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Published by: Dark Horse Comics
Released on: May 28, 2014
Tracking the stories of what will become the crew of Commander Shepherd in Mass Effect 2 and 3 this issue provides an action-packed tale of seasoned mercenary Zaeed Massani.
[SPOILERS]
Sandwiched in between scenes of Miranda and Rasa at the Lazarus Project's secret lab Zaeed narrates his origin story, of sorts, as if we've joined him for a drink. He details his start, when he was a leader of the Blue Suns “security†group. When the rest of the gang wants to get into slaving he disagrees and is removed from his leadership role. He survives, to start building his career once again.
He takes on many odd mercenary contracts, finally ingratiating his way into the good graces of The Shadow Broker. He finds Zaeed's talent match up to a recent contract wherein one big Turian battleship, the flagship Verrikan, has to be destroyed, obviously and publicly in order to humiliate those in power in the Turian government.
Zaeed quickly assembles his small team - a sadistic Salarian, an ex-Justicar Asari named Tristana, and Jace, the only guy who stood up for him with the Blue Suns. He also gets a Turian on the inside, to get them stealthy access to the ship. They sneak aboard the Verrikan from the outside and all seems well as they wait for the door to open. But the head of security aboard the ship has already worked out their plan and blasts them back into space.
They lose the Salarian this way but, as Zaeed thinks of it, now that's just a 3-way split to the huge payoff promised for completing this job. The remaining three manage to sneak back aboard but with security alerted to their presence, now they've got a full-on fight on their hands. Zaeed sends the others to create a distraction while he makes his way to the bridge. Along the way, he captures the head of security and holds the other forces off. Tristana and Jace, meanwhile, are holding their own against the majority of the Turians. That is, until she decides to take off and leave Jace to be overwhelmed.
Mac Walters and Jeremy Barlow do a fine job with this entry while still tying it into the larger narrative. Tony Parker's artwork is pretty exceptional here, too, as he gets to detail many big action sequences and does so very well.
