This cover by Robert Mentor (Sex Warrior, Star Wars, Vamperotica Magazine) is partially obscured by the latest free gift of an Aliens postcard, one half of a set showing a xenomorph facing up to a Predator. Don’t be expecting the other half next month, it was given away with a totally different comic, Total Carnage. Having linking postcards seems a bit strange. Were we meant to send them to the same person? The other postcard also marks the beginning of a new Aliens/Predator crossover strip in that comic. Why is it not in this comic where it belongs? Damn, that’s not fair. An advert for this issue also featured in Jurassic Park #5’s review.
As per usual here’s the editorial page with all of the credits for the issue and we kick things off with another short two-part story from the pages of anthology US title Dark Horse Comics. Part one of Dan Jolley’s (G.I. Joe Frontline, Vampirella, Warriors) Cargo is eight pages long and full of classic Alien atmosphere.
Gerald Coile is a smuggler who’s getting out of the game by informing to the DEA and escaping to anonymity, but he can’t help making one last run. In this universe we know this is likely to be a bad decision. He delivers his illicit cargo to a large ship and when he sees no one about he takes control of one of its cranes to get it on board so he can get paid and skedaddle. He doesn’t notice something automatically release itself and fall back into his boat.
Once his cargo is in the hold he wanders around a bit and realises he’s completely alone and the ship is powered down. He decides to go and check on the cargo he’s still to be paid for. Noticing it has a bleeping video screen his heart sinks. A video of the man he informed on pops up and Gerry’s boat explodes thanks to that earlier device. I do love the explosion picture, the bright colours against the dark shadows on the water are great, John Nadeau’s (Star Wars X-Wing, Wolverine, Colonial Marines) art compliments the atmosphere perfectly. As for Gerry, that’s not the end of his problems as the cargo he delivered opens up…
Of course this asks a lot of questions, like how Vasco got hold of an alien, what he originally wanted it for and what is the reference to its “home”. But this is a short two-part story and those answers may or may not have be answered elsewhere. It doesn’t matter though, we’re here for this tale and it’s a classic Aliens set up. I’m looking forward to seeing how (or if) Gerry gets out of this one.
There’s more of interest in the Motion Tracker news section than there has been these last few months. Not necessarily tying in with Aliens but I do love a good contemporary news article in these old comics and this one is very 90s indeed. The Difference Engine movie never got made in the end but I remember playing The Chaos Engine game on a friend’s Commodore Amiga and it was actually based on the novel. I never knew that! Penal Colony would get made but was renamed No Escape and it had a comics adaptation too.
I’ve never seen Time Cop but I remember reading about its short-lived TV show sequel in the excellent TV Zone magazine in the 90s and it seemed like fun. As for news centred around the comic’s inspiration I’d say the news Alien³ is the first of the series to make profit is probably only how the studio’s creative accounting saw it and our previous prose story Tribes won a very well deserved award.
Part five of Michael Cook’s Crusade takes up 11 pages in the middle of the comic and Christian Gorny’s art has improved immensely! The aliens and action scenes in particular are wonderful. Why was it not this good previously? It’s revealed Rani the seer is searching for her missing childhood friend Martha and her narration is a welcome addition. Coupled with the upgrade in art it makes things a lot less confusing.
This chapter is their escape from the sewer but unlike previous entries it has satisfying character development too, thanks to there only being three characters now and the art making each more distinctive. Running from the aliens, Minecorp marine Channon saves Rani and one of the male Marines (his name isn’t given here and trying to work out who he was previously was impossible) but the narration tells us they couldn’t save her in return, so they made their escape without her. We think this is because Channon is about to be killed by the alien but it’s actually a smart bit of misdirection.
Instead, she faces it down, shoots it and for once in the Alien franchise doesn’t get covered in acid, so kudos to her! However, once out of the sewer a gun is held to her face by an unknown person. Rani and the male marine are all that’s left as far as they’re concerned and we find out the missing team they were sent to find included his wife. This changes Rani’s opinion of him. She knows he’s no solider (he’s actually a company man, not a marine as its turns out) and they disagree on pretty much everything, but she respects how much he believes in his wife’s abilities to survive.
They realise the horses that birthed the aliens had been drinking from the Thames, and if that’s how they got infected then the creatures must be all over the city by now, in every river and stream. The slower, quieter moments with proper dialogue instead of the forced ‘chat’ of the earliest chapters and the upgrade in art have really surprised me, and raised Crusade’s prospects immensely.
The Technical Readout is getting less and less technical as the comic goes on, unfortunately. This month it’s about Dropship markings, nothing more than a few identical drawings of drop ships coloured differently. Much better as a feature is the next Q and Aliens, with the trickier questions from readers put to the publication’s experts.
That’s an interesting image by John Bolton and the Question of the Month has a fun answer, staying within character and defending the company, and I like that comparison to bees. But most intriguing is the mention of Skeleton Crew magazine and why its Aliens Special was withdrawn from sale. The magazine was actually created by this comic’s Dave Hughes but as it says here it’s a rare issue and the only one I can’t track down on eBay. Possibly a future special feature for the blog.
Chris Warner’s Colonial Marines is next and with their APC damaged they’re awaiting rescue from their second dropship when loads of finned aliens with fish tails instead of legs break through the surface of the kelp beds. There’s even one huge mother of an aquatic alien who clearly wants to challenge Daryl Hannah as the Queen of the mermaids.
While it should be a tense scene with nowhere to run except to sit on top of their APC and fight off hoards of aliens (why not go inside the heavily armoured vehicle?), unfortunately this usually superb strip has gone in the opposite direction of Crusade. Here, there are just too many characters who all look like each other. I can’t even tell who Lt. Henry is, who I’d been enjoying so much in previous issues, so this means I’m suddenly not as invested as I was in what happens. Eventually Vasquez arrives piloting the dropship and rescues everyone, redeeming herself after she’d previously froze on the spot mid-battle. There’s a funny reference to this on the final page and this is pretty much all we get as far as character moments go. The first disappointing chapter in this lengthy tale.
Next is a follow-up feature to the excellent alien autopsy from #11. This time, Jim Campbell’s Under the Knife cuts deep into a facehugger and its alien egg or, to give it its proper name, the ovomorph. I’ve been really looking forward to this and, as it’s once again written from the perspective of the future scientists doing the dissecting, it’s another fascinating read. For starters, I never thought of the eggs as separate lifeforms until now. It makes sense, of course.
Jim gives us a reason as to how they survived so long on LV426 before discovery in the first film, something which is key to the aliens’ survival. How the egg detects potential hosts makes these things even creepier and how it can configure a facehugger in much the same way as an alien adapts to its host is really well written. In fact, the whole feature is brilliantly written. Again.
The apparent science behind the actual face-hugging is compulsive reading, from how it’s awoken to how it samples its host’s respiratory system to determine the best way to keep them alive. Then the fact the alien is created inside the host rather than being implanted actually pairs up with the prequel movies decades later. Towards the end I did laugh at the typically horrific reasoning of the company when it reveals the only thing stopping them from carrying on their research!
Believe it or not we finish on a four-page humour strip. Not that you’d know it from the first few pages. Coming straight after the dissection feature the images on the first page instantly set me on edge. Aliens: Taste is written by Edward Martin III (a Dark Horse US editor for Dark Horse Presents, Aliens and Predator), drawn by Mark Nelson (Graphic Classics Bram Stoker, Native American Classics, Rosebud), coloured by Ray P. Murtaugh (Splatter, Star Wars, Elementals) and lettered by Willie Shubert (Legends of The Dark Knight, Deathstroke, Robin).
The narration talks about life forms dying of ennui (boredom, lethargy), then builds tension as it talks about those of us who experience bits of danger everyday, then those who like it for the adrenalin rush, those who seek it out, right up to those who actively court danger. All the while the facehugger is slipping further out of its egg until it lunges towards the reader… but a giant clawed hand grabs it before we turn to the final page below.
I didn’t expect this to be a funny strip until I actually read it and got to this page. It was certainly a surprise inside the pages of this particular comic! This many issues in and Aliens continues to shock us in terms of its horror stories and now a shock dose of humour. One of the very best all-round issues yet, it begs the question of what will #18 contain to improve upon it? We’ll find out together on Tuesday 18th November 2025.
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