This review was originally written for and published on Down the Tubes. As I’m now going to cover these yearly specials on the OiNK Blog I decided to copy this post over too.
As I write this the Christmas issue of Beano (No.4266) is out, however every year publisher DC Thomson also releases a separate festive special in advance of the season. Printed on high quality paper and coming in at an impressive 68 pages, it’s almost like another Beano Annual. No one can accuse the team of not going large for the holidays!
All the usual characters are in place from a plethora of top talent, my personal favourites being Andy Fanton, Nigel Parkinson, Nigel Auchterlounie, Laura Howell and friend of the OiNK Blog, Danny Pearson. Initially looking like a bigger regular issue, as you read you soon realise all the strips are part of one story from different perspectives, without ever sacrificing the quality of the individual strips.
Upon opening you’re met with a page of gift labels. Aimed at kids rather than the present-buyers, that doesn’t mean older readers can’t enjoy them, as you can tell from my photos. The one featuring Harsha from Bash Street Kids was particularly well suited to that gift!
So, Santa has been kidnapped and for once the Beanotown kids aren’t to blame. (This is the first Christmas Special I’ve read but it’s clear there’s a history here). When Mrs. Claus asks why he still delivers there when they kidnap him every year, Santa explains, “It’s only most years, and twice it was more of a misunderstanding.”
However, the kids are blamed throughout in some very funny moments, including by Santa’s reindeer, who immediately pin it on Minnie! I just have to mention Dasher at this point. The personality given to him is just perfect for his name and I laughed aloud when I read this scene in the stables. It’s such an obvious gag now that I’m surprised I haven’t read something similar before.
The big bad behind it all is revealed early on as Mayor Brown, who bears a striking resemblance to Richard Osman and whose voice I read his lines in for the rest of the comic. This is a world away from the Beano I read as a kid and that’s a good thing; it has to move on and evolve for today’s kids after all. As a result, the humour moves at a much faster pace, with more quips and banter between characters and some enjoyable breaking of the fourth wall. It’s a lot more chaotic and anarchic. As an OiNK fan, I love it!
I don’t want to ruin what happens because the joy is in not knowing what’s next; something this definitely isn’t is predictable! Bond villain Brown takes Bash Street school as his lair with his robotic snowmen to ruin Christmas, a scenario perfectly set up by spy strip, Dangerous Dan. From here, everyone gets a crack at teaming up with other characters from different creators and it’s fun to see the various artists’ takes on each other’s creations.
I may have had several laugh-out-loud moments but I’m not the target audience, despite how young I felt reading this. However, my friend’s son is. Father and son subscribe to Beano and read it together, and they’ve a set of criteria upon which they judge each and every issue. I know you’re thinking this’ll be a list of favourite characters but it’s a bit more… comprehensive than that. Kids can have very particular tastes.
They want lots of Angel Face and Minnie the Minx for a start. They weren’t disappointed here, especially with the amount of Minnie content. (On a side note, as a fan of Andy Fanton’s work it’s great to see his Minnie is so treasured.) Next, Yeti and Cousin Agnes should feature beyond their own strip and for a special Christmas treat it’s actually Minnie they mingle with here. Dennis also breaks the fourth wall as wanted and, while Rubi’s latest invention isn’t as ‘Heath Robinson’ as they’d like (no, really) it plays a pivotal role and her mistakes bring plenty of smiles.
Always important to get the target audience’s view, right?
There are also several activity pages such as mazes, board games, pranks etc. They may sound clichéd but each is finished to such a high quality you could never call them fillers. I focussed solely on the comic strip (and the free stickers) but there’s plenty for younger readers to do to get more value out of your money.
Whether you’ve kids of your own or just want to read a new funny comic this holiday season, the Beano Christmas Special 2024 is exactly what you need. It even has snow on the logo, so you know it must be good.
Welcome back to our irregular real time read through of the eight celebratory editions of Beano from DC Thomson’s 80th anniversary box set. Next up is the first issue to have sold one million copies! That’s an incredible achievement on its own, never mind the fact it was back in 1945, not long after World War II and at a time when paper shortages were still in effect. As such, Reg Carter’sBig Eggo fronted a comic of only 12 pages, the smallest it would ever be.
The Beano was also fortnightly at the time, released on alternative weeks to The Dandy so kids still had the opportunity to read some desperately needed funnies every week. I’ve always found this period in the comic’s history fascinating ever since I found out about it in the 50th anniversary Dandy/Beano Fifty Golden Years book I received for Christmas1987, which you’ll see an overview of this year on Boxing Day on the blog. For now though, let’s open up #272 of The Beano, which celebrates its own 80th anniversary today.
What a selection of names and taglines! Talk about being “of their time”. Researching Cocky Dick meant very careful internet searches but I did eventually find out it was originally drawn by Allan Morley and ran in the comic from 1939 to 1947. There’s an air of Dennis about the strip thanks to the cheeky nature of the main character and the colour scheme of his feathers. Nice of the local council to label their water wells too, otherwise how’d we know what it was.
After an absence of three years Good King Coke (surely a 90s movie drug lord name) had returned for another year-long run, drawn by Eric Roberts, and The Magic Lollipops (“Suck ‘em and see”?!) was also drawn by Allen and ran for ten years between 1941 and 1951, with a one year gap in the middle. I don’t think any other page in either #1 or this edition has been such a clear window into a completely different time.
A Christmas strip! Perfect. With The Beano being fortnightly we were only one issue away from the big festive celebrations and Lord Snooty was getting in on the action already. As the season has already kicked off on the OiNK Blog this year I couldn’t have been happier when I saw this, drawn by Dudley D. Watkins. Snooty’s strip ran from 1938 all the way through to 1991, with a few breaks in the middle.
Upon his return after his first break a lot of his original friends above would be replaced with characters from other, discontinued Beano strips and over the course of his lengthy run he was drawn by a handful of other artists, most notably Leo Baxendale and Robert Nixon. Lord Snooty was the only character from #1 I knew as a child in the 80s (through sneaking a peek at my friends’ issues), by that time he was the last surviving character of that first issue.
Along the top of a Jimmy and his Magic Patch story readers are told to turn to a certain page to find out all the details of the special Christmas issue, but it turns out it’s only this small promo in the middle of a Tick Tock Timothy prose story. The main selling point of the festive issue would be a game called ‘Jinko’, a basic dice board game printed on the back cover. Over the page from this promo we find Tom Thumb is still in the comic, albeit as a picture-panel story instead of the prose of #1.
Another character who was still here but whose format hadn’t changed is one of my favourites from the premiere issue, Charles Gordon’sGranny Green. This was actually a reprint from the original run in the first year-and-a-bit of the comic but obviously I’ve never read it. Again, I really enjoyed it. It includes a quick recap of the premise for any new readers and I originally thought Jimmy’s plan in this particular story sounded awfully cruel… until we find out the water is only a couple of feet deep. Hilariously, the names of the friends mentioned still sound like the kind of creations Bob Mortimer comes up with on Would I Lie To You!
On to the back page and two well known names, beginning with Tin-Can Tommy, the clockwork ‘son’ of Professor Lee and Mrs Lee. He first appeared on the back page of the first issue when he was created after the death of their son because they were struggling with the loss. Originally drawn by the Italian Dinellibrothers who disappeared in France during the war, he was subsequently drawn by Sam Fair, Charles Gordon and George Drysdale but my usual expert resources aren’t aware of who drew this episode.
Tommy would reappear in #3185 in 2003 for the comic’s 60th anniversary. Another character who may also be known by later readers of Beano is Pansy Potter. Pansy was a Beano star between 1938 and 1958 (with breaks), then she moved to Sparky in the 60s and 70s before returning to her original home between 1989 and 1993. That’s the time period in which I remember her from, which she followed up with small runs now-and-again (her last appearance was in #3954) and a couple of annual cameos in 2012 and 2018.
Created by Hugh McNeill and drawn by this stage by Tommy’s Sam, Pansy was the character chosen to be the first strip printed in full colour on the back page a few years later. This strip above reminds me of skating at a temporary rink at Belfast City Hall this time of year many moons ago and the amount of people tripping over chunks of broken ice and toppling into each other. The council not wishing to splash out on a Zamboni never stopped us going back though.
Next time, we’ll jump from 1945 to 1951. Our third issue saw the introduction of a certain boy with a black and red jumper so its inclusion in the box set is no surprise. When this series returns, join me as we travel in time again to the year of The King and I, the Stone of Scone returning to Scotland all on its own, a blue sun, the world’s first nuclear power plant and, in keeping with the theme of Dennis the Menace, the year when a young sailor was fined for the menacing behaviour of kissing his girlfriend in public in Sweden. The Beano #452 will be right here on the OiNK Blog on Saturday 14th March 2026.
What’s this? A ChristmasChris HallsAliens 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’sCrusade 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.
This week back in 1990 the editorial in Marvel UK’s Transformers announced the exciting news that Death’s Head was finally back. Not in a reprint of a previous story (something they still liked to hype) but a brand new graphic novel. In reality it collected together his run from Strip comic, and this is the final piece of the jigsaw for the blog’s real time read through of the original incarnation of the character.
Coming in at 68 pages including a card cover, inside is all glossy and beautiful, the paper upgrade allowing artist Geoff Senior (who co-created the character for the Transformers but only drew one of the monthly issues) to return to the character in style and bring us a new level of colouring. Helen Stone (The Sleeze Brothers, The Real Ghostbusters, Knights of Pendragon) joins the team as letterer, Steve White (Xenozoic Tales, Rogue Trooper, The Lost World Jurassic Park) returns to edit and of course it’s all written by co-creator Simon Furman (Transformers, To the Death, Doctor Who), with Geoff (Hell’s Angel, Dragon’s Claws, Judge Dredd) and Walt Simonson (The Star Slammers, Jurassic Park, Thor) teaming up on the cover.
We begin in a strange land that apparently doesn’t adhere to time or meaning, with someone being tracked down and killed, the perpetrator only seen from one angle, their arm looking suspiciously like Death’s Head’s original design from Transformers and Doctor Who. Then it’s back to 2020, where he ended up at the end of his comic’s run and an electrifying chase as the Freelance Peacekeeping Agent hunts down his latest bounty and it’s full of all the usual quips and comedy action.
Rogan accuses Death’s Head of enjoying the chase and this really gets into his head. As he runs he questions himself. Is he really enjoying the hunt more than the profit? At the end he believes Rogan is about to take a woman hostage so he kills him, but he was running to her apartment for safety. She’s his partner and she screams that Death’s Head ran him down like it was sport. He walks away, solemn, trying hard to convince himself that she’s wrong.
Initially I thought this wasn’t going to feature Spratt but suddenly we’re back in 8162 and he’s meeting with his boss’ mysterious love who was hinted at in the monthly. (He doesn’t look like Spratt at all though.) It’s good to see the vulture is still on the team too. So apparently the not-a-bounty hunter is her husband and she has “vengelust” for him. Big Shot is also back and just as angry as ever. Spratt tries to escape, so Nightweaver reads his mind and finds out her love has time travelled. All the while in some void-like world the lookalike looks on. So far, so intriguing.
As in the comic the year 2020 looks just as futuristic as thousands of years into the future and given what actually happened in the world in 2020 maybe this version would’ve been preferred. I don’t want to ruin any possible future you may have in reading this graphic novel, so I must warn you this review will obviously contain spoilers. It should go without saying by this stage, this blog is all about classic comics, but more than any of the monthly stories the shocks and surprises in this are an integral part of the plot and thus the reading experience. To tell you about them would be to ruin the experience for you if you intend to read this one day. So consider yourself warned.
My favourite parts always involve our lead character and his quips, his inner thoughts and biting humour. Such as the moment above. He ends up flashing back and forth between the real world and the void and slowly the identity of the lookalike reveals himself. However, surprisingly this is seen in flashback form inside our anti-hero’s mind. He begins to question his own origin, something he’s never done until now. The same goes for the reader, but I’ll get to that below as it’s the only real bone of contention I have with this.
It doesn’t stop the rest of this graphic novel from being highly enjoyable. For example, despite Death’s Head initially being joyful that Spratt wasn’t there, the banter between the two during action scenes is better than ever. I think he secretly loves it! Or how about another scene when he realises he hadn’t previously defeated Big Shot and he strops like a child, proclaiming it’s unfair while having the huffiest of faces his angular jawline will allow. Then things take a turn when Big Shot says all bounty hunters are the same, that they all enjoy their work. Following up from earlier in the story, this leads us to the main event, the creation of Death’s Head.
Meet Lupex. He’s the fella in the void universe who bares a striking resemblance to the star of the piece and whose catchphrase is also somewhat familiar. He’s a warlord and Nightweaver, known here as Pyra, was his wife; a woman who wanted all the power he had but who was in love with another. Lupex possessed bodies to survive and did so with her lover’s body out of spite. He was also creating a robotic form for himself so he could live forever without the need of new flesh.
But in an act of revenge Pyra finished programming the robot and made him autonomous with a mind and soul of his own. Not just any mind, a business-like mind, a clinical assassin whose only goal was to do the job and get paid. The opposite of Lupex. She thought this would create the only one who could go up against her husband (whose love of killing drove him). It’s a hell of a story but I’m not sure if it fits within the Death’s Head comic for me. It feels too mythical. Then again, he did fight Unicron, the God of Chaoson the astral plane so maybe it’s just that I’m used to the more grounded stories of the monthly by now.
What definitely doesn’t gel for me is the retconning. Don’t get me wrong, I like stories that add to previous ones, that surprise us and take things in new directions or give us previously unknown facts to completely redefine characters and settings. But what I don’t like is when this completely contradicts what went before, and we’d already been told by Death’s Head himself he was created as the plaything of a very rich, very bored individual who he later killed.
However we are told here that his body was subsequently stolen by an unknown party so there’s always a chance the previous origin could be woven in, in the time before his first appearance in Transformers. Did Simon intended to do so or was this was replacing what went before? I’ve convinced myself it’s the former because the rest of this book is so much fun, so full of superb action, great character moments and lots of laugh-out-loud moments that it really is classic Death’s Head.
The story culminates in a chase echoing that from the beginning, only with Death’s Head as the one being chased and taunted. This creature also has control over the land in this realm, which is split into ‘magik’ and ‘techno’ sectors. In each he can realign his powers to shape the ground and use it to attack his victims, and he almost destroys Death’s Head by doing so. However, he cannot control the borders between these sectors or when they change from one to the other independently.
We see Death’s Head almost enjoying each successful escape, leading him to question himself again. That is, until he remembers his one true love. No, not Pyra. He remembers how much he loves money! This is enough to refocus him, and I’ll admit I had a little inward cheer and fist bump when this happened. It’s almost a spoof of scenes in superhero comics when doubts are washed away and the hero emerges ready for battle after thinking about the reasons they’re fighting, their cause for good. Here, the cause is cash.
In the end Death’s Head takes a gamble that Lupex doesn’t know he’d spent so long in 8162 (in his own comic and Dragon’s Claws) and as a result has become much more advanced as he repaired and added to his tech. In the end he’s playing the victim but in reality his computer systems are calculating where a magik zone is about to change into a techno one. We think the final blow is about to fall but Lupex unknowingly tries to use magik as the zone changes and it no longer works. The few seconds it takes him to correct his attack is just enough for our star to use his built-in hidden spike.
It’s a thrilling conclusion. It rockets along but never fails to hit the right character beats as it goes. Lupex feels like a genuine threat for the seemingly indestructible Death’s Head, all the while our hero (I’m just going to call him that from now on, I think he deserves it after all this) quips escalate the more desperate he gets, almost like he’s trying to use humour to keep himself going. After it’s all over he even begins to gloat, but he stops himself. He doesn’t want to end up like his father!
Even the vulture gets a funny moment alongside Spratt before Death’s Head gets to round everything off with his usual blasé attitude, despite the scale of the battle that’s just occurred. While I’m still in two minds over the retconning, the story told here is a fascinating one. If we hadn’t been told something different beforehand this would be faultless. In fact, it near enough is anyway!
What a fantastic send off for one of my very favourite comics characters. Apparently this first incarnation of Death’s Head appeared in Marvel US’ Fantastic Four #338 so I might track that down some day as an extra for the blog, but in the meantime it’s a very, very fond farewell to the greatest Freelance Peacekeeping Agent any world, any time or any universe has ever seen. What an ending! Kudos to all involved.
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’sCrusade 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’sColonial 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’sUnder 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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