Mass Effect Invasion: Purple Is My Favorite color

SCENE: Omega.

DAFUQ is them?

Meet the adjutants! They're reaper bug squid rachni things. They explain what they are in Mass Effect 3, but I have totally forgotten what the hell they are past that, so either one of you will help me out in the comments or we'll wait until 3. Either way is fine.

They're currently pouring on to Omega by way of ships with Cerberus markings all over them. Welp. Let's call up Brother TIM, and --

(... in the games, Aria is a super dark blue, tinged purple, but still pretty damn blue. In this particular comic book, she is purple. Straight purple. Like a really girly My Little Pony pink purple too, it's weird. Anyway, if I'm coloring Anderson orange, I can haul out the purple for Aria.)

Yeah, don't forget, Aria's still pissy with TIM from Retribution, so that's good times.

TIM explains to Aria that adjutcants are coming because they escaped from a Cerberus facility. I swear to hell, a Cerberus facility goes haywire like twice a week. You ever have that one friend with more money than sense? That's Cerberus. Anyway, "oh no space bugs" is now the plot of Mass Effect: Invasion, so welcome.

Holy hell, have I mentioned I hate comic books? I should mention I hate comic books. I have trouble reading them.

I have left huge portions of this series out, because seriously there's plenty of filler in these books. If you're interested, go pick yourself up Mass Effect Invasion at wherever it is that they sell this stuff. I think I saw them at Toys R Us. Holy SHIT Mass Effect does not belong in the hands of children.

That being said, Invasion actually is pretty important to Mass Effect 3, so let's go forward.

Cerberus sends Aria a buddy named General Petrovsky to help with the adjutcants.

Petrovsky gets the idea to fight the adjutcants in space, since if they shoot down their ships, they can't use Omega. At first it goes really well. You know why?

No really, the adjutcants can figure out how to overtake a space station, steal a ship, fly a ship, but shooting? Fuck shooting.

What the hell does the scene on that ship even look like?

So they eventually ask Siri how to shoot or something, I don't know, and start firing on the Omega troops. Aria gets the idea to close the Omega 4 relay so that they can't come through it, but Petrovsky won't let her because that is literally dumb as hell. You can't just close a fucking relay, they don't work like that.

... yeah, apparently, they're coming through the Omega 4 relay, by the way? Because apparently Cerberus set up their shit inside the Omega 4 relay territory? Remember, that thing that took us all of Mass Effect 2 to cross? Apparently Cerberus cloned the shit out of the IFF (I guess, they never say), installed it on everything they own, and just started setting up research areas right in the middle of hostile reaper territory and expected it to all go well. I think The Illusive Man swims in pennies.

Petrovsky instead retreats through the Omega 4 relay. See, because he's got an IFF just laying around, and also advanced ship shielding and an upgraded drive core and you know what, fuck it, this shit is insane. This is not how the Mass Effect story works, this is not what we were told earlier. Petrovsky dons his horse anus spelunking gear and we all go running through the Omega 4 relay because why not.

Aria and Petrovsky investigate one of these research stations, where a researcher says that the adjutcants 'whispered' to them. Draws are appropriately shat. More adjutcants attack, so Aria fights back, but passes out.

Then, Aria learns an important lesson: never pass out with Cerberus around.

Or maybe just never wake up.

Without Aria, Omega decends into chaos.

Cats sleeping with dogs, peanut butter mixed with chocolate, it is a shitty mess.

See, Aria kept folk in check on Omega. When you go around taking Aria through strange mass relays and knocking her out, you upset Omega's delicate balance, letting all the mercs shoot the fuck out of each other.

Well, shit, Shepard's in the brig on Earth right now, so I guess we're going to have to rely on Garrus Liara Anderson Aria. Hey, where is Aria, anyway?

... welp.

They have Aria strung up in some sort of anti-biotic contraption that thankfully isn't a sex bed. It keeps Aria from nuking all of Cerberus.

They start to put a collar on her that will do stuff to her head as well. Aria does, however, problem solve.

Aria catches up with Petrovsky and has some words.

Petrovsky saves Aria from getting shot, allowing her to escape to Omega.

It's ... hang on to that, we'll talk about it later. Petrovsky leads some Cerberus troops to Omega to fight against Aria's forces, it goes as well as you'd expect.

Aria decides to make a "final push", which sounds super dramatic, but can I tell you? It's just her running through a totally empty Afterlife. For a comic book series that likes its fight scenes, I was expecting a better climax.

(... I added in the couch. The climax has to take place close to the couch. Lie to me, tell me I'm wrong.)

Anyway, after the adjutcant goes down, Aria goes back to give Petrovsky a piece of her mind again.

... the comic books present Petrovsky as a conflicting character: he's totally devoted to Cerberus, but he seems to understand that there's a value to the civilian life on Omega, and he'd like to preserve it. He's never conflicted, though, so it comes off confusing to me.

Anyway, that's the state we leave Omega in before Mass Effect 3: in the hands of Cerberus. Aria defects to the Citadel, we'll see her later.

NEXT TIME: all of you wonder why [spoiler character] wasn't in this comic book, yet had such a big part in the game. Her. That one. The girly one. Don't make me say her name, I'm trying not to spoil people! It starts with N, damnit!