.
Until then, Peace, God Bless, and just know that the
games aren’t the only thing obsessed with folks’ butt.
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