Tag Archives: Chris Warner

Aliens, Christmas, Comic Reviews

ALiENS #18: MY MOMMY ALWAYS SAiD THERE WERE NO MONSTERS

Leave a comment

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.

iSSUE 17 < > iSSUE 19

ALiENS MENU

CHRiSTMAS 2025

Aliens, Comic Reviews

ALiENS #17: iT’S GOOD FOR YOU, BOY. EAT iT

Leave a comment

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.

iSSUE 16 < > iSSUE 18

ALiENS MENU

Aliens, Comic Reviews

ALiENS #16: A DAY iN THE MARiNE CORPS iS LiKE A DAY ON THE FARM

Leave a comment

This cover by Carl Critchlow (Thrud the Barbarian, Flesh, Batman/Judge Dredd) has got to be one of the best covers so far, encapsulating a moment with the twisted Doctor Cutlow character in the final chapter of our prose story, Tribes. So, only six issues to come after this one, eh? Yes, but calm down, that’s still half a year and a lot of aliens!

Editor Cefn Ridout mentions a sea-faring (“sea-scaring”) tale beginning next month and teases us about some other surprises to come. Colour me intrigued. After the editorial (included here so you have access to the full credits) we’re straight into the concluding half of Jim Woodring and Killian Plunkett’s superb Backsplash. After the cliff collapse there are only two Marines left, Gibbs and Crespi and these eight pages depict their desperate escape bid from the alien-infested cavern to their drop ship outside.

This is great fun! It’s also tense in all the right places which is quite the feat when we’ve gotten so used to seeing the aliens in comic form. Smacking an alien over the head with the limb of one of its fallen siblings, the pair make their way outside just before everything collapses around them. Not that this stops one of the aliens making a surprise reappearance to grab Crespi as they make a bolt for it.

Gibbs saves him only for things to take a turn for him. Hanging on to the ship’s entrance ramp he’s suddenly choking and an inner alien mouth bursts out of his own in a scary moment of synchronicity. His decapitated body falls to the ground as the ship takes off and a quick lever pull by Crespi opens the floor beneath the beast and, mirroring that earlier arm smack, poor Gibbs’ head is used in a moment of alien frustration!

This has been a brilliant little tale. Okay, so it’s light on plot and the characters are interchangeable with pretty much any Colonial Marine from the comic or movie, but through its sheer relentlessness and imaginative situations it’s a standout. But Kilian’s art is the main reason for its success in my eyes. His aliens are superbly detailed, his humans full of character even if the script doesn’t really call for it, and he heightens the horrific moments perfectly.

On to the news and I take issue with the Director’s Cut/Special Edition of a movie being referred to as “diluted”. Also, “already hailed as the best platform game for the Super Nintendo”? Really, Dave Hughes? Better than Mario? Better than Yoshi? The Alien³ game did very well across the board in all versions too, so I think maybe Dave owned a SNES. Ah, the days of unrivalled loyalty to a games platform. (For me it was still the C64 at this point.)

The game was notable for not following the plot of the film at all, with Ripley running around with a huge variety of weapons killing hoards of xenomorphs. Kind of defeats the purpose of having an Alien³ licence, no? At least she was bald! I still think a creepy platform game of stealth and a lack of weaponry with one alien roaming about would’ve been much better, like a 90s version of the more recent Alien: Isolation.

British strip Crusade begins with the Archbishop confronted by his suspicious followers, but he just keeps coming up with ludicrous excuses. “The wind whistling through broken stones” really placates people who’ve heard the alien Queen? Then our tribe and Minecorp marines are attacked by another tribe but the art is too messy to work out what’s going on. In the end the survivors continue on with their two horses into the sewers beneath London and now we can’t even see their hair colours in the dark, one of the few things we could use to tell characters apart. Suddenly their motion tracker starts to bleep and Rani’s spidey senses start to tingle. That can’t be good.

Back in the “big building for tiny minds” (as one of the Marines describes the church) it becomes clear that the Archbishop thinks he’s actually doing god’s work by keeping the alien threat contained within the tower via human sacrifices. But an attack and a hole in the wall recently saw some eggs roll down into the river, however he thinks if he keeps the aliens fed with outsiders they won’t leave their tower. In reality of course he’s just adding to their army.

The world building is potentially great but it’s that lack of visual clarity that’s just so frustrating. This issue’s chapter ends with one of the horses suddenly writhing in pain and an alien bursting from its chest, so the thrills and danger should be tangible but it just requires a bit too much effort for you to feel it.

One moment almost ruins the whole months-long story for me

Much better, as per usual, is prose story Tribes. This concluding chapter is, to use a clichéd phrase, a thrill ride. The whole place is rigged to explode any minute and Rat is stuck in a refuge unit with an alien climbing down through the rubbish. Bort realises he’s always loved her and risks his life to release the unit into deep space so she’ll finally be at peace, dead from the vacuum instead of being an alien incubator and reliving those nightmares of her childhood with her father.

In a tense moment she’s finally able to activate her oxygen supply and the story is left with her floating (alone, sans alien) in space. But one moment almost ruins the whole months-long story, for me anyway. The doctor of the religious extremists trying to help the aliens finds himself in an escape pod with a newborn Queen and a human baby. He was going to use this baby to feed the Queen but the baby dies in his arms slowly from a lack of oxygen.

Look, I know Alien is a horror franchise but I just felt this was an unnecessary use of a mental image of a dying baby to try to elicit an emotional response from the reader. It wasn’t needed and it cheapened all of the excellent work up to this point by writer Steve Bissette. Colton is also dying but knows the Queen will feed on him, providing her with sustenance until the pod lands and she can free herself. Tribes has been a real highlight and if it hadn’t been for that one moment I’d have been singing its praises for months to come.

The Technical Readout pages seem to have done away with the intricate technical cutaways, somewhat making the name of the feature redundant. While I do miss those earlier entries I have to say I really like this most recent one showcasing the military gear worn by two female Colonial Marines. There’s no credit anywhere for the artist, perhaps they were drawn by Lee Brimmincombe-Wood himself?

Our final strip is Colonial Marines and it’s been reduced in pages again after a bumper chapter last time but it’s still a meaty 12-page read. Leaving the sun gun they get distracted on the way to their main mission by a kelp bed on a planet that’s somehow keeping a comms channel open with the HQ they can’t reach, and on a planet that’s not meant to be inhabited. So off they go, with their bug man prisoner in tow.

Unfortunately, things don’t start off too well when the comic’s habit of printing errors sees spread above in the wrong order. The bug man is somehow able to produce the addictive alien slime we humans can’t get enough of and it’s handed around the marines like a drug. Meanwhile there’s an underlying current of distrust in Vasquez after her freak out as people begin to question whether they can rely on her to save their lives like they did hers. With less characters now we can begin to familiarise ourselves with some of the personalities in the ragtag team during these downtime scenes, instantly improving what was already a good strip.

Once they’re flying over the planet they spot an outpost where there shouldn’t be one and, once inside and cornered, they find out it belongs to the bug men. That of course means the aliens can’t be far away. The Marines attempted escape in the people carrier had the same music from the Hadley’s Hope escape scene in the movie playing over and over in my head as I read the end of this month’s chapter.

The cliffhanger sees their drop ship explode and now they’re stuck on this mysterious planet. Chris Warner’s story began as a fun take on the movie but little did I know that was only the starting point. I’m still not convinced about these bug men but given how much I’m enjoying the rest of it (at least they’re no longer 70s Doctor Who aliens) I have hope they’ll develop further too.

The Genre Gap is a strange little page, taking a long time to come to the conclusion we knew already that the Alien films are horrors. They just so happen to be set in a futuristic sci-fi setting, with a sci-fi entity as the main scare. When Stephen King says so is there really any need to question it? Then on the Bug Hunt letters page I’m not too sure about the name given to describe fans of fellow horror franchise, Predator!

There’s a healthy variety of places of origin for the readers this month. Back then it was rare to see letters in our comics from anywhere other than England. There also appears to have been a great deal of positivity for not only Tribes, but for the very idea of having a prose story in the comic, which I’m all for too. The sequel idea for an Alien 4 movie is just ridiculous… I mean, Madonna doing a movie song after that thing that I had to endure at the start of Die Another Day?!

Backsplash and Tribes may be over but that means more new stories next month which is always exciting. Colonial Marines continues to get better and better, and Crusade certainly has loads of potential that hopefully it can begin to fulfil. Even more excitedly there’s talk in this issue of a second autopsy feature (the first in #11 was fascinating) next month, this time for the alien eggs. Things can only get better, so be here in one month to check out Aliens #17.

iSSUE 15 < > iSSUE 17

ALiENS MENU

Aliens, Comic Reviews

ALiENS #15: THERE’S MOVEMENT ALL OVER THE PLACE!

Leave a comment

This review was due on Tuesday 26th August
but was delayed due to a health issue

Well that’s one competition I wouldn’t have been entering. Anyway, Irish artist Killian Plunkett returns with this great cover for #15 of Dark Horse Intertnational’s Aliens as well as the first strip. One of the headlines on the cover notes the similarities in subject matter for two of the tales, something I’d noticed previously. The cover is printed on lovely glossy paper once more, which is highlighted by editor Cefn Ridout in the editorial, shown below to include all of the credits in the review.

He also mentions extra pages but in reality the comic has returned to its original page count. Perhaps in light of the cancellation of both Star Wars and Dracula there were a few extra pence in the pagination budget? Cefn welcomes Killian to the Aliens fold for the first time even though he’d previously drawn the even better cover to #8 (and Dracula #7) and I do like his answer to the question of whether the Colonial Marines will ever learn. He’s right, you know.

Proof comes in the form of part one of Backsplash, an American story written by Jim Woodring (The Book of Jim, Frank, Star Wars) with Killian as artist that was originally printed in Dark Horse Comics over there. It follows a team of marines as they try out a new eco-suit weapon in an alien hive, something they believe is so good the aliens will no longer be a threat. Of course, such talk is always going to jinx us humans in the Alien universe! The leader’s name is Gibbs, so maybe he can slap the marine who said that across the back of the head.

That’s basically it for the plot and things go wrong even more quickly than I anticipated, as the aliens swarm the two marines sent out in the suits. To begin with the particle-plasma projectors see off the xenomorphs easily, exploding their bodies at a safe distance. But then the aliens gang up and such a large amount of them exploding at once produces a wave of acid that instantly starts to eat through the suits. Even worse, it covers the transport holding the rest of the team, dissolving its armour and filling the interior with deadly fumes.

As they try to escape the surviving aliens attack, the extra weight leading the cliff edge they were parked on (because of course they were) to crumble, taking everyone with it. A prequel to a strip called Labyrinth, don’t expect to get to know any of the characters in this short story but it’s a fun little tale nonetheless that once again shows the universe humbling humanity. Great art on the part of Killian too, it feels like stills from an ace Aliens cartoon.

Part 3 of Michael Cook’s Crusade is reduced to 9 pages but it continues its positive ascent through the ranks of the stories after a rather dodgy beginning. The Minecorp mercenaries are imprisoned by the tribe’s leader, who accuses them of kidnapping those taken last time, despite the fact the mercenaries are still there. Go figure. But tribeswoman Rani isn’t convinced. She can see in the stones they aren’t the monsters of her visions and wants to go with them to find their lost people.

More world building is included when Britain is simply called ‘an unnamed mining island off the coast of Europe’. (I could make a dig about Brexit here but you’ve probably beaten me to it.) We also briefly see the Archbishop either tearing chunks out of the dead Beresford or stitching him up as the Alien Queen watches on, it’s unclear what he’s doing as the art remains too messy for me personally.

However his followers, who live in the abbey and never venture outside, are beginning to question his King-like leadership. They’ve heard tales of kidnappings, are suspicious of Bereford’s death and want to know what’s really in the tower. The Archbishop simply says doubts are the devil’s work and walks off. That won’t come back to haunt him, I’m sure. Back at the camp a rather basic escape plan is put in motion as Rani smuggles an electrical cutter inside the prisoners’ food like some clichéd cartoon.

Once free some of the mercs are all too ready to kill their captors, setting up some tense character dynamics within the group. However, the strip now suffers from that 90s action flick syndrome of a lack of clothing. As the tribes took the troopers’ clothes and they themselves wear only basic coverings, what Rani brings as their disguises is little more than an excuse for some tits and ass. A shame, there’s real depth within the story so it doesn’t need to do this.

I was looking forward to this month’s Technical Readout and the next part in the Sulaco series but instead it’s about the drop ship that took the marines down to the planet in the film. Actually, it’s not even about that, it’s a rather bland two pages about the individual missiles it could fire. Much more exciting was the realisation Chris Warner’s Colonial Marines strip had doubled in size to 16 pages. We were told it’d be a few more months until this happened so it’s a nice surprise.

This moment perfectly captures their panic, the claustrophobia and the ensuing tension.

This strip has been gagging to breathe a bit more in each issue. Each chunk has been really enjoyable but they’ve been over so quickly, partly because of the amount of pages but also because of the speed of the action, so the plot hasn’t really had a chance to shine. This changes somewhat here so I hope this is an ongoing change.

However, first up is this comic’s constant problem of giving things away in the round up of the story so far, with the writer of that page stating certain things have happened already when they haven’t. The reveal of the new alien species actually being a hybrid between humans and xenomorphs is spoiled before I even get to the strip.

How the characters can tell they’re hybrids is unknown, it certainly wasn’t clear to me. The man they found Newt-like in the air ducts tells them the hostiles are men “but bugged out”. Meanwhile, corporation man Beliveau is screaming at the huge synth that he’s built for alien encounters, only to be told by the synth they’ll have to wait for the team to re-establish contact because he costs too much to risk going in.

Beliveau’s inner thoughts betray him to the reader. He thinks he knows who’s responsible and in the hive the “Father” figure tells his men, “The Judas is here”, so there’s more to the company man. The main highlight of not only this strip but the whole issue is their escape up a zero-g well to an air lock. This moment, portrayed over the two spreads I’ve photographed, perfectly captures their panic, the claustrophobia and the ensuing tension.

Having one panel with all the captions displayed vertically is a nice touch too, highlighting the disorientation of being in zero-gravity. They manage to take one of the hybrids prisoner but all he does is lecture them about humanity polluting space and how The Father believes the aliens are cleansing it for the greater good. There’s an environmental message in there somewhere that I’m sure James Cameron would be proud of.

“The alien behind Point struck, its extended tongue tearing effortlessly through the helmet’s metal to taste the soft grey yolk that lay under the bone.”

Tribes, Steve Bissette

The new Q&Aliens feature takes individual questions asked in letters and gives them prominence in a double-page spread. There’s nothing particularly groundbreaking in any of the questions asked, although we do get to see these two interesting early designs for the original movie’s poster, complete with different fonts. Both were created by David Pelsue.

The questions may be of the usual sort but one answer stood out. A clearly frustrated reader wanted to know “Where the **~!” the facehuggers came from at the beginning of Alien³. I always thought it was obvious, the Queen had been hiding out on the drop ship so she planted them. Interestingly, the answer states the sound of an alien egg schlopping open could be heard at the very end of the credits to Aliens, director James Cameron indicating an egg was on board the EEV with the survivors (or perhaps just to freak out the audience a bit). I had to go and give it a listen and yep, it’s there! I’d never heard it before!

Tribes’ penultimate chapter (written by Steve Bissette) somehow escalates the heart-pumping excitement even more than it already had. Things are certainly shaping up for a heart-stopping climax next issue. My favourite character Rat may not be as prominent but it hardly matters because everything else happening around her has been dialled up. The shrunken images by Dave Dorman should still give you an idea of the action taking place here.

While we’re used to things going wrong in an Alien story, the fact absolutely everything (including things you’d never think could go wrong) goes wrong makes this a shocking read. Quite the feat. There are a lot of surprising deaths, Shitkicker goes on a rampage and the more things go wrong the more his metal shell injects drugs into him to combat the escalating situation, which of course just makes things worse. As the marines now fight their own amongst the aliens I was almost breathless by the end of the four pages. What a thrill ride!

What an issue. Aliens is back on top of its game! All four stories were a thrill to read this month. Backsplash is incredibly fun hokem, Crusade continues to develop something very interesting, Colonial Marines was just superb and Tribes… wow! There’s even mention on the letters page of a possible Technical Readout book, which I searched for and I found it. That’ll be a future purchase for the blog, no doubt. With two finales next month there’s every possibility #16 could (somehow) be even better than this issue. We’ll find out on Tuesday 23rd September 2025.

iSSUE 14 < > iSSUE 16

ALiENS MENU

Aliens, Comic Reviews

ALiENS #14: MOST OF THE TiME iT’S TRUE

Leave a comment

This fantastic cover by Styx (real name Steve Kane and not to be confused with classic cartoonist Leslie Harding who also went by that moniker) welcomes us to the 14th edition of Dark Horse International’s Aliens monthly, the matte paper lending itself perfectly to this dark image. Inside, we’ve another 48 pages of a somewhat mixed bag but the highs have kept me going again this month.

Editor Cefn Ridout’s editorial hypes an import comic as a suitable replacement for the lack of Predator material in the comic despite the fact specialist shops weren’t as prolific in the UK at the time, especially over here in Northern Ireland. As always, I’ve included this page so you’ve access to all the credits for the issue and turning over we come face-to-facehugger with the 12-page second part of Michael Cook’s Crusade.

In the recap of part one we’re told those weren’t Colonial Marines but employees of a corporation called Minecorp. This wasn’t clear at all last time. Anyway, the company thinks there are profits to be made if they can suss out why London remains clear of aliens after the Earth War, but the people they’ve sent actually seem less concerned about that than they are about helping the tribe they’ve met. Not that the dialogue helps work this out.

The speech is still awful, the overuse of ellipses an attempt to make it feel like they’re in natural conversations, to give the illusion of speech patterns, but instead it’s just broken. The fact there are no captions means the story relies completely on that dialogue too. So from what I can gather London had broken into tribal warfare long before the aliens arrived, even though the comic’s editorials these past two months gave me the impression this happened because of the alien war.

The Minecorp troops need guides and in return they’ve brought food and weapons for the tribe they’ve met. However, one night another tribe infiltrates their camp and kidnaps some of them, including a small child. They take them across the Thames to a large church but floating in the water, almost dealt with incidentally by the story are loads of alien eggs.

Of course when one of these pops up in an Alien story someone has to be stupid enough to look in and that’s exactly what happens here. Then back at the camp we finally get a little bit of character development. Foston’s wife was on the missing recon team, Channon says she’ll go with him even if they don’t have a guide and upon hearing this one of the unnamed tribeswomen agrees to help as she can read the stars and mythical stones to predict the future.

Meanwhile, the archbishop of the church appears to be the leader of a group of Christian fanatics. Seeing Beresford with a facehugger attached he simply tells the rest he’ll attend to it. Instead, he sneaks the body away and inside the tower presents him to an Alien Queen, albeit a very badly drawn one. While reciting the Lord’s Prayer the newborn alien bursts out of Bereford’s chest on a page the editorial described as “horrific”. If I didn’t know better I’d say Cefn was describing the apparently psychedelic art.

In the ongoing prose story Tribes the marines are up against a fanatical religious group who see the aliens as gods, and Crusade follows on from previous lead strip Sacrifice, which saw a priest go up against an alien on her own to test her Christian faith. Then, to add to all of this our Colonial Marines strip this month begins with Vasquez frozen to the spot in fear as an alien approaches and inside her head she’s reciting the Lord’s Prayer!

Perhaps there was a theme being explored across various Dark Horse US Aliens comic strips at the time, some form of larger arc the UK writers wanted to explore too? If that’s the case then I can understand, but if not this is all beginning to get very repetitive and unimaginative. Just as Crusade was beginning to get interesting too. I’ll wait to see how it develops next month. Next up, a one-page reprieve with a look at The Abyss Special Edition.

Dave Hughes has a much more positive view of directors’ cuts than Jim Campbell had previously. The Abyss’ new cut contained almost double the amount of new material as the Aliens Special Edition. This is also how I found out about the rat scene, when one was pushed into breathable liquid. Shockingly it was filmed for real with actual breathable liquid that was in development! Given how the rat reacted I can completely understand why it’s been cut in the UK where we have stricter animal cruelty laws in entertainment.

Despite some online rumour mills, the rats did all survive and received plenty of loving aftercare. But still, imagine if someone suddenly held you underwater without you knowing you could breathe! Even with that particular liquid I still think it was unnecessarily cruel. It could’ve been achieved with special effects and well-timed edits. Cameron has since made a name for himself in his endeavours to protect the planet and all life on it so I’ll assume he never meant to be cruel. I’ll hold on to that belief.

Our 8-page sixth chapter of Chris Warner’s Colonial Marines is next and after Vasquez’s prayer comes this double-page spread showing the potential of Tony Akins’, Paul Guinan’s and Matt Hollingsworth’s art. It’s the same team but it feels more solid than before, especially in its depictions of the new alien race apparently controlling the xenomorphs, the latter thankfully looking more horrific and less cartoon-like as you can.

Unaware they’re being watched on camera by one of the humanoid aliens, this page shows the chaos of the suddenly escalating situation for the marines. It’s an all-action chapter that doesn’t move the plot forward but does see off quite a few of the peripheral characters in more and more horrific ways, not least of which is this accidental death when one marine is grabbed from above and fires their weapon in desperation. These small chunks are great fun every month.

On the Motion Tracker news page we find out the toy competition from last month which required people to buy a handful of Dark Horse International comics is now going to be printed in full in Aliens. No reason is given but Star Wars had been cancelled after surprisingly poor sales. Then it’s on to eight pages of the “mind-blowing conclusion to Horror Show”, according to the cover. So, is it?

On the moon the inhabitants of Luna City live with daily guilt over the loss of their loved ones down on Earth during the recent Earth War, hence why the creatures are infiltrating everyone’s nightmares in the sleep clinic/entertainment company we’ve been introduced to. It’s an intriguing set up that’s produced quite the boring strip so far, but here on page one I find myself feeling for the father of one of their ‘patients’. Is something interesting finally happening?

His daughter is the same person who had the shark/alien dream previously. After a dream involving an alien infiltrating the apparent hospital and chasing her (in which she finds herself outside and back in deep water with the alien in place of the shark), she awakens to find the whole lab has been seized in a rebellion and all the patients are awake. Somehow, her father helped them but it all happens off-camera (as it were). As a reader I immediately felt cheated. The only thing that actually happens and we’re just told about it?

That hyped conclusion sees revenge taken out on the doctor who was not only lying to these people about their treatment but also sexually abusing them. We (and he) are left not knowing if the above is real or part of the virtual reality. It doesn’t make up for the rest of the story but it’s a good idea, despite looking more like Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors than an alien egg. Personally, I’m glad to see the back of Horror Show.

Much, much (much!) better is the latest part of Tribes, the comic’s serialisation of the novella released in the States. It’s really interesting when it’s written from the Alien Queen’s perspective and Rat’s near fatal escape is real edge-of-the-seat stuff, no exaggeration. I honestly thought she was a goner and she’s my favourite character so it was an exciting read! Again, the italics in her part of the story are intended as flashbacks to the horrors her father forced upon her as a young child and they add to the scares.

One of the aliens dies in a suitably horrifying way, its elongated head slowly sliced in half by a cutting wire as it pushes itself through, trying to get at Rat just beyond. Then, when she sees an x-ray of one of the religious fanatics she recognises the image of the alien inside from an x-ray of her own brother her dad proudly showed her as a child. This is very much Rat’s story and it’s terrific. Writer Steve Bissette’s tale should be on the silver screen!

Alien Vs Predator II isn’t the all-action conclusion you’d think from the cover headline. The Alien Queen was already captured and these final two pages are more about the apparently shocking reveal that one of the Predators is actually a human woman working alongside them. But wasn’t this already obvious from chapters right back at the beginning? I thought that was the whole point of the story and the reveal would be why she was doing this.

So it’s a disappointing ending and makes me miss the separate Predator strip even more. Good news comes on the letters page though. It’s revealed to a reader who has the same opinion as me of the Colonial Marines strip that, with AVP II over and Tribes concluding in two months, more pages will be given to that strip soon. We also find out there’s a comics adaptation of the original Alien film to purchase, written by Vampirella’s Archie Goodwin (whose work I’m enjoying in the publisher’s Dracula) and drawn by Walt Simonson who adapted Jurassic Park.

Colonial Marines and Tribes really carried this issue and boy, did they do a good job of it! Worth the price of admittance, those two. But Crusade could be opening up into something more than I’d previously thought, at least storywise, and we’ve a new two-part Aliens strip called Backsplash beginning in #15 too. Things could be on the up again. We’ll find out if that’s the case on Tuesday 26th August 2025.

iSSUE 13 < > iSSUE 15

ALiENS MENU

Aliens, Comic Reviews

ALiENS #13: WE JUST GOT OUR ASSES KiCKED

Leave a comment

Back in the early 90s Dark Horse US published a monthly Aliens comic depicting the Earth War starring the Hicks and Newt characters from the second movie. Of course, after Alien³ this was no longer canon but the company’s UK branch was about to start publishing sequel stories anyway. I don’t know if volume one of the comic under previous publisher Trident covered the war but no spoilers please, I’ll read them eventually for the blog.

The UK exclusive strip Crusade picks up after the war but very little background is given to us. Editor Cefn Ridout seems to assume everyone knows about it already. A recap would’ve made all the difference, especially as sales were climbing with new readers coming on board. “As if the opening of London’s own Alien War in August weren’t enough” for Aliens fans? Ah the 90s, when our comics seemed to forget there were readers outside England. The editorial above shows you all the credits for the issue and then we’re launched into 12 pages of Crusade.

It’s fair to say first impressions aren’t great. Coming as it does after Paul Johnson’s artwork last issue and Chris Halls’ cover may be unfair to artist Christian Gorny (Heavy Metal, Haarmaan, Narcangel) whose work in other titles is acclaimed. Mike Cook’s (2000AD, The Real Robin Hood, Dead Meat) story doesn’t get off to a great start either. It’s confusing (not helped by the comic’s lack of background to the war) with dialogue that ’s trying too hard to make it seem conversational between friends, which has the opposite effect and comes across stilted and broken, although Woodrow Pheonix’s (Sonic the Comic, Manga Mania, Dracula) lettering does give it a nice journal feel at times.

From what I can gather London was spared from the alien infestation and the reason remains a mystery. The city is desolate, cut off from the rest of the world and inhabited by Mad Max-like tribes. Elsewhere, Colonial Marines are sent down from orbit to alien hotspots for quick hit-and-run raids. One of their recon teams has gone missing over London, which resides in a country they describe as an “A-grade shithole” that was mainly used for toxic waste before the war.

I say “from what I can gather” because it’s difficult to follow. I couldn’t tell you the name of one individual, there are no main characters standing out and their interactions all feel forced. No one feels remotely real. Instead, they’re just plot points to move things along. It doesn’t help that a lot of the time characters are seen from behind or from strange angles so you’ve no idea who’s talking anyway.

At times the art looks unfinished, such as the second two examples above. At times an interesting scenario tries to squeeze itself in, such as the fact the recon team were shot down by powerful weaponry, something the tribes simply don’t have and the aliens obviously have no need for. So there’s a mystery in there to be solved but I just don’t know if I care enough. Then it just stops. No cliffhanger, it just stops. This strip was made for this comic, it’s not like it was an American strip unceremoniously snipped in half, so there’s no excuse.

There’s still potential in this post-Earth War storyline but so far Crusade isn’t living up to it. This is harsh, I know. I pride myself on positivity on this blog and I’ve loved Aliens so far. Even the worst strips (I’m looking at you, Hive) had moments of redemption but there are none to be found here. Well, except for a moment when a sound effect seemed to indicate the TARDIS was arriving!

On to the Motion Tracker and on the first page of this month’s news we can see the early days of UK Aliens and sci-fi cons, complete with promises of star guests that they simply couldn’t fulfil, expensive tickets and low turnout. I remember those days here in Belfast after Doctor Who returned over a decade later. There’s also a column about toys which always confused me when it came to ’18’-cert films. Collectibles I can understand, but Aliens, RoboCop and Terminator all had children’s toys produced (this was before the days of the RoboCop TV series or cartoon).

What irks me is how there was less of a demand for the female characters among the mainly male buyers. Even for the Alien films?! Films rooted in their lead female characters and themes? I may be a man but geez, men can be such [censored]. On the other news page the comic has the audacity to run a competition with one question in this comic, a second question in Star Wars and the answer in Total Carnage! I wonder if anyone actually entered?

Our eight pages of Colonial Marines finally sees some alien action for our main characters as Lt. Henry and his marines enter the sun gun complex and are immediately at a disadvantage when acid dripping down from a dead alien body above melts through some of their protective suits, forcing them to strip and adding finding new ones to their plans. Henry is convinced this is a hive and thus they can’t waste time retreating to retrieve more from their ship.

This chapter is all about their slow infiltration, building tension as they inch their way inside, now knowing the xenomorphs are behind the loss of communication and instantly putting pressure on each individual member of the team. This is unfortunately undone somewhat when the motion sensor picks up movement and it ends up being a human survivor hiding in a vent. Sound familiar? There’s nothing original here but for the most part it’s executed brilliantly.

As you can see the chapter ends with Vasquez freezing on the spot after all of her previous bravado, showing she’s a different character than her sister in the film. Although, at one stage someone does ask if she’s looking forward to delivering payback for what the aliens did. But how does she know they killed her sister? Ripley, Hicks and Newt were the only survivors. Two of them died before waking up and the third not long after! And it’s not like the company would’ve let on. An oversight perhaps on the part of writer Chris Warner but nothing that spoils this enjoyable little tale.

On to more information about those aforementioned toys with a full-page advert (albeit black and white with poorly reproduced photographs) for Forbidden Planet. Again, these aren’t the kinds of collective figures you can buy today, they are actual toys. Some even sound like the kind featured in The Real Ghostbusters range also by Kenner, with Bishop having a rotating gatling gun, Hicks a mechanical arm for some reason and the A.T.A.X. is a marine in an alien bodysuit!

Moving on, back in the 90s my copy of Alien³ on VHS got a lot of screen time and so did the Alien War trailer before the film. I remember thinking it looked incredible, with James Horner’s searing soundtrack adding to the intense atmosphere. In 1993 it proven to be so successful in Glasgow it was being moved and expanded to a larger building in London. Dave Hughes chatted with its creators Gary Gillies and the appropriately-surnamed John Gorman about the experience.

Am I the only one who reads their reasoning behind halving the experience’s length and thinks it was really a way of getting more paying punters in? Unfortunately, it never became the envisioned franchise spoken about here and after it was closed following a flood in 1996 it never reopened, apart from a short stint in Glasgow again at the turn of the millennium. (Later in 2008 they opened a similar experience in Glasgow unaffiliated with the Alien films.)

Part two of Horror Show also takes up eight pages and surprisingly it concludes next issue. But… nothing’s happened! It also looks like it’ll end with no real aliens taking part, which is a waste of David Roach’s great art. Maybe the point was to introduce this virtual nightmare entertainment company for future stories? It begins with a young woman dressed in a sub-par alien costume sneaking into a nest to destroy the alien queen. Ridiculous? Well, if you’d been paying attention you’d know this is just the young woman’s nightmare.

The company managers are getting angry that all the nightmares they’re recording in their fake dream clinic always end up including the aliens, even if the original scenario had nothing to do with them. Set after the Earth War there seems to be a mass sense of guilt about those that died down on Earth while these people survived in lunar orbit.

This is interesting but unfortunately its reveal towards the end of the strip is spoiled by the recap of what happened last month telling us. Confusingly, one of the volunteers is also called Hicks (it’s not him) and two pages are printed in the wrong order. One of the doctors is sexually abusing the sleeping volunteers, while in their dreams it’s the aliens claws that are all over them. It’s a particularly creepy moment but not much else occurs.

In the next chapter of Steve Bissette’s prose story, Tribes, Rat is the most interesting character by far, albeit in a tragic way. Her job is to be captured by the aliens! She sets herself up in a small space just outside their hive and makes a noise, but she’s sealed herself off with wire-like meshes that slow the aliens down so they don’t rush to an instant kill. By the time they’ve got through to her and she hasn’t put up a fight they’ve calmed down and take her away for implantation instead.

As we know, their captives wake just before the egg placed in front of them opens, this small window of time allowing Rat to send a beacon to her teammates. All the way through this part of the story parentheses appear that act like mental flashbacks to her childhood, echoing the sexual assault she suffered at her father’s hands; a lifetime of abuse and suffering ultimately preparing her for a job no one else is capable of (or wants). It’s horrific and makes for compulsive reading.

This small but still interesting cutaway of the Colonial Marines transport ship Sulaco from Aliens is part of a two-page introductory Technical Readout, the first in a series of features from the always-fascinating Lee Brimmicombe-Wood about the spacecraft. These should make for an interesting series over the coming months. Also coming next month is the final chapter of Alien Vs Predator II, so as previously promised I’ll talk more about that next time.

It’s been a bit of a mixed bag this month. Two stories have been as entertaining as we’d expect, in fact one surpasses previous chapters. On the other hand the other two are completely missable. But this can happen in an anthology comic and with stories ending and others beginning all the time, the Marines and Tribes will see me through until the next shake up. We’ll take a step closer to new tales with the next issue on Tuesday 22nd July 2025.

iSSUE 12 < > iSSUE 14

ALiENS MENU

Aliens, Comic Reviews

ALiENS #11: WE’RE iN SOME REAL PRETTY SHiT NOW, MAN!

Leave a comment

This comic is never short of fantastic covers and Colin MacRae’s introduction to #11 of Dark Horse International’s Aliens is no exception, depicting the next chapter in the Colonial Marines epic from across The Pond. (Erroneously credited as Colin MacNeil, this was corrected in #14’s editorial.) The first thing I noticed upon scanning through the issue is the page count. Just as the publisher’s Dracula gained four pages, it appears Aliens has permanently lost the same amount, the free comic given away over the past two issues disguising the fact somewhat.

As you can see another change has occurred with Cefn Ridout taking over as editor from Dick Hansom, and his first task is to give the readers a shake to get more interesting correspondence for the letters page. In his very first paragraph he even uses the accidental reprint of a previous Alien Vs Predator II chapter to comic effect in this regard. He’s definitely off to a good start! All credits for this issue are also above.

Our UK strip, Sacrifice started off fine but unremarkable, however it really kicks into gear this issue. The atmosphere is palpable! It’s certainly not for the faint-hearted, especially those with kids. I don’t personally, but ever since my mate had her’s I find scenes like this below particularly horrific. There’s even a season one episode of ER I now find more terrifying than most horror films!

After this, Ann no longer cares if she lives or dies and she slowly walks back to the compound. Masters is the one person who seemed to care about her but got all creepy last time, and when he approaches her she punches him square in the face. She may be a priest but sacrificing babies to the alien has rightfully pushed her over the edge. However, Ricketts (the guy with the grotesquely scarred face) attacks her, calling her a murderer because the alien attacked and killed villagers because it didn’t get the baby.

It’s here the strip takes a horrific turn I simply was not expecting. Not only is the question of the mysterious generator room answered, but so is my own about how many babies would be needed, a plot point I previously thought made no sense. But it wasn’t meant to make sense. I was expertly fooled by writer Peter Milligan. They’re not some form of devil worshippers. Their devil is very real for a start. The story explains all with these two pages below, the second one delivering a shock after turning the page.

The whole point of living, of trying to survive against the alien is brought into question if this is the way, and as a priest Ann’s struggles with this feel very real. We also find out Ricketts’ disfigurement occurred when he tried and failed to save his wife. He almost becomes a sympathetic character. Almost, until he does something that genuinely shocked me, I can’t lie. Something that proves this is truly a horror comic.

Ann’s mum sacrificed herself to save her daughter from an alien and the guilt has driven her ever since, so she decides she’ll face the alien instead. Ricketts is delighted, it’ll save them a few babies, and to this he earns a well deserved knee in the groin. (I may have inwardly cheered.) She’s lost her faith, but if the alien is proof evil exists then in her eyes God should too. She needs to look it in the eye to confirm her own beliefs. Masters gives her a grenade and she has her cross and a makeshift spear, and in a ‘knights of the crusade’ moment she’s ready.

The story has me gripped. And horrified. But that’s the point of a good Alien story, isn’t it? The themes are very similar to Alien³’s and I can’t wait to see what happens next, especially since the comics checklist (which gives details of the next issue) says the climax is next month. 

Much like the Dracula comic at the same time, Dave Hughes’ news pages covered Alien³’s takings in the cinema the more favourable UK numbers are covered. I was in awe of The Lawnmower Man at the time which also really benefitted from a longer special edition, and even Gary Oldman’s Prince gets a shout out. On the first page is another funny competition and the comic knows fine rightly most people entering it shouldn’t really be getting their hands on the prize. I’d never heard of Charles Dutton’s sitcom Roc, but I’ve now found out all of the second season’s 25 episodes were aired live! That’s pretty damn incredible. 

I think Dave perhaps meant “flawed epic” in the ‘Alien Stars’ column? More memories are stirred of seeing sequels to Poison Ivy loitering on late night telly when we first got satellite TV, and the cover to K2 never intrigued me enough in the video store. If only I’d realised who was in it. More fond memories too of that transition period when widescreen videos started to make their impact, and I can find no evidence of a film starring Bill Paxton called ‘Twisted’. It’s somewhat familiar, obviously! (Although there’s no mention of Helen Hunt.)

Our 8-page chunk of Colonial Marines this month could be seen as little more than that classic Aliens moment of the marines’ first foray into the seemingly deserted colony in the film, only reworked to a Sun Gun setting. But that doesn’t take away from the lovely, slow-burn atmosphere expertly portrayed here. This story is taking its time and works all the better for it.

As I read these pages I’m imagining the characters’ voices crackling over their comms, and in a change from the film it’s the waste disposal team that have been sent in first to check the levels of toxic waste; no one is even considering this has anything to do with aliens. Typically, the head of the team is all about profit and doesn’t care for the marines. That is, until they come across familiar, organic materials covering the walls inside. Then, of course, a piece of that wall begins to move.

Our main character, Lt. Joseph Henry suddenly realises what’s happened. As do the marines. He orders the disposal teams to evacuate but we know it’ll be too late. The strip could easily have rushed through this bit but it took its time and as a result, after the intensity of Sacrifice, this issue really isn’t pulling any punches in the atmosphere stakes.

Time for a breather and the Technical Readout details a random crane machine, proving Lee Brimmicombe-Wood can bring enjoyable details to even the most seemingly random and inconsequential bits of fictional tech. Lee gets a thank you at the end of the next feature, Jim Campbell’s Under the Knife. It’s a piece detailing an anonymous doctor’s autopsy of an alien body and it’s brilliantly written. Think a doctor’s breakdown of a dissected body can’t be compulsive reading? Think again.

Jim expertly walks the fine line between keeping the mystery of the monsters (and thus their fear factor), and giving readers just enough juicy details to keep them glued to the page and feel like they’re learning more than they actually are. Trust me, you’ll want to take five minutes out of your day to get stuck into this one. Let’s hope Jim returns to bring us something similar in future issues, perhaps for the facehugger. A little gem hidden away in this issue.

Another gem is Rites of Passage, the wordless two-part Predator back-up strip. It may only be eight pages, and it’s basically one fight scene but it makes an impact. Pitting a seemingly defenceless tribesman against the technologically advanced alien may seem familiar all these years later after the excellent Prey movie, but I can imagine how thrilling it’d have been in 1993 discovering this fight isn’t as one-sided as we (and the Predator) may have assumed.

Ian Edginton’s story is still thrilling today. We don’t even know this man’s name but we cheer him on as he uses his ingenuity to defend himself, before going on the offensive and taking out the alien’s weaponry in an exciting double-page spread by penciller Rick Leonardi, inker Dan Panosian and colourist Greg Wright. I also love how much character there is in this version of the Predator when it’s free of its helmet.

There are moments when you genuinely believe our hero is going to lose, making the eventual win all the more worthwhile. When another Predator arrives it looks closely at him and leaves, and you feel its look is its way of showing respect for the victor. We come back to the beginning of the story and the man is now an elder with familiar items attached to his shield and spear, and he sees another falling star in the night sky. Excellent stuff.

The Aliens Vs Predator II debacle is mentioned in the editorial and discussed on the letters page, but is this month’s chapter another attempt by Cefn to get readers writing in as he joked earlier? Have a read and see if you spot anything strange about this.

The strip is only two pages long as usual but I think they’ve been printed in the wrong order. The first thing I noticed was our lead character throwing her weapon at the alien Queen and being without it at the end of page one, but she has it again at the top of the next page. The first caption on page two is also a quick recap of the last chapter, the story flows from page two to page one better, and the end of page one is clearly the cliffhanger. Oh dear.

Prose story Tribes reads so much better this month, beginning with an excellent description of life inside an alien hive and then concentrating on the characters, building them into real humans in my mind. Most intriguing are MOX and Rat. The former is a psychotic human almost killed in battle but kept alive and sedated in an armoured shell until he’s needed to go berserk. The latter is an infiltration specialist who appears to have developed the skill of being silent as a child because of her abusive father.

Because it’s a novella being broken down into bite-sized chunks it’s another slow burn, something this comic seems to do incredibly well. It’s building up organically and I think it reads all the better for it. The conclusion should be all the more powerful after getting to know the people involved and caring about what happens to them. It’s also building an interesting plot and even an insight into the aliens themselves. Much improved and I’m looking forward to more.

On the inside back cover is the full-page advert for the refreshed #6 of Dracula which you can see in the review of #5 of that comic, and that just about wraps things up for another month. The best issue so far. No competition. Of course, you need to have read the previous chapters in all the stories to really appreciate them, but the emotional investment this issue brought has really surprised me. I’m locked, loaded and ready for #12 on Tuesday 20th May 2025.

iSSUE TEN < > iSSUE TWELVE

ALiENS MENU

Aliens, Comic Reviews

ALiENS #10: i HAVE SCARY DREAMS

Leave a comment

Last month I lamented about how my copy of this next issue of Dark Horse International’s Aliens didn’t have the free comic packaged in with it after last month’s ended on a cliffhanger. So when I picked up #10 I ignored the banner along the top. However the 12 middle pages here, while not separate from the main comic this time, are presented like an additional comic and contain the concluding chapter to Aliens: Countdown.

A closer look at the cover reveals no less than six stories inside and Countdown is included. Boasting about a free comic but also including the name of it in the list of the main comic’s strips is a bit cheeky, but you can’t deny it felt like value for money! There’s a catch with the so-called “free” bit of Countdown though, which we’ll get to in a bit.

We no longer have a lovely glossy cover. Instead, the outer 32 pages are of a thicker paper stock that’s somewhere between matte and gloss, akin to the 90s’ Thunderbirds The Comic or the last year or two of The Dandy, while the inner pages are the usual matte grade. The editorial (shown above with full credits for this issue) has a lot to promote Aliens-wise but instead dedicates most of itself to new comic Total Carnage and the change of editor, what with Dick Hansom off to launch Jurassic Park.

Cefn Ridout (Doctor Who Magazine, Black Widow, Speakeasy) will be in charge and is left a comic at the top of its game with so much content. It all kicks off with the 12-page second part of the exclusive UK strip, Sacrifice. It turns out our lone survivor of the spaceship crash, Ann McKay is a priest. This seems to shock the male members of the village, which is a bit weird considering how far in the future these stories are set.

Ann thinks giving a service will help ingratiate her with the strange and inward-looking villagers although, given the flashbacks to her mother in a scene which I’m going to assume involved one of our aliens, she’s clearly looking for forgiveness for herself. It doesn’t help. The villagers still disdain her and she barely escapes an accident with a combine harvester (no, really) that was clearly an attempt to kill her.

The one person who likes her is Masters, who propositioned her last month. Here, in a part of the story that I literally cringed at, Masters tells her he won’t respect her wishes, he won’t wait for her consent, he’ll keep pushing until she loses her faith and they can be together. Then she kisses him! Okay, so she then runs off because her vows tell her she shouldn’t have done that, but really? He said all that and she fell for him?! If this was written today it could be accurately described as “tone deaf”.

Anyway, the rest of the story sees Ann track the men carrying a small bundle to the altar and as predicted they’ve got a baby they’re sacrificing to the alien. Yes, it’s horrible and this is meant to be a horror story, but it’s a cheap trick to pull at the heart strings and it makes no sense. (Where are they getting so many babies from?) Unfortunately the promising start last month is becoming uninspired and in the case of the scene with Ann and Masters, just ridiculous.

It ends with Ann grabbing the baby and running from the alien, tripping and falling off a cliff and down to a river while the alien breaks into the village. The art is lovely and in particular the alien itself looks suitably scary. If partnered with a good story Paul Johnson’s work could elevate the comic even higher. Let’s hope for better things from the next British strip soon.

Due to the sheer amount of content, Motion Tracker’s news has been shortened to one page and it all feels rather rushed, like they had two pages of material ready to go and decided to include it all in half the space. But at least it’s answered a niggling question I had about 15 years ago, when I wondered where I’d seen the font used in the Knight Rider sequel series (2008/9). Having that particular word spelled out in the title of the movie above certainly helped.

Colonial Marines continues across ten pages in the middle of the comic (with Countdown sandwich in the middle of it) and we’re introduced to some of the crew Lt. Joseph Henry is taking to the Sun Gun. This was a chance to embellish the roster of characters with personalities so we’d care about them and it does this very well, but they just had to go and introduce a relation to a movie character, didn’t they? In this case it’s Vasquez’ sister!

Writer Chris Warner really didn’t need to do this. The other characters are realistic, three-dimensional people already, there was no need to basically bring back a fan-favourite movie character. Much like Predator: Cold War there’s no need, the original characters are well written enough. For example, Joseph himself is brilliant. After sympathising with him last month he’s now more in his element and comes across as relatable and quippy. The fact this façade is hiding personal pain just makes him all the more believable.

Sergeant Nyland is no-nonsense military and she feels Joseph’s reputation makes him unsuitable for restraining a bunch of marines, all of whom are on this mission to serve time, eg. for insubordination. Mr Beliveau is in charge of the Sun Gun’s crew and also all-business. The story is clearly setting everyone up as hard-edged, get-the-work-done types who are going to crumble when up against the aliens, while Joseph’s more human approach will save the day. I’m here for it, I like the guy so much already that I’m looking forward to seeing his influence on the crew and marines.

Then there’s a somewhat larger synthetic character than we’re used to. 

Having the free Countdown comic stapled right into the middle of the Colonial Marines strip highlights something else about this story. Countdown tries so hard to translate the magic of the Aliens movie to the page that it’s ended up reading like a cut-and-paste job. Whereas, Vasquez’ sister aside, Colonial Marines takes the essence of the film and crafts something new yet familiar from it. It’s much more successful at paying homage to the film as a result.

Back at the Sun Gun the crew has been decimated by the aliens and just before the xenomorphs finish them off a new race of aliens arrive! I’m not sure how I feel with these pulp sc-fi people suddenly appearing from a 1970s episode of Doctor Who, but this is all we get of them so we’ll have to wait until next time to see how this developments. Are the xenomorphs going to be relegated to third place in the story, as some form of basic movie monster playing second fiddle to these new aliens? Let’s hope not.

Now, speaking of the strip I was comparing this to.

In the middle of the issue is the 12-page “free comic”, the concluding chapter of Countdown. To make it removable they’ve given it a cover, a page summarising the last issue and a couple of adverts. The thing is, when these 12 pages are removed the rest of the comic only has 44 pages remaining when it’s had 52 from the beginning. Looking back on #9 I see it was actually 48 pages. So pages were taken away in order for the publisher to make room for the supposedly free gift. You see what I mean when I said I questioned the word “free”?

It’ll be interesting to see if the main comic returns to 52 pages next month. One thing I know for sure is that the Countdown art by Denis Beauvais remains superb. Unfortunately there are some panels where the speech balloons point to the wrong person, making things confusing until you realise the error. This is compounded by the fact it was already difficult to keep up with who’s who because the characters are two-dimensional copies of the movie’s. In the end I just went along for the ride and enjoyed Denis’ work. Highly recommended for that alone.

No mention is made of the error with last month’s Aliens Vs Predator II reprint and it appears the mistake wasn’t noticed, because this issue’s instalment clearly follows on from incidents we should’ve seen last month but didn’t. After that, taking up only three pages but with a lot more content is part one of what is described as an “ongoing Aliens novel”, Tribes by Steve Bissette (artist on Swamp Thing, Sgt. Rock, Heavy Metal)

Tribes was actually a previously released (in the States) small novella with full-page images drawn by Dave Dorman (Star Wars, G.I. Joe comic and toy packaging artwork, Magic: The Gathering cards) that have been shrunk down so much it’s hard to make out the details, which is a crying shame. Although you can enjoy his full-page cover this month. The story involves a specialist infiltration unit and there are a lot of hints about their mission and people we’ve not met yet, meaning the cliffhanger about one of them doesn’t hit. Would it have been better to have a prose story written for the monthly comic format instead? Time will tell. There are great descriptions of a hive and of a character’s POV while being rescued from a face hugger but it sometimes tries too hard in its word use, like the author had a thesaurus on standby.

Finally, Predator: Rite of Passage is part one of a two-part story, so the species’ return to the comic is temporary but still very welcome. Just the eight pages this month but it’s a goodie! Written by Ian Edginton (Dark Horse’s The War of the Worlds, Star Trek: Early Voyages, Batman: No Man’s Land), pencilled by Rick Leonardi (Vigilante, Batman Beyond, The Amazing Spider-Man), inked by Dan Panosian (X-Men, Operation Nemesis, Alpha Flight) and coloured by Greg Wright (who we’ve seen in Aliens already with Newt’s Tale), there’s no letterer needed because there’s no speech.

What it does have is atmosphere and an interesting set up. An elder tribesman sees something fall to Earth and remembers seeing the same thing happen years ago. Staying in this earlier point in his life, he goes on a hunt and his fight against a lion mirrors that of a Predator hunt, with the human in the Predator role. He returns victorious only to see a familiar scene for fans of the franchise.

After breaking down upon seeing the horrors in front of him, he spots large footprints and begins tracking whoever is responsible. After a long time he walks past a cave, completely unaware that a Predator is inside and has been leading him there all along, tracking his every move. It’s a simple story but it’s presented so well that I’m all-in. It’s a shame it’s only two parts long but it just means I’m super excited to see the climax next month.

The comic is in fine form and a perfect example of Dark Horse understanding the difference with the UK market. I’m just hoping for a few more pages next month to help balance out the main stories and features more. It did feel a bit cramped this time around. Aliens #11 will be reviewed on Tuesday 22nd April 2025.

iSSUE NiNE < > iSSUE ELEVEN

ALiENS MENU

Aliens, Comic Reviews

ALiENS #9: ANOTHER GLORiOUS DAY iN THE CORPS

Leave a comment

I’ve been excited for this ninth issue of Dark Horse International’s flagship Aliens comic for a few reasons. First up, it includes the free gift mini-comic, a rare treat when buying classic comics. Secondly, Hive finally comes to its long overdue conclusion. Thirdly, the epic Colonial Marines strip I remember from the one issue I bought as a teenager begins. But there’s something else above and beyond all of that.

This issue contains the first British strip, never before printed anywhere else in the world. This must’ve been a hugely exciting development for readers, given the success of Marvel UK’s comics with similar mixes of imported and original stories, such as Transformers. The promise here is that every single issue will include an exclusive from now on and even decades later I’m excited by the prospect.

The excitement for the American Colonial Marines strip is tempered somewhat though, knowing I’ll not get to read the end. Unfortunately the comic would be cancelled before it’s 24 parts played out, but I’m still here for it and to experience it as readers would’ve at the time. The features pages have had a freshening up too as evidenced with the editorial above (where you’ll find full credits for this issue), and then it’s straight into the very-90s-UK-comic painted art of Sacrifice: Part One.

I remember not being a fan of this art style at the time in a friend’s 2000AD but it’s grown on me in the years since. Back then I didn’t like the lack of inked outlines and sometimes found them hard to follow, but now I think they look glorious. For Aliens, artist Paul Johnson is a very welcome addition to the inside of the comic after his previous covers for #2 and #3 (and this issue’s is his too).

For the first few panels of  the story I thought it was set underwater (teenage me would’ve been lost, no doubt) but Peter Milligan’s (Eagle, Egypt, Skin) story begins in a more familiar setting with a crashing spaceship. Of course I assumed the ship had been in distress because of an alien but we soon find out this story’s alien is actually already on the planet where Ann McKay finds herself as the lone survivor of the crash.

Sacrifice: Part One is 12 pages long, a typical length for a British strip and it’s certainly the star here, even if the story seems made up of several clichés pasted together. After stumbling upon a set of man-made stone blocks covered in blood and an alien nearby, Ann runs, falls and knocks herself unconscious. She awakes some time later and soon finds herself in a settlement filled with strange people acting strangely who don’t like strangers. You know the type from any horror film set in a remote village.

Sacrifice has definitely got potential and as the first British strip commissioned it’s got my attention

Ann finds out the alien has been stalking the settlement for nine months and it doesn’t take a genius to work out the link between the fact it didn’t chase her, the blood covered blocks (clearly altars) and the name of the story. So we’ve creepy people sacrificing one of their own to the alien on a regular basis and an alien who has decided it’s a good enough arrangement that it doesn’t attack? It can’t be that simple. It can’t be that bizarre!

The characters might be clichéd (we even see a nighttime scene of the villagers heading to the altars by torchlight carrying something that looks suspiciously like a baby) and the dialogue is stilted, but the art is superb and there’s an atmosphere and a mystery about it that intrigues me. Perhaps the alien just can’t get into the settlement and the sacrifices made are in vain? But why didn’t it chase Ann?

This final page is of Ann’s recurring nightmares of an alien floating above her bed. She’s imagining it with eyes, curious as to what the alien sees in her after she didn’t tell the one kind villager that she saw the blocks. She’s scared but can’t understand why. Sacrifice has definitely got potential and as the first British strip commissioned it’s got my attention.

Of course, Hive also had great potential during the first few issues but now I can’t wait to see the back of it and its characters. So it’s with great delight that I turn to the final chapter. Again, Kelley Jones‘ and Les Dorscheid’s art of the aliens themselves is superb and I’d love to see them team up to do a story involving likeable humans and a more interesting plot. Narrative captions wouldn’t hurt either, so I was glad to see their occasional use here.

Even though they’re meant to be taken from Dr Mayakovsky’s scientific journal on ants they help explain things that the plot and art sometimes struggle to. It’s only in the story recap (before the strip) that I realise the ship that landed last time belonged to the team’s rivals and not the main characters. The captions are a simple fix and ultimately allow the art to shine. So anyway, this is the final part and despite the story going downhill previously these final nine pages manage to be even more terrible. 

Basically, Mayakovsky sends synthetic human Gill to the ship to ask for help off the planet, but when he realises they’ll take all of the alien jelly from him he orders Gill to self-destruct and blow them up instead! But then he contacts his own ship and tells the captain he can have it all if he just rescues them? This makes no sense. Then, with rescue on the way he and his lover Lish overdose on the jelly to enter a state of euphoria and start making love instead of doing anything to try to delay the aliens getting to them.

So they’re all dead and I’m trying my best to not be glad about that, because we’re meant to be rooting for the humans and terrified of the aliens. But I was cheering the xenomorphs on by the end. To add insult to injury the art on the last two pages above looks very rushed. In particular that chest buster looks awful, like a child has drawn it. I don’t know what happened to the saving grace of the strip but boy, am I glad Hive is over! 

No matter how bad that got over the past few months, I could always rely on the Motion Tracker news pages to bring me some retro goodness and it doesn’t disappoint again. There are a couple of funny ‘shock’ headlines to begin with and that story regarding Sigourney Weaver shows just how much the world has moved on. These were the days when actresses were less likely to be hired for movies and TV just because they were brunette!

I wonder if that list of directors would’ve had a different order just a few months later after the release of Jurassic Park? Especially with innovation being a key factor. The comic gives away a copy of Alien³ on VHS despite panning the video’s pan-and-scan 4:3 ratio elsewhere in the issue. It also categorically states a Terminator 3 would be impossible, and there’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it first mention of a movie that would spawn a future TV obsession of mine. These sorts of things are the reason I love looking back via these pages every month.

Written by Chris Warner, artist on the comic’s Aliens/Predator crossover, our second new strip, Colonial Marines: Part One is 12 pages (the strips are more evenly distributed this time around) and we’re treated to an exclusive Technical Readout of the corps before it for context. It kicks off on board a Sungun, a device set up on an asteroid by another huge corporation which literally fires barrels of toxic waste into a nearby sun. Clearly in the future universe of Aliens we’ve just taken our shit elsewhere. An autopilot dumpster arrives and there’s no response when it’s hailed. So far, so ‘Aliens’.

Elsewhere, Lt. Joseph Henry of the Colonial Marines is in trouble for striking a captain. Despite the fact the captain had been beating up a young female prostitute, only Joseph is in trouble. Recently his mum had died and because he was so far away in deep space he couldn’t be with her in her final hours, nor was his powerful military father who chose the job over her. The fact she died alone is eating away at Joseph, so I can’t blame him for punching the captain given what he was doing! In fact, I like him already.

His punishment sets up our story. Ordered to fly a team of replacement workers to an unfinished communications array in deep space, he’ll stay with them for a full year. So that’s an area of space where they can’t call for help, then. Plot point one established. But first he has to drop off a company executive to something called a ‘Sungun’ where an inspection is due to take place. Plot point two established. So exactly how are things going at the Sungun where they’d just docked the unmanned ship? Let penciller Tony Atkins (Terminator, Wonder Woman, Fables), inker Paul Guinan (Boilerplate, Chronos, Barb Wire) and colourist Matt Hollingsworth (Preacher, Catwoman, Death: The High Cost of Living) fill us in.

There we go, the plot is established and it’s so very in keeping with what we’re used to with this franchise. However, there’s a very likeable, relatable character in the middle of it all. Let’s hope the rest of the cast fall into that category. If they do, then we’re sure to be in for a great ride for the rest of the year. In fact, for the rest of the comic’s real time read through here on the blog!

For some reason the Aliens Vs Predator II strip is a reprint of the one from two issues ago. Hopefully that’ll be rectified next time, but before we finish off let’s take a quick look at that free eight-page comic. Originally printed one page at a time in Dark Horse Insider in the States it treads a very familiar path in two ways.

Firstly, the art by Denis Beauvais (videogame The Revenant, Aliens novels, Predator comics) is gorgeous throughout. Because this was created for publication at a rate of one page per month the love and detail that has gone into every one is nothing short of spectacular. However, the script by Mike Richardson (who also wrote Newt’s Tale in our previous seven issues) is sorely lacking.

The problem is that the story itself is nothing more than a series of scenes from the film in a different order with different characters. There’s a lot of recycling here. But just look at that art! For a freebie this is just stunning to look at, if not to read. What a shame that my next issue doesn’t contain its free comic with the second half of this, I’d just love to see more of that exquisite artwork by Denis. If you’d like to, you can also check out his official website. (UPDATE: It does! Although it’s rather cheeky calling it a free comic next time. Check out the review to see what I mean and how I missed its inclusion originally.)

After two great new strips this month there’s hype for more new stuff to come! According to the Dark Horse Comics Checklist, Aliens #10 replaces Hive with a new Predator strip (great, because I’ve already been missing it) and there’s a prose story joining the mix too! I seem to remember there being one in that issue I bought as a teen so it must be a regular addition. Given how great the prose stories were in my Marvel UK and Grandreams Annuals I’m eager to see what Aliens does with the format. We’ll find out when #10 comes to the blog on Tuesday 25th March 2025. I can’t wait!

iSSUE EiGHT < > iSSUE TEN

ALiENS MENU

Aliens, Christmas, Comic Reviews

ALiENS #7: MAYBE WE CAN BUiLD A FiRE, SiNG A COUPLE OF SONGS

Leave a comment

Of all the comics I’d expect to give us a Christmassy cover Aliens wouldn’t even have crossed my mind, yet here we are with an alien and their offspring getting into the icy festive feels. Chris Halls’ incredible artwork is so very 90s and, along with that funny caption it brings an eerie, gothic horror vibe to the season. Christmas is a perfect time for some scary stories and this tongue-in-cheek cover sums that up perfectly.

The editorial page has a Predator in the background, such is the importance of that franchise in the comic and I see Hive has only six pages this time around (the Predator back-up has 14). There’s an interesting tidbit about John Bolton’s images that I assumed were US covers and news of the next Dark Horse International release coming in the new year. Hmm, that one sounds good… Anyway, on to the rest of Aliens #7.

We kick off with Newt’s Tale: Part Six, the credits for it and all of this issue’s contents you can see in the image above. This chapter takes us from the room where the aliens come through the ceiling, up to the point when Ripley and Newt make a run for the elevator after torching the alien nest right in front of the queen.

There are some obvious differences here between the original film and the Special Edition this is based on, as well as moments that were still on the cutting room floor after the release of the longer version. These mainly involve company man Carter Burke. In the finished film (both versions) we see him escape the room and lock everyone in behind him, then he turns around and an alien snaps its inner mouth at him. Clearly, he died. But this wasn’t originally the case.

Here, he simply backs out of the room and we see a pair of aliens standing behind him and that’s it. I assumed we just weren’t going to see his death but several pages later (this chapter runs to 18) we see him alive in the nest and impregnated. Ripley can’t help him, it’s too late, but she gives him a grenade to end his suffering which he’s too cowardly to use.

Apparently this was filmed but cut out by James Cameron because he realised Burke should still have a facehugger attached to him at this point, so his exit from the previous scene was reedited. (While they didn’t reshoot a death scene, the shot of the alien made it clear.) I hadn’t known about this before. Moments like this and parts of the earliest chapters are what I expected from this story instead of what has been more or less a straight adaptation.

Newt also sees her mum when she awakens in the nest and then everything suddenly speeds up. Yes, things will be changed when adapting stories for different mediums; what works on screen may not necessarily work on the page. But still, while I don’t personally know how they could’ve conveyed the stillness and terror of the scene above from the movie, having it reduced to just over a page feels underwhelming.

Maybe even more so because I just watched the film three days ago. As I’ve said described before, the first time I saw Aliens was on my birthday back when I was a teen, watching it with my mum. In memory of my mum and I really enjoying the movie together I decided to watch it again on the night of my 47th birthday. I think it’ll be a birthday/Christmas tradition from now on. So, everything is fresh in my head as I’ve read this issue. Talking about going back in time, what did the news pages of Christmas 1993 have for us?

That Aliens comic story sounds terrible but then again I’m saying that with the hindsight of the subsequent movies. But ‘Xeno-zip’? And another red species more deadly than the ones on film? I don’t know if I’d have enjoyed it. Below that I have to correct the myth of the chest burster scene in the first film. Yes, director Ridley Scott used a lot more blood than he’d told the actors to expect, but that’s it.

Having now finally watched the first two films I have to say the pages involving the Predators definitely hit differently

Of course they knew what was going to happen. It was in the script. John Hurt had his head popping up through a hole in the table with a fake torso. There were cables and puppeteers everywhere. The first few seconds of the reaction is in response to the amount of fake blood, but then cut was called and the rest of the scene then acted out as normal. I hate these myths of directors “fooling” actors when in reality they’re just good actors!

As for the competition, given the terms and conditions mention “doctored photographs” I was surprised to find out the statement was in fact true! What is also true is Predator: Cold War is still my favourite strip in the comic seven months in. How’s that for a tenuous link, eh? Having now finally watched the first two films I have to say the pages involving the Predators definitely hit differently.

Quite a lot happens in the larger background of Mark Verheiden’s story this time too. The US president wants the mission terminated because a Moscow politician is on the way, so the Americans can’t be found there. General Phillips receives the message to clear all personnel out and “stop hostilities with the aliens” so that they leave before the Soviets get a hold of their weaponry. The audacity of the Americans to think they’re in control of the Predator situation is typical in this and the Alien franchises.

The Russian government knows exactly what’s going on and are escorting our Sheriff friend from previous issues to the site so he can extract his own friend, Detective Schaefer. Speaking of him, he and Lt. Ligachev find an unusually warm area where the ice is melting and discover the Predators’ ship. Striping off so they can bare some flesh while they fight (it was the 90s), they sneak on board.

You can see it goes well. Finding parts of Ligachev’s outpost used as patchwork repairs on the ship, Schaefer theorises they must’ve crashed; all of those people lost their lives so that the aliens could scavenge for parts. Ligachev ain’t happy. They fight valiantly and Schaefer is able to stab the alien that attacks them, but the screams summon its friends!

I’ve loved this story so far. What started out as a bit clichéd on the US side of things and interesting on the Soviet side has developed into a brilliant tale, with good characterisation and a genuine building of tension. Now, with the American government worried that Schaefer destroying the ship on Russian land and the Soviets knowing an American has stopped them from using its weaponry could start World War III, all the plot points are converging on what should be an engaging climax.

According to the Comics Checklist further below the next issue will contain the final chapter, so even this slightly awkward cliffhanger with Ligachev mid-sentence can’t ruin the anticipation. To be fair, this was probably the best place to leave it for a month. I actually think I’ll go back and read the whole story again just before settling down to next month’s issue, something I most likely won’t do for the two Aliens stories.

The Alien³ videogame gets a two-page review this month and it’s basically the same as you’d expect from all other licenced games back then. The vast majority were all platformers or driving games (sometimes a mix of both) until Goldeneye came along. Alien³ throws loads of weaponry and aliens at the player, two things the movie didn’t have. But hey, when did silly things like the actual movie get in the way of a movie videogame licence all those years ago? Since then, the first-person Alien: Isolation has shown us that you only need one alien for a great game, and to scare the bejesus out of me… I mean, the player!

(I still can’t play it on my Switch for more than an hour at a time!)

The penultimate part of Jerry Prosser’s Hive is only six pages and they’ve escaped the nest and made it back to the dropship to await rescue. Their creepy android loses an arm and Julian continues the trend of humans never learning in an Alien story when she fires upon one at close range, badly burning her face in the process with its acid blood. That’s pretty much it. While they wait for the aliens to come a-knockin’ Dr. Mayakovsky makes a random reference to Ancient Rome being the key to escape before the story abruptly stops. Just as with Jurassic Park, each story is of varying lengths each issue but this feels ridiculously short.

Even shorter, at two pages, but with much more going on in a much more enjoyable story, is the next part of the Aliens Vs Predator II strip. Our protagonist is still learning from the Predators (I wish I’d read the previous story to understand who she is), most notably that a rebuke is painful and you don’t try to save everyone. Seeing the alien Queen led off and her troops hanging back is foreboding and I find myself becoming more intrigued with each monthly snippet.

It’s painfully slow though. It’s like reading one of those old three-panels-a-day newspaper adventure strips, only with much bigger gaps. However, it’s good! Actually, it probably benefits from being told this way as I find myself clamouring for each tiny little morsel. Would it be as captivating if I’d simply read it all at once? I doubt it. It’s definitely won me over.

Here’s the Comics Checklist I mentioned above and as you can see Newt’s Tale is also coming to a close, so the rest of the movie is going to fly by just as quickly as this month’s chapter. However, it’s another comic appearing here for the first time that catches my eye. It’s completely right when it describes Bram Stoker’s Dracula as “stunning” and it’s a regular watch every Hallowe’en for me. Hmm… that gives me an idea…

That’s a lie, because if I was only getting the idea now to do a real time read through of DHI’s Dracula comic I’d need to have started collecting it months ago. You see, I actually had the idea last year but by the time I collected all ten issues it was too late to start the read through in 2024. So watch out for a special introduction to Bram Stoker’s Dracula on the blog on Thursday 16th January 2025, with the premiere issue just three days later! Happy New Year, eh?

I’ll finish with the only other mention of the festive season in the whole issue, in a response to a funny reader on the Bug Hunt letters page, below. Well I hope the images from this comic (especially that creepy cover) don’t stop you from drifting into a deep sleep tonight before Santa Claus visits your area. The first issue for 2025 will be here on Tuesday 21st January and we’ve a full year’s worth of xenomorph terror to look forward to.

iSSUE SiX < > iSSUE EiGHT

ALiENS MENU

CHRiSTMAS 2024