Dead Space: Salvage

Dead Space

by Antony Johnston, Christopher Shy (illustrator)

The USG Ishimura, the most famous of the Planetcracker class starships, is flung from orbit around Aegis VII after the disastrous events of Dead Space. It is lost somewhere in deep space, and both the Government and a powerful religious sect called "Unitology" believe it may still hold the Red Marker, an alien artifact that promises great power for either side, and both will stop at nothing to reach it first

Genres: Horror, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction, Comics, Video Games, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics

128 pages, Paperback

First published December 7, 2010

About the author

** Sign up for Antony's newsletter at http://ajwriter.substack.com **

Antony Johnston is one of the most versatile writers of the modern era.

The Charlize Theron movie Atomic Blonde was based on his graphic novel. His murder mystery series The Dog Sitter Detective won the Barker Book Award. His crime puzzle novel Can You Solve the Murder? reinvented choose-your-own-story books for a mainstream audience and was a Waterstones Paperback of the Year. The Brigitte Sharp spy thrillers are in development for TV. And his productivity guide The Organised Writer has helped authors all over the world take control of their workload.

Antony is a celebrated videogames writer, with genre-defining titles including Dead Space, Shadow of Mordor, and Resident Evil Village to his credit. His work on Silent Hill Ascension made him the only writer in the world to have contributed to all of gaming’s ‘big three’ horror franchises.

His immense body of work also includes Marvel superheroes such as Daredevil and Shang-Chi, the award-winning Alex Rider graphic novels, the post-apocalypse epic Wasteland, and more. He wrote and directed the film Crossover Point, made entirely in quarantine during the coronavirus pandemic.

An experienced podcaster and public speaker, he also frequently writes articles on the life of an author, and is a prolific musician.

Antony is a former vice chair of the Crime Writers’ Association, a member of International Thriller Writers and the Society of Authors, a Shore Scripts screenwriting judge, and sits on the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain’s videogames committee. He lives and works in England.

Reviews

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some nice Ben Templesmith-esque art, albeit a bit flat and static, art which turns incomprehensible during action scenes.

The story is okayish.

[Nicole (book.quill) · Rating 3 out of 5]

First off, absolutely beautiful artwork and style. The plot reminded me of Prometheus a bit; keep in mind I have literally no knowledge of the game series or any prior related media. It kept my attention in the way it was written and once the action started, I adored it. But that being said.... I was evidently a little lost when it came to characterization/ concept as all of the references would be lost on me. Because of the art style and my lack of knowledge, most of the characters just blended together. If you're a fan of Dead Space, this is visually beautiful and seems to have a great story. If you're not, you just might be after this.

[Emily A · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am reluctant to leave a negative review on this graphic novel. But I have to be honest, and the truth is that I found this artwork almost incomprehensible as a storytelling medium.

Mood? Fantastic. Thematic resonance of the multimedia aesthetic? Fantastic. This book is definitely beautiful. But when I have to flip back and forth between the character bios and the page I'm on several times to try and decipher who's fuzzy, texture-overlaid, colour-edited face I'm meant to be looking at? At that point, it's hardly a graphic novel. I literally can't tell you anything about the story and writing just little while later because, basically, I was preoccupied trying to read individual panels, rather than a flowing sequence of events.

I was super excited to finally get my hands on this, but in the end the story was overwhelmed by the Aesthetic(tm) and my reading experience was defined by frustration.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

This second volume in the Dead Space graphic novel series carries on within the grim horrors with the Ishimura ship and the deadly twisted carnage that has spread thru the 'Marker's' existence. The prelude of characters didn't really pan out wholeheartedly within this volume. However; Christopher Shy's artwork kept me glued to keep on turning pages.

[Rick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really liked the first Dead Space graphic novel, but this one just didn't engage me. Maybe it's because I never finished the game and this takes place after the events of the game, but as it is, I found the overall story boring and it didn't add anything to the Dead Space universe other than being a bridge between games one and two.

The only upside was the art. It was stellar, like the first volume. It's just too bad the story held no interest for me.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unlike the prior Dead Space comic series which I got around the time of the release of the first game, Dead Space: Salvage is a new acquire and I totally forgot this existed until recently. I've played all the games and Dead Space was such a wild ride that I was looking forward to diving back into the world, even if it was through the comic book medium or novels. I still haven't read the novels yet... maybe someday.

Salvage feels like an over ambitious graphic novel from an art direction. Usually, I'll go over story first in a review, but this art got in the way of the story so much that it's hard to avoid bringing it up. The art in this book looks really nice and it really is quite stunning most of the time, but the real problem is with the characters. All the characters wound up looking so similar it was hard to follow who was doing what or where they were. In the beginning of the book they actually had character profiles, which at first glance seemed interesting to give more background... but as I read further I realized you actually needed these things in order to figure out who was doing what! It was a truly disorienting read, and not in a good way. I'm supposed to walk away from Dead Space feeling like I just experienced some crazy unhinged thing... and I did... but in a confusing non-scary way.

Salvage takes place right after the first Dead Space game and before Dead Space 2 came out. Now, I can't really remember the ending or beginning of these games too well, I will have to replay them, but they're not quick games, so by the time I'm done I'll probably forget Salvage... The government has blocked off the area around the planet where the first Dead Space took place, Aegis VII, I believe. In another area nearby, but outside the blockade there is a group of ships engaging in some illegal mining activities. They're hoping the blockade will be removed by the time they're done. I didn't super understand all the tech that was going on, but they put these little chunks inside a teleportation field in space? I guess that thing is used for jumping ships different places? I was kind of confused at this, but all of a sudden the Ishimura comes through the portal scattering all their hard work into space.

Despite their major losses, they try to consider the Ishimura as a new salvage opportunity. Apparently, they find pieces of the marker floating around in space around the Ishimura. This where I can't remember the end of Dead Space, did Isaac destroy the marker at the end by venting it into space? I just cant remember what happened, it was so long ago. Maybe I will get my wish and a remastered version of all 3 games will come out. In any event, if you're familiar with Dead Space you know what happens toward the end.

There wasn't much in the way of revealing mysteries in this comic, it was more of a side adventure more than anything else. They did try to include aspects of the government conspiracy with the Unitologists going on, but again, that part was so hard to follow due to the art direction. While in some respects the art was better this time around, it was also worse, so it's hard to rate this thing. Maybe once I get around to the novels I'll find them to be a better medium to convey the world of Dead Space outside of video game format.

[Sylvester · Rating 2 out of 5]

I actually really hate the art style, almost making the entire graphic novel unreadable.

The story is OK but just way to tedious to read in this format.

[Keith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Love the Dead Space series, but found this really hard to get into. The digital collage/photostrip look of the artwork can be striking in some panels, but doesn't work well for the panel to panel storytelling and makes things difficult to follow. There might be a cool story in there, but I just found the low-res murkiness of the visuals too much of a barrier to engaging with it.

[Welther · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story is as simple as they come. It's all about: how can we get a group of people onboard a space ship to be slaughtered by Necromorphs. I guess that is fine; it's certainly what you would expect from a Dead Space media.
The themes are cosmic horror, mainly body horror, and religious fanaticism. It is based on a horror game after all, and what easier excuse is there for horror than fanaticism?

The dialog, like the story is simple and what you would expect. It's the common Hollywood action movie dialog. There seems to be a running "fuck you, Schneider" joke going on. And that is about as deep as it gets. There is a lot of meaningless banter and it makes the beginning drag a bit. Witty, dirty banter is not endearing when you don't know nor care about the characters. And they don't get any deeper than that. That is my problem; the characters feel like real people, but are like "characters"; they don't have feelings, only care about a paycheck.

The graphics: the real reason to read this. Unfortunately, this is also where I have the biggest problem with the novel. The characters and especially the uniforms, are in stark contrast to the lower detailed and less defined backgrounds. E.g. page 49.
The graphic style is a matter of opinion, but I have mixed feeling about them. The are clearly rushed. It's not just a "style". The are messy and look sloppy.
Too often it's hard to tell what is going on. The pictures don't always tell a good and clear story by themselves, and when the dialog fails to do so too, it creates unnecessary confusion. At one point I was unsure if the pages were placed out of order!
They certainly fit the universe. The color scheme is very fitting, but they look like digitized photos of current military uniforms, just with heavy filtering. The worst is when I recognize things. A phone, limbs of a squid, a WWII submarine...

I think, I would liked a deeper story better. And for once it would be nice with a group of heroes who actually like each other. The universe is interesting, but it isn't very deep or complicated.

[Brandon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hoping for a lot from this book but it did not deliver. The story was too fractured jumping from scene to scene with characters that were hard to tell apart. It was also heavy on the science with little or no explanation of what any of it meant. The artwork also left a lot to be desired. By using a digital/photo method framed by aggressive primary colors the panels came off as murky and confusing. Also, too many of the characters looked the same and the expressions were either bland or over-emotional. Much like the writing the artwork suffered from a lack of clarity and was unfocused. The story stayed within the Dead Space universe but I doubt that it will become a classic within that world. Instead, we have a confusing book that drowns in heavy science and unfocused artwork.

[Rooney · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not a big fan of comics, but I do love me some Dead Space, so I figured I'd give this a go.

I knew I'd made a mistake as soon as I opened the book and saw the art style (the joys of buying stuff online, eh?). Dark, gritty, hyper-realistic.... and almost indecipherable.

I couldn't tell one character from the next for most of it, and action sequences were just a blur of seemingly disconnected images.

What I got of the story seemed OK, of predictable and formulaic, but it's entirely possible I missed bits because the srtwork just made it so confusing.

Overall, unless you love this art style, or are some kind of Dead Space completionist, I'd skip this one. It gets one of those stars I gave purely because I don't really like comics, so may be biased against it!

[Nikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay so first let me just address how good this looks. Christopher Shy nailed the creepy style perfectly, my only qualm is that sometimes it’s hard to distinguish what’s actually going on in some panels... the blurred style adds to the thrill, but compromises slightly on clarity.

Second, the writing is... okay. It’s still Dead Space content, and probably worth a read just for the art alone. Taking place somewhere after the events of the first game and before the second, it’s the story of how the USG Ishimura is found after it was lost in deep space.

It’s cool, I liked it, it gets 3 stars.

[Franco · Rating 2 out of 5]

Questa graphic novel non mi è piaciuta per niente. I disegni sono sciatti e caotici, con questo stile quasi realistico che però in altre vignette sembra più astratto (non so se questo è il termine tecnicamente più adatto). La storia non racconta niente di interessante riguardo alla saga di Dead Space. I personaggi non hanno background, sono delle macchiette stereotipate. Lo consiglio solo ai fanatici del prodotto videoludico. Se volete saperne di più il film Dead Space La Forza Oscura è sicuramente un prodotto migliore.

[Simmy Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent enough story for a tie in comic for the Dead Space franchise. Revisiting the Ishimura from the 1st game is always gonna be a fun time. The main issue with this graphic novel is the artwork. It’s both good and bad at the same exact time. It has a unique painting like style, however, it can be rather difficult to tell what is going on in certain scenes. Some of the characters look so similar it was a pain to tell them apart from another too. It’s a good enough read for fans of the series, it just could have used some easier to decipher artwork

[Trekscribbler · Rating 3 out of 5]

DEAD SPACE: SALVAGE: Not Quite D.O.A.

Not too long back, I posted my review on the original DEAD SPACE graphic novel here at Amazon.com and elsewhere on the web. I mentioned then that I had absolutely no familiarity with the DEAD SPACE franchise, but I read that book – after doing a little online reading about the video game that launched its property into the pop culture – and I was utterly delighted with it. From start to finish, that graphic novel felt almost like a fully-fleshed out novel, complete with dimensional characters, an unwitting villain (of sorts), and an exciting beginning to an almost ALIEN-like space saga destined for good things. Today, I read one of the accompanying graphic novels, and, while it only captured a spark of that original story, it felt much more derivative – much in the same way ALIEN fans kinda/sorta had to suffer through ALIEN3 (which I enjoyed but is far from my favorite) in order to keep the franchise alive.

(NOTE: The following review may contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of character and plot. If you’re the kind of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the last two paragraphs for my final assessment. If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)

A space-based salvage crew stumbles across the USG Ishimura, and they believed they’ve struck gold. As is always the case in some high-quality sci-fi, things are definitely not what they seem, and these Magpies (the name of the salvage crew) find themselves in a race against time to protect themselves, their ships, and even their lives!

There’s an old adage about never trusting a book by its cover, and quite a bit of SALVAGE reminded me of that. As I explained above, my introduction to the DEAD SPACE property was thru the initial graphic novel – which I enjoyed tremendously – but so much of this outing feels derivative. Whereas the first one didn’t feel like it was “based on a game,” this one does; and, to be honest, it feels like it’s based on an inferior game. Now, to be fair, I’ve never played it (I’ve never really been into games), so I don’t know how accurate that statement is, but I’m a firm believer that 99% of the time sequels end up being vastly inferior to the original for so many legitimate reasons.

The story is once again by Antony Johnston, and it feels like a knock-off of so many other attempts to tell this same story (again I reference the first ALIEN movie) in some hyper-realized way. While it doesn’t fail, it rather heavily borrows elements of that exceptional franchise (again, ALIEN) including a galaxy-spanning company with secret agents up to all kinds of nefarious deeds.

Stylistically, Johnston and artist Christopher Shy have gone way out of their way to distinguish this book from the first. The artwork is far more photo-intensive, and quite a bit of it appears to be plucked from someone’s darkest nightmare. While that’s a nice touch, it’s occasionally a bit difficult to understand perfectly well what one’s looking at in every panel. It’s all dark and oppressive – much like the world of monsters should be – but, boy, it would sure help if the two of them had opted for some brighter colors here and there in order for the work to have greater clarity. Also, they opted for presenting dialogue in such a way that, when multiple people are speaking, it gets a little hard to understand who said what when where and why; they aren’t using traditional speech bubbles, and methinks most folks will see what I’m saying once they give SALVAGE a once-over. On a few occasions, they’ve even given the printed speech the same color palette as their background colors in the same panel, making it extremely difficult to read. (Again, this doesn’t happen often, but, realistically, it shouldn’t happen at all.)

This time out, DEAD SPACE felt repetitive, like it was boldly going where they’ve either gone before or players had gone before in the game, so it was a trip best not taken OR given time OR more story to build it up. As it is, it’s a disappointment, but it is what it is.

DEAD SPACE: SALVAGE is published by Titan Books. It’s a story written by Antony Johnston, and it’s illustrated by Christopher Shy. There’s a nice gallery of unused sketches, drawings, and artsy inspirations in the back that’s a nice touch, but, all-in-all, I’d imagine most folks will find this a bit ‘wanting’ in execution and delivery.

RECOMMENDED if you’re a fan of DEAD SPACE only. Otherwise, this one may not be for you. Look, if you’ve read any of my reviews, you’ll know just how big a fan of sci-fi (even loose sci-fi) I am. The first graphic novel in the DEAD SPACE universe excited me tremendously, but were this my introduction to this world, its characters, and its monsters, I probably wouldn’t have been as nearly excited. It’s certain not bad, but it isn’t anywhere nearly as successfully fleshed out as it could’ve been; at a vastly shorter length, that may be no surprise, but it also feels a bit more ‘commercial’ than the first book. I’ll still keep my eyes open for more, just as I keep my eyes open for these DEAD SPACE monsters. But it’s re-read quality isn’t all that grand.

In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that the fine folks at Titan Books provided me with a reader copy of DEAD SPACE: SALVAGE for the expressed purposes of completing this review.

[Callum Shephard · Rating 1 out of 5]

The real shame of Dead Space: Salvage is that it really had no right to be this bad. Between a brilliant premise, a completely unexplored aspect of the universe and very talented creative team, this should have been an instant hit. Antony Johnston has enough experience with horror and awards to his name to prove he could create something great from this, and Christopher Shy’s unique surrealist artwork should have been at its best here. Instead we’re left with a mess which fails to utilise even half of what it brings up.

Set between the events of the original Dead Space video game and the Aftermath film, Salvage covers the efforts of the government and potentially Unitology to salvage something from the disaster. Even a cordon of military ships sweeps the area, their prize is found by an unlikely source. The Magpies, an assorted band of criminals, miners and smugglers, drag something massive into their position. Something which should have been left forgotten: The Ishimura. However, even as they board to salvage the ship, EarthGov agents close in and something stirs in the minds of the weak.

Following on from the game’s events it goes without saying that this was written for fans of that game, those who knew the plot and many basic elements of the universe. Things like the threat of the markers, how the Unitologists think and many details revealed in that game so the writers could focus their efforts elsewhere. You’d be partially right. Johnson skips much of the introductions and establishment of the universe, but then does nothing for most of the first issue.

Rather than spending a few pages to establish the characters and what’s at stake, the Ishimura itself doesn’t show up until a considerable way into the story. Why? To spend page after page on the brainless cannon fodder characters. Apparently needing to relentlessly pad out the pages, the story is dragged to a near standstill right out of the starting gate as there is no action and no substance.

Rather than like in Alien where small-talk and crew interaction is used to build up an atmosphere between a small number of characters, here it’s insipid. Consisting of people with the depth and breadth of personalities from bad slasher films. Dropping multiple F-bombs at every turn, going so far as to hack other people’s terminals to spam them with gay porn and giving no reason for the audience to engage in them. Those on the EarthGov fleet are no better, with the higher ups threatening everyone under their command and dropping slightly more colourful insults in every speech bubble. Gunnery Sergeant Hartman they are not.

None of these characters matter either as Johnson kills them off on a whim. Murdering everyone left, right and centre until the final survivor is someone who is barely known to the reader. Often not even bothering to give them meaningful ends, just killed in a confusing blur of events. So sudden and unfocused upon are their fates that you’ll need to read through this more than once to try to just understand what killed which member of the bloated roster at which time.

Were the sudden shock deaths of enigmas of characters not early 90s enough, the art falls back on the bad habits of that time. While Christopher Shy is a decent artist in his own right, sequential art is definitely not his forte, with few to no panels flowing from one to the next. Furthermore, backgrounds are continually skimped on, often with bare minimal details present or absent entirely. Consumed by the green filters over every page or misty grey haze which seems to cover everything in sight. Words are spoken without bubbles to signify which character is saying what, and more than once the colour of the text merges with the backgrounds.

Even knowing the canon causes as many problems as not, with the story abandoning basic logic or even factual information. Along with somehow trying to convince the audience of the extremely unlikely circumstances of marker fragments becoming embedded in the ship’s hull, they get the bare basics of the necromorphs wrong. Rather than reanimating dead flesh, new ones here are just influenced by the signal until they apparently just transform. Apparently those involved failed to recognise they were creating a book about SPACE ZOMBIES. The few times Johnson tries to hide this from the reader with fan-service only results in confusion and frustration, with long gone iconic enemies appearing then disappearing only panels later.

The final kicker is that everything here is ultimately inconsequential. The villains are never referred to again, nor is the survivor, the Ishimura’s recovery fails to call back to these events and any payoff feels forced. Both rushed and barely thought out, with no climax or anything actually building towards a conclusion.

There is nothing redeeming to be found here. The story goes nowhere, the characters are unlikable, the author kills them off on a whim with no impact, it ignores canon for its own sake and any actual answers are stupid beyond comprehension. As a monument to pointless wastes of talent and paper on par with All-Star Batman, this is definitely one you want to skip. Let’s just hope no one feels the need to try and resurrect it any time in the future.

[Staci · Rating 3 out of 5]

As an artform, this is beautiful. The style is initially what drew me to seek this out.

As a form of storytelling, it's messy in a way that isn't enjoyable.
Further, I viewed it on a large computer screen, so the low resolution combination of photoshopped and painted assets were super obvious compared to how it must look on the standard size printed page.

Otherwise, adds absolutely nothing to the universe. Popcorn fiction if you're desperate for more Dead Space content.

[Chad · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just completely awful. I've played the games and still couldn't tell what was happening in this. The art is terrible. Some of the worst art I've ever seen. Then someone made the decision to put all the lettering directly on the art instead of using text bubbles. I couldn't read a lot of it because the text color was too close to the color of the artwork. This whole thing was a big fucking mess.

[Thom · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have no idea what happened. The art is so incomprehensible that you can't tell that you're on a space ship. It's like a scrap book of wildly different resolution pictures slapped together with a moody double exposure of another picture over top of it in every frame. you see the same photo of an expressionless crew member's face copy and pasted on a differently posed body sometimes in ways that are literally impossible. It's an achievement of the worst comic book art I've ever seen.

[Alexa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am an avid Dead Space fan, so when I found out there were graphic novels, I was sold. Unfortunately, the story fell short and was all over the place. The best part was the artwork, although it isn’t quite my favorite art style. The colors were definitely perfect for the creepy vibes though. I wanted to like this, but it just wasn’t that great.

[Phantom_Redux · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not enjoy this one. The art style is very flat, there is no "life" in it because of the copy/paste still images. That makes action scenes and expressions incomprehensible and hard to follow. Although, majority of the background art is stunning. The story itself felt quite mediocre unfortunately.

[Cody Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another companion piece to the main Dead Space video game series. Takes place between Dead Space 1 and 2. The visuals were simply stunning as these scavengers find a derelict ship hoping it’s their biggest payday yet when they only discover the horror that lies within. Does a great job of setting up the eventual villain of Dead Space 2.

[Louis S · Rating 2 out of 5]

While the plot was interesting, the art of this comic was all over the place making it hard to see what was happening in most of the panels. Unless you're a big Dead Space fan and want to collect every piece of media, I recommend skipping this one.

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

confusing waste of time

A lot of dark, obscure backgrounds and reused images of the same characters photos/faces over and over again. If it wasn’t for the redundant text, you can rarely tell what’s going on.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

A space recovery crew finds the "lost" starship carrying the remains of the ancient artifact discovered in the 1st novel. The crew decides to board the ship to seize the goods, but unfortunately chaos ensues and they now face the horrors hidden within. Highly recommended ❤️

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as good as the others, but still Dead Space.

[Mo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good lead up to the first Dead Space game.

[Thomas Lennox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it , and Want more !!

[Talan · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was good artwork, kind of reminded me of aliens, but some parts weren't that good. Overall, it was decent but could have been better not with artwork but with a little more plot development.

[John Traeger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay

The illustrations were messy and rather disappointing, same thing could be said about the storyline. The characters also were very shallow in depth. I don't recommend