inamerata's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
2.5
In general, the art ranges from "it's alright" to laughably bad. Women are twisted into vacuum-sealed pretzels for constant and remarkably un-sexy T&A. Men are more likely to be drawn as people, although sometimes the artists draw rippling barrels instead. Expressions and poses, especially dramatic ones, tend to look silly and lopsided, rather than emotional or dynamic. (One of my favorites is a turian caught in a explosion, drawn so wibbly-wobbly he appears to be made of jelly. No notes.)
Characters of color are horribly whitewashed. Even in their darkest panels, dark-skinned characters like David Anderson, Jacob Taylor, and Maya Brooks/Rasa are pale and ashy. More than once, Jacob (who is Black) and Miranda (who is white) have the same skin tone. In almost all her appearances, Maya is lightly tan or straight-up white. Some artists draw their features better, but I cannot overstate the amount of whitewashing in these comics.
Assume these problems are present to some degree unless noted.
Redemption: An okay but somewhat forgettable story. I was a little surprised how much a potential romantic subplot between Liara and Feron was set up here.
Evolution: Incoherent garbage that doesn't work with anything else in the series. Awful.
Invasion: A little stupid/hamfisted at times, but Aria mostly gets to stay competent, so yay.
Homeworld/Vega: Bittersweet, but I liked seeing a glimpse of life on Earth.
Homeworld/Tali: Another bittersweet, interesting story. Tali's such a skinny noodle here it is distracting, but man, she really goes through it before you meet her.
Homeworld/Garrus: His dad was right. Wow, he was such a dirty cop! Their conversation at the end really gets me, though.
Homeworld/Liara: The art is a lot better here and the story was fairly interesting.
Incursion: This is actually decent. The art is better and it's a clean little story snippet.
Inquisition: A sad, messy story. A little odd, but I mean, we knew it would be.
Conviction: Honestly kind of silly, but my favorite part is the idea this is how Shepard and Vega meet because that is incredibly funny.
He Who Laughs Last: This one is just fun. Great job, Joker. :)
Blasto: Eternity is Forever: How is this more fun than half the "real" comics.
Foundation/1: This would have been okay if it wasn't so whitewashed.
Foundation/2: Art and whitewashing is still very bad, but yay Wrex.
Foundation/3: The story works well, a bit blunt and we gotta have some no homo, but still. The expressions are particularly bad here. Poor Ash.
Foundation/4: Art is distracting here, and sometimes the intensity felt a bit silly rather than dramatic, but the story is solid and bittersweet. The last conversation between Kaidan and his dad is so good.
Foundation/5 & 6: An okay story but the level of whitewashing here is ridiculous.
Foundation/7: Jack should have killed Leng. At one point, she literally makes a D:> face, which is very funny.
Foundation/8: I can't care about Rasa comics because they are all just so weird and whitewashed it's stupid.
Foundation/9: One of the best Foundation stories. Solid art and story that shows Mordin's backstory, seeds internal and external conflicts, and sets up Maelon's journey, as well.
Foundation/10: Brutal when not horny.
Foundation/11: The narration is very Emperor's New Groove but it's alright.
Foundation/12: The art is a little funky at times but this would have been a good story if not for the random rape. Also, why did that guy straight-up look like Palpatine.
Foundation/13: This could have been cool but instead it's a terrible mess. Rasa is so white you literally can't tell her from Miranda. Their showdown could have been interesting, with their backstories and current level of favor with TIM affecting how they regard Cerberus' support/control, but it just flounders at the end. Rasa's given a confirmed slavery backstory, which is apparently why she projects onto clones and mechs, and makes her ~crazy. Also, Shepard's clone is shown to be explicitly white. (The Blasto virus was very funny, though.)
Discovery: Wow, the art is just infinitely better here, it's lovely. A fun, textured style. The story relies on some weird, contradictory world-building, though, and then it wouldn't be Bioware without killing off half a gay couple and making the one GNC woman a hyper-aggressive brute. (Also Jien is once again a non-character.)
Characters of color are horribly whitewashed. Even in their darkest panels, dark-skinned characters like David Anderson, Jacob Taylor, and Maya Brooks/Rasa are pale and ashy. More than once, Jacob (who is Black) and Miranda (who is white) have the same skin tone. In almost all her appearances, Maya is lightly tan or straight-up white. Some artists draw their features better, but I cannot overstate the amount of whitewashing in these comics.
Assume these problems are present to some degree unless noted.
Redemption: An okay but somewhat forgettable story. I was a little surprised how much a potential romantic subplot between Liara and Feron was set up here.
Evolution: Incoherent garbage that doesn't work with anything else in the series. Awful.
Invasion: A little stupid/hamfisted at times, but Aria mostly gets to stay competent, so yay.
Homeworld/Vega: Bittersweet, but I liked seeing a glimpse of life on Earth.
Homeworld/Tali: Another bittersweet, interesting story. Tali's such a skinny noodle here it is distracting, but man, she really goes through it before you meet her.
Homeworld/Garrus: His dad was right. Wow, he was such a dirty cop! Their conversation at the end really gets me, though.
Homeworld/Liara: The art is a lot better here and the story was fairly interesting.
Spoiler
How'd TIM hack that line, though? Who left their line unsecured!Incursion: This is actually decent. The art is better and it's a clean little story snippet.
Inquisition: A sad, messy story. A little odd, but I mean, we knew it would be.
Conviction: Honestly kind of silly, but my favorite part is the idea this is how Shepard and Vega meet because that is incredibly funny.
He Who Laughs Last: This one is just fun. Great job, Joker. :)
Blasto: Eternity is Forever: How is this more fun than half the "real" comics.
Foundation/1: This would have been okay if it wasn't so whitewashed.
Foundation/2: Art and whitewashing is still very bad, but yay Wrex.
Foundation/3: The story works well, a bit blunt and we gotta have some no homo, but still. The expressions are particularly bad here. Poor Ash.
Foundation/4: Art is distracting here, and sometimes the intensity felt a bit silly rather than dramatic, but the story is solid and bittersweet. The last conversation between Kaidan and his dad is so good.
Foundation/5 & 6: An okay story but the level of whitewashing here is ridiculous.
Foundation/7: Jack should have killed Leng. At one point, she literally makes a D:> face, which is very funny.
Foundation/8: I can't care about Rasa comics because they are all just so weird and whitewashed it's stupid.
Foundation/9: One of the best Foundation stories. Solid art and story that shows Mordin's backstory, seeds internal and external conflicts, and sets up Maelon's journey, as well.
Foundation/10: Brutal when not horny.
Foundation/11: The narration is very Emperor's New Groove but it's alright.
Foundation/12: The art is a little funky at times but this would have been a good story if not for the random rape. Also, why did that guy straight-up look like Palpatine.
Foundation/13: This could have been cool but instead it's a terrible mess. Rasa is so white you literally can't tell her from Miranda. Their showdown could have been interesting, with their backstories and current level of favor with TIM affecting how they regard Cerberus' support/control, but it just flounders at the end. Rasa's given a confirmed slavery backstory, which is apparently why she projects onto clones and mechs, and makes her ~crazy. Also, Shepard's clone is shown to be explicitly white. (The Blasto virus was very funny, though.)
Discovery: Wow, the art is just infinitely better here, it's lovely. A fun, textured style. The story relies on some weird, contradictory world-building, though, and then it wouldn't be Bioware without killing off half a gay couple and making the one GNC woman a hyper-aggressive brute. (Also Jien is once again a non-character.)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Xenophobia, Slavery, Misogyny, Medical trauma, Genocide, and Racism
Minor: Drug abuse, Police brutality, Homophobia, Miscarriage, and Sexual assault
I have no idea how to rank some of these because it's a comic so what's shown is sometimes explicit (like ripping tech out of a brainstem) but proportionally brief in the book.silvae's review against another edition
3.0
The big question is: is buying this book worth the $40 pricetag? There are a number of answers, in my opinion. If you're a diehard Mass Effect fan and want to own every piece of media associated with the property, this probably isn't a bad choice. It looks gorgeous, the printing quality isn't too shabby and you know what you're getting - for a compilation of so many stories, it really isn't a bad deal.
If you're in it for actual content and depth, you might be better picking up single issues and separate books, because of the 13 stories (by "stories" I mean separately numbered issues/books in the Mass Effect Graphic Novel series that aren't the omnibus volumes), I only really enjoyed Homeworlds, Foundation: Volume 3, Discovery, and the two one shots Blasto: Eternity is Forever and He Who Laughs Best. I truly disliked most of the other stories; Redemption and Incursion were my only 3-star ratings.
A lot of the issues in the Mass Effect comics lie in the writing and the art style: my favorite stories often had a looser, more experimental art style, which might not be what you are looking for when reading an action-packed sci-fi comic book. It's also very obvious that most of the female characters are presented with the male gaze in mind (do regular action comic readers just accept this as status quo or is this a Mass-Effect-specific issue? I do not know!), and that often impacts the story of familiar strong characters, such as Aria, negatively.
These stories aren't meant for those with no knowledge of the Mass Effect universe and while it helps flesh out the universe for those that love the series, I wouldn't consider it required reading. Nonetheless, I was glad to spend a bit more time with the characters I love dearly.
If you're in it for actual content and depth, you might be better picking up single issues and separate books, because of the 13 stories (by "stories" I mean separately numbered issues/books in the Mass Effect Graphic Novel series that aren't the omnibus volumes), I only really enjoyed Homeworlds, Foundation: Volume 3, Discovery, and the two one shots Blasto: Eternity is Forever and He Who Laughs Best. I truly disliked most of the other stories; Redemption and Incursion were my only 3-star ratings.
A lot of the issues in the Mass Effect comics lie in the writing and the art style: my favorite stories often had a looser, more experimental art style, which might not be what you are looking for when reading an action-packed sci-fi comic book. It's also very obvious that most of the female characters are presented with the male gaze in mind (do regular action comic readers just accept this as status quo or is this a Mass-Effect-specific issue? I do not know!), and that often impacts the story of familiar strong characters, such as Aria, negatively.
These stories aren't meant for those with no knowledge of the Mass Effect universe and while it helps flesh out the universe for those that love the series, I wouldn't consider it required reading. Nonetheless, I was glad to spend a bit more time with the characters I love dearly.
libraryofretellingsandstars's review against another edition
5.0
"No matter how bad things are falling apart around you, as long as you have at least one bullet left, you can still get the job done."
"Mass Effect" by Mac Walters, Jeremy Barlow, John Dombrow, Patrick Weekes, Sylvia Feketekuty, John Jackson Walters, Omar Francia, Tony Parker, Gabriel Guzman, Mathew Clark, Drew Geraci, Sean Parsons, Eduardo Francisco, Garry Brown, Chris Staggs, Marc Deering, Jean Diaz, Michael Atiyeh, Michael Heisler, and Nate Piekos are comics of the Mass Effect games that help fill us in on some of the characters between game 1 and the others.
I would give "Mass Effect" by Mac Walters, Jeremy Barlow, John Dombrow, Patrick Weekes, Sylvia Feketekuty, John Jackson Walters, Omar Francia, Tony Parker, Gabriel Guzman, Mathew Clark, Drew Geraci, Sean Parsons, Eduardo Francisco, Garry Brown, Chris Staggs, Marc Deering, Jean Diaz, Michael Atiyeh, Michael Heisler, and Nate Piekos a 5-star review because, 1; as a huge fan of the Mass Effect Universe who's played the game a thousand times this is, like a wet dream to us lol 2; I love the graphics and that some many collaborated to bring us this brilliant piece of art of a novel 3; I really love that we are able to learn more about characters that we loved and seen in the games and 4; honestly I love everything about this book and this is probably my most favorite book of this year.
"Mass Effect" by Mac Walters, Jeremy Barlow, John Dombrow, Patrick Weekes, Sylvia Feketekuty, John Jackson Walters, Omar Francia, Tony Parker, Gabriel Guzman, Mathew Clark, Drew Geraci, Sean Parsons, Eduardo Francisco, Garry Brown, Chris Staggs, Marc Deering, Jean Diaz, Michael Atiyeh, Michael Heisler, and Nate Piekos are comics of the Mass Effect games that help fill us in on some of the characters between game 1 and the others.
I would give "Mass Effect" by Mac Walters, Jeremy Barlow, John Dombrow, Patrick Weekes, Sylvia Feketekuty, John Jackson Walters, Omar Francia, Tony Parker, Gabriel Guzman, Mathew Clark, Drew Geraci, Sean Parsons, Eduardo Francisco, Garry Brown, Chris Staggs, Marc Deering, Jean Diaz, Michael Atiyeh, Michael Heisler, and Nate Piekos a 5-star review because, 1; as a huge fan of the Mass Effect Universe who's played the game a thousand times this is, like a wet dream to us lol 2; I love the graphics and that some many collaborated to bring us this brilliant piece of art of a novel 3; I really love that we are able to learn more about characters that we loved and seen in the games and 4; honestly I love everything about this book and this is probably my most favorite book of this year.
ehsjaysaunders's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
A fun exploration of one of the best sci-fi universes in all of gaming. Nothing must-read or really daring beyond the bounds of the games, unfortunately, but a nice companion set.
3.5/5 A little of everything, if still not quite enough of the things I'd like.
3.5/5 A little of everything, if still not quite enough of the things I'd like.
lairedae's review against another edition
3.0
You know what this collection really needed? Something, anything, resembling more consistent "chapter" markers. Enjoyed many of the stories within, but man I needed a better indication of when I was between issues/series. TIM orgin was definitely my favourite, if only because I don't recall seeing it addressed in game. I also am terrible about reading codex entries.
Edit: Also what was that elcor writing in the first set? That is not how Elcor have talked in ANY of the games why would you write the comics like that?
Edit: Also what was that elcor writing in the first set? That is not how Elcor have talked in ANY of the games why would you write the comics like that?
jreed's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
redeyesinfernp's review against another edition
5.0
YES! Just what I needed to cure myself of my need for Mass Effect.
This was actually worth every penny. While the first collections suffered a bit in the art department. Everything else was rock solid. There were like 2 one shots that I found boring, but everything else was engaging.
The funniest one overall, had to be Blasto: Eternity is Forever.
4.5 out of 5 stars.
This was actually worth every penny. While the first collections suffered a bit in the art department. Everything else was rock solid. There were like 2 one shots that I found boring, but everything else was engaging.
The funniest one overall, had to be Blasto: Eternity is Forever.
4.5 out of 5 stars.
itmechis's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
jessidee's review
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0