Incredible Brit artist Chris Halls (real name Chris Cunningham) created an original cover for the UK’s Aliens #5 from Dark Horse International, and that could be a xenomorph attending a certain type of American political rally! Although, the alien would probably be more civilised. Chris’ work is synonymous with this comic and you can see why, however he’s best known as a music video director and a visual effects artist on many movies in the 90s, including Alien³. There are some absolutely incredible pieces of work to come from him, including a festive cover or two! Can’t wait. This is his second, after Dark Horse wrapped up Trident‘s Volume One with a special issue.

As you can see the usual four strips are all back and surprisingly (for me) the one I enjoyed the most this month was Predator: Cold War. I’ll get to that in a bit, but first up there’s some exciting news at the top of the editorial page, Intro. According to editor Dick Hansom, in the new year UK readers would be getting brand new strips ahead of their American cousins, drawn by the artist of two previous original covers.

Given how #2 and #3’s covers were beautiful (while grotesque and horrifying, naturally) pieces of art, I can’t wait to see that kind of talent on a strip! It feels like DHI is doing everything right and at this point in 1992 it would’ve felt to me like they were quickly becoming the new Marvel UK. But before we get there we continue with the current crop of imported stories, beginning with part four of Mike Richardson’s Newt’s Tale.

This continues to basically be the official adaptation of the movie, albeit for the Special Edition version. For being a story hyped as the movie “told from Newt’s perspective”, she doesn’t even appear until the seventh page in this chapter. She’s on board the APC where Ripley and Gorman watch the video feeds of the horrors from inside the hive, but that whole section is missing.

If it had still been intact it would’ve made sense because we’d experience what Newt was seeing or hearing, but instead the story stays inside the hive the whole time. There are some great images though, such as the alien breaking through the glass of the APC while Ripley is driving. The art is pencilled by Jim Somerville, inked by Brian Garvey, lettered by Pat Brosseau and coloured by Gregory Wright. It makes more references to scenes from the Special Edition a lot of fans may not have yet seen, in this case the discussion about the remote sentries. As for Newt, she’s just stuck in as little panels here and there to remind the readers she’s still about.

Eventually we get to the scene where Ripley promises Newt she’ll never leave her and lays her down to rest in the medical bay, so we all know what’s happening next month. Happily, the strip does see fit to include a couple of moments that made my mum and I laugh when we both watched Aliens for the first time together on my birthday, a few days before Christmas way back in 1992.

The Motion Tracker news pages have plenty of interesting contemporary nuggets for this retro-loving fan. The bit about how Alien³ had been received around the world just proved Americans had poor taste (I’m kidding) and the news about Abyss corrects last issue’s error about Aliens not being filmed in widescreen. There’s also a competition for a Return of the Living Dead video which hilariously admits its inclusion here is tenuous. Finally, the comic itself helped organise what seemed like a really interesting Alien exhibition in London and publicised it with two rather bland photographs.

In the middle of the comic is the Predator back up strip, part five of Mark Verheiden’s Cold War, pencilled by Ron Randall, inked by Steve Mitchell, lettered by Clem Robins and coloured by Chris Chalenor and Rachelle Menashe. With our two leads (Detective Schaefer and Lt. Ligachev) finally in the same location it feels like things have stepped up a gear. On a side note, with it being spooky season as I write this I’ll soon be watching the first two movies at long last to get a better understanding of the franchise. I’ve only just realised Richard Chaves is in the first one, who will forever be Lt. Colonel Paul Ironhorse to me. (If you know you know.)

So, as explained last month it’s got the same basic plot as Aliens and it’s now all set up, so we’re good to go. As Ligachev sees the dead bodies of those she used to work alongside, she reminisces about how their presence wasn’t originally wanted, how eventually they all got to know each other, and how the Soviet Union forcing them all to be out in the freezing wilderness soon became secondary. They even played games. It was hard graft for everyone, but they’d enjoyed it.

Initially taking the Americans as prisoners, she pulls Schaefer to the side to tell him she knows what they’ve really come all this way for. When they find one of the scientists rambling madly on the floor about the aliens, Ligachev explodes at Schaefer’s quips, asking him what kind of man could see someone suffer and not care. In this moment Schaefer’s internal thoughts betray how his opinion of the Soviet soldier is changing to one of respect.

The Predators themselves only make an appearance on the final page. Apart from the first issue they haven’t been seen much but their presence has always been felt; they’re the reason all of these disparate people have been thrown together and there’s a mystery as to why creatures who require so much heat to survive would be out in the frozen wastes. It’s an interesting story, but more importantly than anything else the human characters make it compulsive.

For example, back in New York we get a few pages of Sheriff Rasche from a previous Predator comic using his own detective skills to get to the bottom of what’s really happening in Russia, where he’s convinced the aliens have returned. I like this guy. He’s concerned for his friend and isn’t taking any crap in getting to the bottom of it all. (I particularly like the visitor book entry.) With his fears confirmed I hope he makes it out to join the others. I think he could bring some much needed humour to whatever the climax will entail.

Meanwhile, authorities command Sgt. Yashin to take command from Ligachev, who the Soviets feel is being too accommodating to the Americans. As per usual in these stories said authorities see everyone as expendable when there’s a potential new weapon to be had. (See what I mean about the Aliens parallels?) The chapter ends with our leads sharing a moment over a clichéd Russian vodka as Schaeffer theorises over the Predators’ arrival.

Surely the mystery can’t simply be that they got off at the wrong stop? I hope not. I’m not sure how long this story lasts and I won’t be looking that up but so far I’m enjoying the human element of things and the slow build of the threat they face. The pacing is superb, like a well crafted blockbuster in fact, which makes sense given the franchise it’s based on (and the comic’s namesake it appears to have been heavily inspired by).

This month’s Technical Readout concentrates on one of the coolest vehicles from my teen movie watching and I’m almost positive one of my mates owned a model kit of it. I just loved this thing so I had to include it in the review. At the top-right you’ll see a behind-the-scenes photo of the full-sized one used alongside the models, interior sets and mock-ups. I wish we could get more such photos but the comic seems to prefer to keep things within the universe of the films, rather than the making-of features in the Alien³ mini-series.

Rolls Royce should be very happy upon reading this since they’ll apparently still be in business so far into the future, although it was really meant to go that fast? Maybe in a straight line… and downhill. I remember the terrifying scene set inside the APC as Ripley and Gorman watched the Colonel Marines’ heartbeats stop one-by-one as they fled the alien hive, a scene which also played out to great effect in Jurassic World. A homage, perhaps?

Speaking of fleeing an alien hive, that’s exactly what the least likeable selection of human characters and their one-dimensional android character have to do in part five of Jerry Prosser’s Hive. The What Has Gone Before pages feature some of the US Dark Horse covers and they’re great pieces of art in their own right but just compare them to the ones used by the UK comic, in particular the Chris Halls covers to come. Stick with the OiNK Blog and you’ll see what I mean over the next year.

As I explained last time Mayakovsky, Lish and Gil’s ship was struck by lightning as they tried to leave the planet after their android alien Norbert was destroyed by the real aliens. As Newt told us previously they mostly come at night and that’s what our characters fear as they look upon the hive with only two guns to their name. However, they do have the stupid comic invention, the Inhibitors. Designed to stop the aliens sensing them, still no explanation is given as to how this is possible but there’s something else which doesn’t make sense either.

According to Mayakovsky the Inhibitors only have a field of about three meters in all directions. So these world-destroying creatures, so successful in their ability to overcome anything in their quest to colonise and spread, can only sense humans if they’re nearly on top of them? (Or they forget what they were chasing when they get close to an Inhibitor?) We know this isn’t the case, and combined with the ludicrous plan below it all feels too forced. It’s trying too hard to create tension and instead comes across as silly.

They could stay in their ship until the storm passes but they say it’s too dangerous to trap themselves in their tiny escape pod with no weapons. So they decide to go through the hive instead? Some explanation about following Norbert’s energy reading to take them directly to the ship doesn’t make any more sense! The Inhibitors mean they can sneak their way through, but surely that’d also mean they could just stay on their ship, then walk around the hive when the storm passes?

Admittedly, there are some good moments as far as the art is concerned, such as this one when Lish shines her torch right on an alien in the darkness. Kelley Jones’ art and Les Dorscheid’s colours (with Clem on letters again) do bring a great deal of atmosphere to the proceedings but can’t take away the ludicrousness of it all. I mean, the Inhibitors stop the aliens from seeing a torch light shining right in their eyes… or whatever they have for eyes?

The last strip, the two-page Aliens Vs Predator II written by Randy Stradley and drawn by Chris Warner has potential with its tiny snippets of plot and character every month but, while I don’t want to end the review with two duds, it’s frustrating to only get such a small part every month. This impressive spread is the entire chapter for this issue. I love the black and white art but more would happen in those tiny daily tabloid newspaper comic strips from childhood.

Don’t get me wrong I’m still enjoying the comic. The two main Aliens strips have disappointed me these last two issues, but only because they showed so much potential before that. When the crossover strip finally comes to an end I’ll read back over it to see how it reads then. Meanwhile, the Predator strip continues to impress issue-after-issue and the contemporary features are always interesting. We’ve a long way to go. Let’s see if that early potential is followed up on with #6 on Thursday 19th November 2024.

iSSUE FOUR < > iSSUE SiX

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This atmospheric cover by John Bolton promises much for the tale of the Aliens film seen from Newt’s point of view that continues within these pages. What a shame the chapter inside issue four of Dark Horse International’s Aliens comic doesn’t deliver on the promise of this terrifying image, or indeed its previous instalments. In general this is the weakest issue so far but that’s not really the fault of the UK publisher or its editor.

Editor Dick Hansom’s comic, like most UK comics of the era, chopped up the US stories into smaller bite-sized chunks and serialised them across more issues than American readers would’ve had. This meant we got to have no less than four individual stories in this monthly anthology, which is always a good thing. However, upon occasion it did highlight weaker elements of those stories. You’ll see what I mean later in the review. First up though, is chapter four of Hive.

Written by Jerry Prosser, drawn by Kelley Jones, coloured by Les Dorscheid and lettered by Clem Robins, main character Doctor Stanislaw Mayakovsky provides the narrative captions as we see android alien Norbert finally enter the hive of the title. While the doctor’s words actually describe his previous experiments involving ants on Earth, they are no less relevant here and show how his previous research would lead on to this trip to deep space.

In the ‘What Has Gone Before’ description of previous issues we’re told Max the dog wears an inhibitor that makes him imperceptible to the aliens. What? This hasn’t been explained in previous chapters and we’re given no explanation here on how it’s meant to work either. Also, given how the doctor discovered another team’s much easier way of extracting the alien jelly he craves, why is he still going through with his much more dangerous idea?

Yes, he has learned of an almost risk-free way of achieving his goal but let’s go and annoy an alien Queen anyway. And let’s sacrifice the pet dog at the same time, turning off his inhibitor so Norbert can present Max as food to the real aliens. Unless the doctor’s ego is such that he must see his own plan succeed, this makes no sense. What also doesn’t make sense is even considering that the reader might feel any kind of tension about Norbert entering the hive.

It was already established in the films that the aliens couldn’t care less about androids, only if one posed a threat would they destroy them. So there’s no tension in his entrance and once threatened they terminate him, which is actually rather sad. After this there’s a confusing turn of events when the human observers crash land, apparently hit by lightning although it’s hard to tell what’s happened, leaving them stranded on the surface. Quelle surprise.

Now that we’re a few months in to this initially intriguing story the cracks are beginning to show, the main problem being there isn’t one single likeable human character in the cast. They’ve deliberately been painted as selfish profit driven cretins, the likes of which Ripley would’ve gone up against in the movies. This results in me not caring about what happens to any of them, completely negating any suspense or tension the script and art tries hard to rack up.

The Motion Tracker news pages bring another interesting insight into the early 90s, beginning with the reveal of an Aliens Vs Predator movie. In reality, while videogame crossovers would happen soon after, it wouldn’t be until 2004 that the two franchise behemoths met on the silver screen. (I must look out for that trophy in Predator 2.)

I’m sure I borrowed that Earth Hive novel from the library as a teen and really enjoyed reading it very late at night in bed by lamplight. The news about Ridley Scott’s Alien Special Edition needs a bit of clarification. The Director’s Cut I’ve seen since is, as Ridley himself explained, a recut rather than one which adds in missing scenes. The “controversional” scene mentioned here wasn’t controversial at all. It involved Ripley discovering Dallas metamorphosing into an alien egg but it was removed because it slowed down the tense ending. Later, Aliens would reinvent how the eggs are produced and Ridley didn’t want to contradict James Cameron’s film.

Also, $100 for a laserdisc release? No wonder those things never took off over here! Finally, under the ‘Sly Fox’ section about the upcoming releases of videos in the series, for some reason it’s stated Aliens wasn’t shot in widescreen when it very definitely was. A strange error there. Did the writer assume it wasn’t when it was released on video in 4:3 ratio? All films were released that way into the home market until widescreen transfers really took off in the 90s.

Mark Verheiden’s Predator strip, Cold War (pencilled by Ron Randall, inked by Steve Mitchell, coloured by Chris Chalenor and Rachelle Menashe, lettered by Clem) finally sees Russian Lt. Ligachev reappear but unfortunately not until the final page. Before this we’re treated to more human tension between America and the Soviet Union and, while it all starts off rather well with secretive manipulation by the US, it all boils down to a plot involving the sole survivor of a Predator attack (Ligachev) being sent to the site of another attack while coming up against people who wish to exploit the situation for profit and who don’t care about who is expendable (the Americans).

So basically, it’s the plot of Aliens reworked to fit the Predator series. Surely this isn’t a great fit for a comic based on Aliens? Wouldn’t fans see this for what it is? It might have been a decision out of editor Dick Hansom’s hands depending on what the parent company and the UK branch wanted to print over here. Oh, and it appears Detective Schaefer was in a previous Predator strip and that’s why he’s been brought in for the mission. But my point from previous reviews still stands. It still feels like he’s nothing more than a way to bring in Arnold Schwarzenegger without actually doing so (he’s the brother of Arnie’s character).

In the middle of the comic are four extra, glossy pages which make up a survey for the readers. I can’t see how useful listing favourite artists etc. would be to DHI, it’s not like they had any say over who would be creating the strips in the States, but I do find it intriguing that text stories are mentioned. Something tells me they appear later and I hope they do, it could be like reading those exciting novels again, but don’t ruin the surprise for me if you know. The readers are also given the option of choosing whether the comic should stay as a monthly or change to a fortnightly, or even a weekly! I doubt these answers had much sway though.

The Technical Readout page this month details the Remote Sentry Weapons, perhaps to the chagrin of one of the comic’s contributors, seeing as how they were used exclusively in one of the deleted scenes (the Special Edition was heavily criticised in an earlier issue). Then in the two-page Aliens Vs Predator II strip (written by Randy Stradley, drawn by Chris Warner) we find out one of the Predators is actually a human woman!

This could possibly be following on from the original strip but of course it hasn’t been printed in this volume. Regular blog readers will know that this and the chapter in Alien³ #3 were printed in the wrong order so at least the naming of Shorty is explained at last. Still, I want to find out a lot more and only getting two pages at once makes for a frustrating read, and now it’s only going to be two pages a month!

The final strip is Mike Richardson’s Newt’s Tale, which began as the brilliant idea of retelling the story of Aliens from the perspective of Newt. We’ve had some nice building of character and tension, and then last month the scenes where Newt witnessed the death of her mum and brother were truly horrific. You really felt for the child. It brought home the horrors she had to have seen in order to be in the situation we found her in during the film. Chapter three begins in suitable fashion too, as she discovers she can go places the aliens aren’t aware of simply because she’s so small, and we get this great double-page spread of her trying to survive over the next few days pencilled by Jim Somerville, inked by Brian Garvey, coloured by Gregory Wright and lettered by Pat Brosseau.

These were the moments I was looking forward to the most in the story. After the horrors she’d faced already, how exactly did Newt learn to survive in the complex, surrounded by the terrifying aliens. Unfortunately, these two pages are all we get. You can see at the top it says “Days pass…” and yet that last panel continues on to the next page and the moment Ellen and the Colonial Marines find her. Days? When Burke recruits Ripley they’d already lost contact and it took what I thought were at least weeks, possibly longer, to get there!

The rest of these pages see the interesting set up jettisoned for a typical, bland comics adaptation of the movie. We start to see scenes that don’t involve Newt and eventually she’s completely ignored for scenes of the Marines infiltrating the alien nest. The moment where Newt finally breaks her silence and tells Ellen her name is heavy with emotion and plays brilliantly after the trauma we saw her face last month, but then she just disappears from her own story for several pages.

This is hugely disappointing. That cover promised so much and I hope next issue we’ll see more of Newt’s own story that we don’t already know. The particular section of the tale used for this issue might just be a blip in the overall original comic, unfortunately highlighted by being a chapter in and of itself in the UK comic. I can but hope, because right now I’m feeling like we’ve been sold one thing and are suddenly getting something else entirely. The issue does end on a high note however, with an interesting two-page feature on the new fad of Director’s Cuts, written by Dave Hughes.

I remember my friends and I being particularly excited for certain Director’s Cuts of films back then. Aliens is the obvious one, The Lawnmower Man was a completely different film in its lengthier cut, and some of my peers cheered when news of a Blade Runner special edition was announced. Here, some information on scenes cut from the original Alien film are notable and it goes into depth about Ridley Scott’s cyberpunk thriller. I’m glad the Aliens scene with Burke that’s mentioned was never reinstated because it was clear from his final moment that he was being killed, not taken away for implantation.

It may not have been recut by its director, but my favourite special edition is still that for Alien³ which reinstates a lot of David Fincher’s original vision, cut scenes, effects and whole story and character arcs the studio originally excised. It’s a phenomenal recut and the version which should’ve been released into cinemas at the time. It takes Alien³ (a film I already enjoyed) up to the level of the first two masterpieces and concludes an incredible trilogy for Sigourney Weaver and Ellen Ripley.

To round off the issue it’s nice to see I wasn’t alone in my thoughts about the review for the Aliens Special Edition a couple of issues back, although I do hope they don’t change their heading font, I think it’s perfectly readable and highly unique. With a comics checklist that shows how Dark Horse International was just beginning to grow, the fourth edition of Aliens comes to an end.

These may not have been the most enjoyable chapters of any of the main stories but Predator and Newt’s Tale still have the potential to correct course and, if nothing else, at least I can enjoy the humans in Hive meeting a predictably grisly end soon enough. Including the Alien³ Movie Special mini-series I can’t believe we’re already seven issues deep into this real time read through. The fact there are still so many to go, with many different stories for this anthology to tell yet, I can’t wait for #5 on Tuesday 22nd October 2024.

ALiEN³ iSSUE THREE < > ALiENS iSSUE FiVE

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