At long last, I have cleared enough space in my busy and penniless schedule to catch up on the Dead Space comics. I have two volumes, Dead Space: Salvage and Dead Space: Liberation, from the good people at Titan Books, so I decided to group them together into one review. They are both companion comics to the Dead Space video game series, taking place around the games. Salvage is a separate tale about a crew of illegal salvagers who come upon the dreaded Ishimura, while Liberation is a prologue comic to this year’s Dead Space 3. Both have their good parts and and their bad, and both are definitely entertaining.

Any big Dead Space fans would probably find a lot to like in these two comics. Fans of intense horror, especially in a futuristic, outer space environment, would also enjoy both books.

Dead Space: Salvage: 4/5: Good.

Dead Space: Liberation: 3/5: Alright.

Salvage and Liberation are two comics that any fans of the Dead Space universe would probably love to have on their shelves. I wish some of my favorite video game franchises produced comics of this quality. Much like the Dead Space graphic novel I reviewed earlier this year, these are great companion pieces for the games, expanding the universe the games inhabit while providing new adventures with new and sometimes familiar characters.

You can find both Dead Space: Salvage and Dead Space: Liberation at Amazon.com.

Join me after the jump for further review!

Dead Space: Salvage is an original story from 2010 starring the Magpies, a crew of illegal salvagers who prowl the galaxy picking apart wrecks and other debris for precious metals. They’re the perfect sort of friendly criminal heroes, kind of like the crew from Firefly. Salvage takes place between Dead Space 1 and Dead Space 2, and is a fun little story about the Magpies fighting (and dying) valiantly against the Necromorphs aboard the Ishimura, with a little government intrigue thrown in for good measure. This is kind of like the Firefly crew vs. the men with hands of blue fight that we never actually got to see.

Salvage is the better of the two books because it’s able to tell a complete story, whereas Liberation is forced to play prologue, leaving the real meat of the tale up to Dead Space 3. Salvage has more interesting characters and a fuller story, though neither of those two things go as deep as I would like. But for a quick, one-off read, they’re good enough. There are some nice, unexpected twists, and some big hero moments, so it stays entertaining.

And writer Antony Johnston definitely goes out of his way to make the Magpies into fun characters. The group’s banter in the early sections is fun.

And it’s redheads are pretty

Dead Space: Liberation is a prologue to Dead Space 3, published ahead of the game release earlier this year, and written by Ian Edginton. Liberation stars John Carver and Robert Norton prior to the events of Dead Space 3, revealing the series of events that leads them to tracking down Isaac Clarke, the game protagonist. Liberation is also a fun story, as the heroic Carver and company battle through corrupt government agents (and Necromorphs) to expose the truth about Unitology and the Markers. But it’s hampered by a lack of explanation, and the fact that it’s just a prologue to the main game, so it’s story just leads into the game instead of having a final climax.

In fact, both comics are hampered, somewhat, by a lack of explanation of the Dead Space mythology. Concepts like the Markers and Necromorphs are never explained, and any reader must have knowledge about the universe before reading either comic. There’s also a big stumbling block early in Salvage where the Magpies talk almost exclusively in salvager lingo about salvager things, so I had not idea what was going on, what with my not being part of an illegal, intergalactic salvage crew. Thankfully, I had that first Dead Space graphic novel to help me out with the Dead Space mythology. Still, with such a specific mythology, it’s never a good idea to blindside your readers with seemingly important information. But fans of the games shouldn’t have this problem.

Unless they hate the game’s story, I guess

Also, and this is just a personal matter, but I wasn’t a fan of the painted art by Christopher Shy. I prefer my comic books to have clear, detailed art, like traditional comics. But both Salvage and Liberation feature the loosely detailed, painted style of Shy, which provides a dose of realism to the images, but just doesn’t float my boat. It’s often difficult to tell who the characters are due to the art, as well as what’s happening on the page. The art may fit the mood of the horror stories, but it utterly falls apart when trying to showcase any sort of coherent action. But at least the art makes for some wicked Necromorphs.

Oh hai

Though again, if I’m being honest, there’s not a whole lot of intrigue when it comes to the Necromorphs themselves. They’re kind of just there, troubling hero and villain alike, while most of the main characters fight against other humans and government agents. But the Necromorphs definitely make for some chilling visuals.

All in all, fans of the Dead Space video games would definitely enjoy these two comics. I’m not one of those people, so my opinion is probably a little influenced by that fact. As someone who knows little about Dead Space, I found both Salvage and Liberation to be fun reads, but they both could have used more depth to the characters, a primer on some of the basics of the universe and better art. But again, on that art thing, that’s probably just me.