Tag Archives: Dave Hughes

Aliens, Comic Reviews

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

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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

Comic Reviews, Dracula

DRACULA #9: VLAD THE MAD

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So much for the Vampirella cover. We were told last month there’d be one and I assumed it would be a classic reprint, what with the comic’s cancellation at #10 decided but there being a need for an extra cover this month, the second half of an American strip taking the lead position inside (and they probably didn’t want to pay out for a new cover for a cancelled comic). But instead, #9 of Dark Horse International’s Dracula has this very basic (it feels rushed) cover by Woodrow Pheonix, letterer on Crusade in Aliens.

Lying to people about “sovereignty” and “losing control” in order to gain power… that wouldn’t happen today, surely?

On the editorial page we’re told the next issue will include a “feature-length” chapter of Vlad the Impaler to finish off this real-life prequel strip. With hindsight we know this was because it would be the final issue. At least they knew ahead of time so they had the chance to properly finish off the imported Topps Comics strip. First up, this penultimate issue contains the next 16 pages of chapter two, as ever written by Roy Thomas, drawn by Esteban Maroto, coloured by Paul Mounts and lettered by John Costanza.

The mass murdering Vlad has allied himself with Christianity while his enemy Mehmed the Conqueror allies himself with none other than Radu, Vlad’s younger brother. The plan is to annex Wallachia and install Radu as the Prince. Radu promises the people sovereignty of their country but only if they back him. Lying to people about “sovereignty” and “losing control” in order to gain power… that wouldn’t happen today, surely?

After losing a series of battles, Vlad pleas with other countries to come to his aid but to no avail. However, this doesn’t stop his Religious Crusade as he slices across Europe killing thousands in the name of the Christian god, the people suffering as a result. “My poor peasants moaned at their loss,” a caption upon an image of the slaughtered poor says. “But commoners cannot appreciate the measures a besieged Prince must take on their behalf.” Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it, as they say.

Instead of helping diseased peasants he uses them, sending them into other countries and military troop gatherings to infect and weaken them. His callousness and self-interest drive the story and I must say it’s compulsive reading, even if everything about him disgusts me. His tactics look like they could be working until a mis-timed attack fails and only serves to rouse Mehmed from his complacency, putting Vlad on the back foot and leading to a desperate, horrifying action.

Originally intending to take Wallachia by force, The Forest of the Impaled shocks Mehmed into retreating for the first time, leaving Radu behind to become Prince on his own. Elsewhere, we find out the woman Vlad captured and forced to be his “love” is now named ‘Transylvania’. He describes her as being, “Near at hand, yet some part of her forever unattainable, uncontrollable”. This is very different to Mina. This woman is a slave, forced into a physical relationship with the Prince. An arrow does bring a message that ends with her suicide but as you can see it’s not a message from an enemy lying about the death of her one true love.

Instead, the thought of her horrible existence becoming even worse is the reason she takes her own life. This tears Vlad apart and he leads his pitiful army to Hungary and an ally, but the Hungarian leader has no stomach for war. Instead, through a convoluted pretence he separates Vlad from his troops and imprisons him, albeit in a palace! Forged letters are sent to all of his allies and enemies telling them he’s back on the side of the Sultan. With this news and his lonely existence he slowly goes crazy.

The cliffhanger is dreadfully forced. We know where this particular retelling of history will end up and I think it would’ve been more suspenseful to just finish it with him in his crazed state. The battles are also beginning to become much of a muchness but Vlad’s overall arc and the elements that (sadly) mirror politics in our modern world are fascinating. The final chapter should be interesting.

The Bloodlines news pages are light on much of interest, however Sound Bites does quote the legendary Christopher Lee who of course played Dracula earlier in his career (although to me he’ll always be Scaramanga). Such a shame his quote shows up the fact that he either hadn’t seen the film or wasn’t paying attention, as he attributes Anthony Hopkins to the title role. Whoops.

The second and final part of Vampirella: Death’s Dark Angel is shorter than last time but packs a lot in. With no blood substitute she knows she’ll not be able to control her urges and she’ll end up feeding on Wade. But this is just what he wants, so she continues to fight against it. Adam and Conrad Van Helsing are also in the cell and she finds herself opening up to the younger of the two (Conrad was knocked unconscious by Wade). However, having been shot, Adam collapses and the blood from his wound forces some primal instinct inside Vampirella. She breaks free of her chains but as she’s about to feast on her new ally she sees his face and with all her strength pushes back against the urge.

Of course this is when Conrad awakens and for the umpteenth time he gets the wrong idea and tries to kill her, but ends up killing the corrupt cop as he enters their cell and Adam and Vampirella let him believe he’s staked her instead. I like Adam and I understand part of his likability comes from the predicament he’s found himself in between his dad and a good vampire, but Conrad is just an annoying caricature by this point. Even Von Goosewing wasn’t this inept in Count Duckula! And why can he no longer sense her like he did before?

The demon, Skaar attacks the Helsings then suddenly just disappears. This is because Wade has finally forced the starving vampire to bite him! But as Skaar explains, Vampirella isn’t from Earth; she’s an alien, and her race can’t transform people, only kill them. It turns out Skaar was originally a human, namely Wade’s father! Having spent many years as a demon serving penance for his own life, he wasn’t serving Wade. Rather, he was merely waiting for his son’s death because only a soul blacker than his own could take his place and finally release him from his demonic prison.

This was a surprise ending! It’s solemn and moving before becoming horrifying on the final page, although Wade deserves everything he gets. However, does this mean Vampirella did kill the man on the plane? I assumed before the serum she could take what she needed without killing. A question for another time. I hope we get one final outing for her in the final issue. (UPDATE: We do not.) Given how she’s dressed I’ve been surprised at how maturely written and interesting the stories have been, eradicating my initial misgivings.

This month’s author interview is with Kim Newman so that promised series of female authors is disappointingly dead in the water. I remember Newman as a film reviewer on TV back in the 90s and I never liked him. To me, he was the kind of clichéd reviewer who thought they were right and everyone else was wrong and this plays out in this interview with the comic’s Dave Hughes.

Kim’s novel, Anno Dracula is a sequel to the original book set in an alternate world where Dracula wasn’t killed by Van Helsing, instead wooing Queen Victoria and carrying out his dastardly plan to turn England into a kingdom of vampires. He wooed Victoria? What about Mina? Kim admits he mainly used other authors’ fictional characters (Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Jekyll etc.) in the book, yet at the same time criticises other Dracula sequels for copying moments from the original book! That’s a bit rich. He also calls everyone who didn’t like his book “fat anoraks”. So yep, he’s definitely the person I remember.

Much more interesting is a look at the Mega-CD game of the film. We were promised last month (and on the contents page of this issue) a review of the game but instead it’s very much a reworded press release compiled by Amiya Lopez, complete with a guide to what a Mega-CD actually was for the uninitiated. The last sentence of the main article kind of gives it away that they hadn’t actually played it.

I’ve very fond memories of that time, of reading those first years of Edge magazine and getting excited at the sudden leaps in videogame technology. While I personally invested in a Panasonic 3DO (and loved it), I have a fondness for most of the tech from that time and the constant add-ons for the Sega Mega Drive always fascinated me. They’re very much of their time and I enjoyed this little look at a game I’d never seen before, even if it was apparently terrible.

To round up, despite hindsight telling us the editorial writer knew cancellation was on the way, the letters page still asks readers to write in with suggests of how they’d like the comic to evolve over the coming months. They were in for a shock four weeks later, and not of the good kind. We’ll see how things are (hopefully) wrapped up on Sunday 14th September 2025.

iSSUE EiGHT < > iSSUE TEN

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Aliens, Comic Reviews

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

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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

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Comic Reviews, Dracula

DRACULA #8: VLAD THE CAD

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Another powerful image from Esteban Maroto welcomes us to the eighth edition of Dark Horse International’s Dracula monthly from 1993, the third issue since the comic lost its connection to the new film. It’s the strongest issue yet under its new guise, with no less than three enjoyable strips. The main 12-page Dark Legend A-Borning: Part One is again written by Roy Thomas, drawn by Esteban, coloured by Paul Mounts and lettered by John Costanza. Castle Dracula is complete. In a year? It does lead to showing a bit of Vlad’s dark wit, though. Many didn’t survive the build and those that did were impaled for their treachery. He explains, “Castle Dracula became, in essence, their… life’s work.”

The man thought he was hilarious. He also seems to live in his own little world. Above you can see examples of how he saw himself. Perhaps an insight into how evil men somehow still see themselves as the hero of their story. Throughout Transylvania others don’t share his opinion and are rising up to challenge him. So Vlad sends an emissary to convince the people to swear loyalty to him. When they continue to rise up he says giving them a chance was the Christian thing to do but now he’ll kill them all. During one such slaughter he comes across a woman whose husband has been slain and this leads to the most horrific moment in the series thus far.

The comic glosses over some of the history, such as his hatred towards the Germanic communities: “The reasons are historically complicated and, in the end, unimportant”. Then again, the strip works best when it focusses on key moments rather than trying to squeeze everything in. A former Hungarian ally by the name of Benedict De Boither meets with Vlad in a particularly gruesome scene where he’s eating a feast in a field surrounded by his victims slowly dying on spikes. De Boither is terrified and grovels at his feet. In return for this undying loyalty (if he isn’t loyal, he’ll die) he’s made ambassador: “For you know how to speak to one ruler on behalf of another”.

The war continues and we see montages of monasteries being burned, monks fleeing, and Vlad in shock that they’d then tell stories that made him out to be a monster. Only Mehmed the Conqueror remains on his long list of enemies and when he sends envoys to see Vlad what do you think happens? No prizes for guessing. Then, above, Pope Pius II isn’t exactly Leo XIV when he calls for death to unbelievers and Vlad is quick to step up. As you can see there are a few digs at the church, such as others not wanting to partake in this so-called “crusade” because of a lack of guaranteed riches.

I’m feeling more enthused about the Vlad the Impaler story as it develops. It’s moved on from a crammed, drab history book with fantastic art to a gripping retelling of history with fantastic art. I think that first chapter had a lot of ground to cover to get us to his adult life and his positions of power, which of course would be the time of most interest to fans of the film. Splitting it in two was necessary here but that ended up giving a bad impression of the strip in #6. That chapter’s second part (the following month) and now this month’s are quite the thrill ride. I just hope we get to the end before cancellation!

Dave Hughes’ Bloodlines news pages start off well with some James Bond song lyrics that are only there because they suit the subject at hand. Still, I’ve got the song in my head now. News is thin on the ground it seems and I take issue with the seeming indignation that the director of Pretty Woman can direct something completely different, or the shock that Gary Oldman is also directing.

Can you imagine what would be written here when (the excellent) Tom Cruise was announced as the lead for Interview with a Vampire? I’ve always been fascinated with how writers, actors and directors can turn their hands to different projects, but if Twitter over the years has shown us anything it’s that others are far too quick to judge. Even Anne Rice herself fell foul of this but would later recant when she saw Tom in the role during filming. Maybe we’ll get to the end of the comic’s run before the announcement?

José González takes over art duties on the 11-page classic Vampirella back up strip. Only credited online with this character he won awards for bringing her to the page over a long period of time. He’s credited with creating the style for her and her strip that’s been used ever since. There’s definitely a more mature, gothic horror vibe to it this month and for the first time it’s not a complete tale.

Part one of Death’s Dark Angel is written as always by Archie Goodwin. Beginning with the deaths of two grave robbers by a demon, we find out it’s a less powerful one than Vampirella has dealt with previously but it’s still bargaining with humans, including a vile rich man called Mr. Wade. Wade has less than a year to live yet still ignores his doctors, having lived far beyond his predicted lifespan thanks to a deal with this demon (another follower of Chaos) for his eternal soul after he passes.

As you can see Wade could just as easily be the villain in a modern strip, so this issue’s story feels more contemporary. Especially when a local cop corrupted by Wade’s wealth and power fabricates crimes in order to bring in the Helsings. The demon captures Vampirella but, sensing something different about her, spares her and chains her up instead. The Helsings have been captured in order to confirm whether she could grant Wade eternal life as one of the undead. Of course, once they’re in the same room as her Conrad reacts accordingly! Surely it’s time for Adam to step up and save her after everything that’s happened so far?

This brings back the mystery at the heart of their story arc. Vampirella was indeed on the same plane as the brother of Conrad Van Helsing when it was struck by lightning and crashed, and when Conrad dug up the grave he discovered bite marks on his neck and drove a stake through his heart. (Just to be sure.) He blames Vampirella but, while she did have to feed off humans before the serum she now uses, we don’t know if she fed on his brother or whether her feeding killed.

The only downside to this chapter is Vampirella herself doesn’t have much to do other than be kidnapped. Saying that, her presence is always felt because she’s still what drives the story for all of the other characters. For the first time I’m actually feeling empathy for the lead and I’m hoping for some revelations and development next time. From not-so-great beginnings she’s now the best part of the comic.

In #5 we had the pleasure of a short extra back up strip and I’m pleased to say another from the 60s US comic Creepy (where Vampirella’s strips are lifted from) is included here. Taken from the first issue it’s written by Archie and drawn by Reed Crandal (Tales From the Crypt, The Vault of Horror, Flash Gordon) and the inhabitants of a spooky town are being terrorised by a string of murders apparently committed by a vampire.

We meet a newly married couple, in which the wife is constantly trying to convince her husband they should go out more, that being in bed all day and awake all night isn’t natural. He argues that’s when he must work and when they can also enjoy the nightlife. To begin with it reads awfully old fashioned. Why didn’t she know about his way of life before getting married? The set up seems ridiculous but something struck me about that breakfast juice being all she needed on the page above.

Throughout its six pages are we really supposed to think she’s so stupid as to not realise he’s a vampire? The hints are so obvious we question why she can’t see what’s right in front of her. That is, until the final page. She finally susses it out and opens the curtain to let the sunlight in but she’s the one who dies! It’s a great little tale and just the sort of thing this comic should have more of. Both of these little one-off strips so far have had excellent twists that I didn’t fully see coming. In both I was convinced I knew what it was going to be and both times I’ve been happily proven wrong.

The feature about the role-playing game mentioned on the cover takes two pages to tell us absolutely nothing about it, then on the Fang Mail letters page the results of a competition produced a surprisingly funny moment. It’s also announced that Vampirella will be the cover star next month, showing how important she’s become to the comic. Alternatively, maybe editor Dick Hansom knew the end was near and didn’t want to commission a new cover and it’ll just be a classic Creepy one. We’ll find out in five weeks.

This has been a fantastic issue. While the features may be lacking compared to those in previous issues the three strips are some of the best of the whole run. The comic is really finding its feet after the transition from ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula‘ to simply ‘Dracula‘. Unfortunately many jumped ship when the transition happened and missed out on this. We’ll find out if they missed more goodness when #9 comes to the blog on Sunday 17th August 2025.

iSSUE SEVEN < > iSSUE NiNE

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Aliens, Comic Reviews

ALiENS #13: WE JUST GOT OUR ASSES KiCKED

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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

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