What’s this? A Christmas Chris Halls Aliens cover? Am I late in covering the blog’s logo with snow? Nope, that’ll happen on 24th November (six days from the day of writing) as per usual, in this case Dark Horse International editor Cefn Ridout must’ve mistimed the chilly seasonal cover somewhat. Yes, it’s the December issue but last year Chris’ superb art and pun-filled headline were part of the January issue released on 24th December. This year there’s another issue after this one just before Christmas Day.

Despite this, Cefn still takes the opportunity to wish us all a Merry Christmas and since mine starts as soon as the Christmas tree goes up in a few days I’ll take it! Anyway, there’s your obligatory editorial page with the full credits for this month’s issue.

Contrary to the blurb on the cover, the latest chapter to Michael Cook’s Crusade isn’t seasonal. The alien Queen trapped in a cathedral tower gave Chris a reason for the frosty cover and its church iconography, but in these eight pages we don’t see any aliens. From the ‘previously’ page we learn Channon is the leader of the Minecorp marines and Foston is the male company man, not that the strip itself has ever made these clear. The last survivor of the crashed survey team is Foston’s wife, hence why he’s risking it all even though he’s out of his depth.

Channon has been captured by a tribe who have constructed a whole village out of old vehicles because they don’t know what they are. Sounds interesting but unfortunately it’s just a mess on the page. The ‘jail’ is a camper van with a padlock and inside she finds Foston’s wife. They hot-wire the van and make their escape back to the survey ship where they stock up on heavy weaponry and take off down the egg-infested Thames in what is definitely too small a boat. It just feels right to have two kick-ass women in an Alien story, doesn’t it?

I certainly didn’t expect to get a huge laugh from the Motion Tracker news section! There’s a competition for a box set of VHS videos and it would’ve been right up my street. It’s a shame we don’t get a decent photograph of it, I’d really liked to have seen it closed with the face hugger wrapped around it. The comic also corrects (without mentioning it’s a correction) its previous error of stating Aliens wasn’t filmed in widescreen and I really laughed out loud when I got to the end. I hadn’t paid attention to the photo so hadn’t realised who it is until I read the question!

The 8-page first part of Renegade is written by Chris Claremont (Batman Black and White, Gen13, Wolverine), drawn by Vince Giarrano (Haywire, Terminator: Enemy Within, Manhunter), lettered by Tom Orzechowski (Thor, Ghost in the Shell, Spawn) and coloured by Greg Wright (Deathlok, Ghost Rider, The Punisher) and is taken from the American Dark Horse Comics anthology. It’s a prequel to Deadliest of the Species, a new Aliens/Predator crossover story. This is actually a little bit of Aliens history right here. Because it doesn’t feature any aliens, characters or names from the films this has remained the property of the writer and artist so it’s never been reprinted or collected since. 

On a planet rich in resources lives Caleb Deschanel and his daughter, and along with Ash Parnall they’ve built a community at one with nature and it’s making a profit. In lands Commander Javier Milan and EO Moira Delgado of the Descartes Indigenous Self-Defence Forces, protectors of the natural resources, according to them. Their motto is “Unexploited resources are wasted resources”, so defending the planet means exploiting it. The broad smiles and flirting is accompanied with straight-to-the-point statements; they must stand aside or face elimination. The fact the force’s spaceship is called Ransome is a bit on-the-nose.

Caleb is ill and frail and asks Ash to deal with this given her history, whatever that is. In fact, during a conversation Javier asks her how she knows so much about military weaponry and tactics and her response is just as mysterious as this strip; she had a misspent youth and they’ve a well-stocked library. This is the second strip of the issue and the second one with no aliens. A bold move or a poor decision? Truth be told, they’ve both been interesting to read so I’ve no complaints in taking a breather for more character moments.

In the concluding half of Cargo, writer Dan Jolley and artist John Nadeau continue to play to their strengths with a superb atmosphere, even if there’s a key part of the plot that doesn’t make sense. Surely even a criminal such as Vasco wouldn’t endanger the entire planet by importing an unsecured alien just for a bit of revenge? The fact it all happens on an abandoned cargo ship far out at sea doesn’t excuse things, it would eventually run aground or be found. But that atmosphere is palpable, so let’s just go with it.

Having Gerald as the lone human on a huge vessel with one alien has the makings of a truly terrifying tale, so it’s a shame this is a short 16-page strip in total with no time to build suspense. But that’s not where this falls foul, it’s in its overly simplistic ending which amounts to tricking the alien into the mag tube, filling it with water and then electrifying it. Now, that might not sound simplistic, but the fact it all happens in less than two pages makes Gerald’s escape seem very easy. A shame, as the tension in the build up was great.

Extra Terrestrial is a four-page feature written by Terry Jones detailing the cut scenes from Ridley Scott’s original Alien movie. Ridley has never released a director’s cut, he was very happy with the finished film, although he’s released an alternate cut with some scenes and moments replaced by others. The only scenes in this feature that really would’ve added anything new to the film are those above, which for obvious reasons (after the release of Aliens) can never be put back into the film. Ridley has said he never would because James Cameron did such an amazing job with the sequel’s explanation of the eggs.

Colonial Marines is our final strip for the month, coming in at a meatier 11 pages. On Bracken’s World the kelp beds are mysteriously disappearing across the planet and we see this lovely detailed opening of a colony hub on the agricultural world by Tony Akins, Paul Guinan and Matt Hollingsworth. Lt. Henry has explained the situation to the council but they’re angry with his team for upsetting their order, only half-believing him about the aliens.

Still, they demand he help but he can’t without orders, or at least that’s what he says. He’s playing something very close to his chest since the firefight last issue but even his sergeant can’t get it out of him. He won’t tell the council he can’t establish comms with HQ, and just tells his sergeant neither the council nor she need all the facts. This is out of character for him. All we know is that he saw “something” during the fight.

We get more questions than answers when he confronts Alphatech’s supposed “glorified accountant” Beliveau about the bug men having Alphatech weaponry. Aha! He’s convinced Beliveau is a bigger player than he’s been letting on, however Beliveau counters by asking why a new multi-million dollar synth prototype has been assigned to Henry’s babysitting team. Henry has no answers. Conspiracies abound. Intriguing.

Henry buys black market remote bombs and when asked by a different council member to help even though they can’t afford it (the capitalist future of the Alien universe in full effect), Henry says that they’re there until morning, they’ll help until then. This is an interesting, suspenseful and now a mysterious story with great characters and it’s back to full strength after getting lost in a sea of too many characters at once and overblown fight scenes.

There are some moments that hint at aliens attacking ships but otherwise this is again alien-free, concentrating solely on the humans involved in fighting them. So that means three of the four strips have no visible aliens in them whatsoever. In an Aliens comic. You know what? I didn’t even notice until I went back over the issue to make notes for this review. The Alien universe has always been about more than just the xenomorphs, as the brilliant Alien Earth has been expertly proving.

On the letter’s page there’s a brief mention of a new RoboCop comic in the new year, beginning with an adaptation of the upcoming third movie. It would never appear, what with DHI going out of business a few short months later. Marvel UK had also announced a RoboCop fortnightly in the pages of Transformers back in 1990 but that never happened either. He’d eventually pop up on these shores in the pages of Havoc. However, definitely coming next month is a cover drawn by and a strip written by the legendary comics star (and one-time OiNK contributor) Dave Gibbons.

It may have been released a month too early for the Christmas-inspired cover but #18 of Aliens has been a delightful surprise. The fact the stories didn’t need much in the way of alien action for the issue to be compulsive reading (their presence always felt) has ironically made it a highlight of the run so far. I’m intrigued to see what we have in store when the first post-holidays issue hits the blog before the Big Day on Tuesday 23rd December 2025.

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