Mass Effect Omnibus, Volume 1

Mass Effect (Dark Horse Comics) #1-4

by Mac Walters, John Jackson Miller

Mass Effect 2 and 3 lead writer Mac Walters teams up with an all-star creative team, including John Jackson Miller, Omar Francia, Eduardo Francisco, and more! This action-packed volume includes the first four story arcs of the Mass Effect comic book series--Redemption, Evolution, Invasion, and Homeworlds! Follow along as Liara scours the universe on a deadly mission to find Shepherd, the origins of the Illusive Man are revealed, and Aria protects her home against an attack by the humanity-first organization, Cerberus!

- Affordable 4-in-1 omnibus format!
- An essential, canonical addition to the Mass Effect universe!
- Mass Effect 2 and 3 lead writer Mac Walters teams up with writer John Jackson Miller!
- IGN.com named Mass Effect 2 the greatest Xbox 360 game of all time!
Contains:

- Mass Effect Volume 1: Redemption (Which Collects Redemption Comic Series)
- Mass Effect Volume 2: Evolution (Which Collects Evolution Comic Series)
- Mass Effect Volume 3: Invasion (Which Collects Invasion Comic Series)
- Mass Effect Volume 4: Homeworlds (Which Collects Homeworlds Comic Series)
- Mass Effect Incursion/Inquisition One-Shot Single Issue

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

428 pages, Paperback

First published November 29, 2016

About the author

Mac Walters is a writer, director, and producer, known for his work on Jade Empire, the Mass Effect series, and Anthem. He's an author of games, novels and comics including the New York Time's bestselling Mass Effect: Redemption series. He was nominated for a Bafta for his writing on Mass Effect 3.

Mac is known for his intricate, deeply detailed futuristic universes populated by memorable characters who find themselves thrust into extraordinary circumstances.

Reviews

[Justin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. The volume suffers from the same artwork problem I originally noticed in the first trade: constant, exaggerated, unnecessary hypersexualization of every single female character. Painfully arched backs, fabric-eating butts, and jumpsuits with the front zipper open to the floating ribs for maximum cleavage, as far as the eye can see. In terms of story, the one-shots at the end are pretty good, especially the origin story for Garrus. But the comics here rely heavily on the games for context, all with cold opens and to-be-continues, and many are too short to be particularly engrossing in their own right. It's still an okay read for fans of the Mass Effect universe (which is really getting short shrift these days), but between the lack of coherence and the unfortunate preponderance of tired male-gaze tropes, this omnibus really doesn't stand on its own compared to the much better Dragon Age collection.

[Václav · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the compendium of stories about characters before and between Mass Effect games (without Shepherd himself). We can look how Illusive man was created. There are backgrounds for Garret and Vega (which are the enjoyable ones). Or Liara's hunt for Shepherd's body. And the most boring is the Aria's one. Yes, this is for fans of ME and I am one (I'm excited to read more of ME universe in comics book), so I wouldn't recommend this to anybody else. Just because the quality of the stories is varying and overall they are not actually that great. I enjoyed that, except Liara's story and some parts of other stories here and there. But this is not great comics. This is methadone for ME fans.

[Sesana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mass Effect Legendary seemed like a good time to revisit the comics. Why not? I'm sort of excited about the franchise again for the first time in nearly a decade. But I guess I wasn't excited enough, because I'm feeling far less generous this time than when I first read these comics a decade ago.

This omnibus edition collects all of the comics that were published up to the release of the third game. I'm going to try to give really quick summaries of all of the stories.

Redemption explains how Liara acquired Shepard's body for Cerberus. It feels like four issues were too long for the story that Walters needed to tell, and Liara seems out of character. Worse, the writer completely misses the point of Elcor dialog structure. Which is strange, because it's a really easy structure to understand, and it should be really fun to write.

Evolution is the backstory of The Illusive Man, covering how he gets exposed to Reaper tech. But that exposure happens during the First Contact War, and it seems odd that the indoctrination could lay dormant for so long. It also does absolutely nothing to explain how the leader of a tiny merc band becomes the fabulously wealthy head of Cerberus, so it's not much good as an actual origin story for the character. Also, I had read this story Back in the Day but it was so forgettable that only seeing my previous review on Goodreads tells me that I did.

Invasion was new to me. This is the story of how Cerberus takes over Omega, and it's an incredibly dumb and needlessly convoluted plan. I was never going to like this one, though. I'm not enamored of Aria, and I didn't enjoy the Omega DLC that this is the prequel to.

Homeworlds is a miniseries in four parts, each meant to cast some extra light on four different characters. James gets an incredibly cliché and unoriginal backstory that I just don't have much to say about. Tali's story shows how she get that Saren intel from ME1. It's fine, but it's also kind of strange that it introduces a new character who apparently helped Tali for most of that process without ever being mentioned in the game. Garrus's story is one of the best things in this entire collection. It's sort of about his time as Archangel, but it's much more about his relationship with his father. The Archangel stuff is fine, but the stuff with his father, especially their conversation in the last scene, is really well-written. I'm sure it's a total coincidence that Garrus is my bias and this was my favorite thing in the entire book. Liara's issue is about what leads her from her Shadow Broker lair to Mars at the start of ME3. The thought process and series of events makes sense, especially for Liara. What doesn't make sense is that TIM has hidden cameras in Liara's base. Which, no.

The collection wraps up with three mini-comics. Incursion is a pointless Omega interlude with Aria beating up Collectors. Inquisition is actually pretty good, and explains how Bailey ended up head of C-Sec and what happened to Chellick. There's some iffy dialog, but the plot is solid. Conviction is supposed to explain how James ended up as Shep's warden at the start of ME3, but it doesn't actually do that at all. He just gets into a fight in a bar. It's pointless and not very well written, aside from being a horrible introduction to the character.

The one thing that all of these comics have in common is really dodgy art. Characters are regularly off-model. Aside from not looking how they should, there's no consistency. Characters look totally different from panel to panel. In one issue of Redemption, the artist forgot how to draw Miranda's costume for a couple of pages. The dialog tends to be... not good, on average, with a few decent lines here and there. The general plot ideas tend to be fine, but are often drawn out longer than the ideas really merit. Overall, most of this collection just isn't very good. There's a couple of good things here and there, and some of the stories are important enough that ME fans are going to want to see what happened, but the execution is just lacking. I remember the novels, at least the ones by Karpyshyn, being a lot better than this, but now I'm afraid to revisit those.

[Drucilla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, it's a solid collection. The artwork is fine and the stories vary from really good to "eh". I think there might be some cannon issues with "Redemption", though it has been a while since I played the games so I can't be sure. Also, why wasn't Liara this badass in the game? Maybe I wouldn't have died so much. ; ) "Evolution" was cool. I liked a lot about it. Being set during the First Contact War was surprising, but in a good way. "Invasion" is nice as it plays directly into Mass Effect 3. I think my favorite was "Homeworlds", though. As great as the longer stories are, the shorter ones pack more of a punch, I think.

[Rachael C Marek · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the insight into the characters and the moments between their time with Shepard. I did also like the lead up to some of the interactions with Shepard, in particular with Garrus during the Archangel mission in ME2.

Some of the artwork was beautiful, while others seemed a bit rushed, or just not given the effort they deserved. Overall, an enjoyable read that offered some background information to some beloved characters. It's my hope that the second volume offers more variety of character stories, as this one was focused on just a handful.

[Hali · Rating 4 out of 5]

These comics fill in some of the blanks from in-between games and I always like that sort of thing. However, some of the stories are better than others, and if I didn't like the short stories at the end of this omibus so much, I would've probably given this three stars or less for weird art and kind of weird storytelling choices and composition. All in all I enjoyed the knowledge gained from reading the whole thing, but I mostly liked the short stories.

[Maarit · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 stars. Read this mostly because of ME: Andromeda came out this week to refresh some of my memories from the original ME gameseries. Most of the comics in this omnibus were OK, though some of them had a bit of a meh-type story and also some had a bit weird artwork as well. Liked most of the individual character comics, though Tali one wasn't that great. As for the longer stories, well, both of them were a bit meh, but I liked Aria one a bit more than the Illusive Man one.

Overall though, a good collection, even with some flaws in it. Can only be recommended to the fans of the game series, as I think non-fans might not get all the references to the games and such. 3,5 stars rounded down to 3 stars.

[Marcin Kowalski · Rating 5 out of 5]

This and the second Volume are two fantastic collections for the Mass Effect universe. They line up perfectly with the games, giving lots of fun backstory to missions within the three games.

If you like the games you owe it to yourself to reach beyond those, for these comics are a visual treat perfectly recapturing the spirit and atmosphere of the games... just on a smaller scale!

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

I think my favorites were the Homeworlds stories. And it was mostly just nice to have a way to reconnect with the mass effect world :)

[Tarikrobertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good comic

Had a blast reading this. Really enjoy the game for xbox one and 360. Can't wait to read more about this universe.

[Allison Jenkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's nice to get some supplemental stories from outside of the games. Homeworlds was easily my favorite out of this set.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am obsessed with mass effect and this was a super fun read hoping to read the second volume

[B. Zelkovich · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a lot of fun. There's good background info in each story that fills in any gaps between vlthe video game installments. The art is all good, though Tali's "Homeworlds" story had an odd art style that was a little too cartoonish for my taste. However that script was one of the best. Definitely worth the read if you're a fan of the series.

[Fiannawolf · Rating 3 out of 5]

On one hand I love the lore of Mass Effect and these side stories are fun...but on the other, all I can remember is how dismal the ending was. Here's hoping the soft reboot of Andromeda helps them. I, for one, won't be an early adopter.

[Sebastien · Rating 3 out of 5]

just to be back in the mass effect universe, waiting for Andromeda was good enough for me. if you have not played the games this is not for you because nothing is really explain . I will read volume to while waiting for Andromeda.

[Joel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok it's a good effort to fill in the back stories and some middle non critical plots from the game but it would be totally lost on someone who had not played the games.

[Zach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it! Can't wait to read volume 2! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👽👽👽