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Aliens, Comic Reviews

ALiENS #22: GAME OVER, MAN. GAME OVER!

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This Duncan Fegredo (Crisis, Hellboy, Lucifer) cover takes me back to travelling through Scotland on a train during an Easter holiday as a teenager. I’d flicked through a close friend’s issues before but this was the first Aliens I owned. I’d never read anything like it and I loved every page, even if I was a bit lost in the continuing stories at times. It’d be the only one I’d read until 2024 because it was also the last before its publisher, Dark Horse International went bust.

While Jurassic Park would get a reprieve and return after a few months under the Manga imprint (at least for a little while), DHI’s flagship title wasn’t so lucky and #23 would never appear. As you can see from the editorial it must’ve happened quickly because it’s business as usual. With hindsight, there’s even a somewhat unfortunate opening sentence from Dick Hansom, standing in for regular editor Cefn Ridout for the month.

Despite previous promises, Crusade hasn’t returned so we remain two parts away from the end, Colonial Marines has been with us since #9 and we’re still several months of issues away from wrapping that up, and there’s a new eight-part UK strip from Ian Edginton (Batman: No Man’s Land, The War of the Worlds, The Terminator) and wonderful Transformers artist (also Judge Dredd, Hellblazer) Will Simpson. Nice to see Northern Ireland get a wee mention, too. Although I was mistaken back in #9‘s review when my ageing memory told me this last issue also had a prose story!

Rogue gets 13-pages to spread its wings yet very little of consequence happens, but that’s only a complaint in the context of this being the final issue. Normally, I’d be praising it for the characters it establishes really well here, particularly the two female pilots. But knowing this is all we’ll get does affect things, which is unfair on the strip I know, but it can’t be helped.

One thing I really don’t like isn’t unique to Rogue, it’s across the whole Alien comics franchise (and the fourth film, Resurrection) and it’s how the aliens are now seen as a commodity. Yes, I know the company is always after them for their biological weapons potential but in a lot of the strips that’s already been successfully accomplished. They’re even milked (for want of a better term) for a recreational drug, reducing these supposedly terrifying monsters to cattle.

The best stories have been those that remember how the aliens are meant to be seen, in my eyes anyway. The human politicking, the nature of human greed and the associated social commentary are some of my favourite aspects of the Alien series, I just think it can be done without desensitising us to the xenomorphs. In fact, Rogue begins with a narration that explains humanity have forgotten we were once the prey instead of the predator, but it only acts to remind me of my above points.

One such boss, Ernst Kleist has sent Marines to recover an alien and berates them when one is killed, despite the fact it had ripped one of them apart! Will’s art, coloured by Robbie Busch (Babylon 5, Black Panther, Huntress) is great and pilots Zajer and Deegan are enjoyable. I assume they’ll end up fighting for their lives at some point as the main characters. For now, their banter is enjoyable while they bring a man called Mr. Kray to meet Kleist, although there’s no indication yet as to why. However, he does describe his trip with them as “enlightening” to Kleist, who just looks down his nose at the pair.

There’s definitely potential here. If you’ve read the full story (or indeed, any of the unfinished tales here) please don’t tell me what happens, I intend to finish them someday. After this there’s a competition to be a Colonial Marine at Alien War, despite the criticisms the comic had levelled at it. Then it’s on to our final slice of contemporary sci-fi news. I’ve enjoyed Dave Hughes’ Motion Trackers and my trips back to the mid-90s, the latest releases and the predictions for the then-future. Here, the Aliens toys do look fun but the column even states these are for kids so you have to wonder why they existed when the films were all ’18’-certificates.

That ‘Pixelvision’ short isn’t some cool retro-styled computer graphic film, despite its name and the fact it prominently features a computer game. It was a children’s film camera manufactured by Fisher Price, believe it or not. Director Michael Almereyda’s short documentary-of-sorts is on his website, although don’t expect to be too thrilled by it and prepare to struggle to hear what the two boys are saying. Frustratingly, you’ll want the camera to sit still while showing clips from the Alien³ game instead of all the stylistic shaking.

Colonial Marines starts a new chapter and it’s all change for the creative team. For the UK comic this is part 14 of what was meant to be a 24-part series and isn’t it typical that one of the best episodes of the whole thing so far arrives in the final issue. Writing, layouts and inks are by Paul Guinan, pencils by Tony Akins, colouring by Pamela Rambo (Preacher, Star Wars, Y: The Last Man) and lettering by Clem Robins. 

There are some great new characters here. I’m simply loving all of the robots who bring much needed levity to the comic. The art is a huge step up too and the human characters are once again easily identifiable so things are easier to follow. But why did they have to do the dirty to Billy? He could’ve been a star! These new robots and the synth are part of Beliveau’s secret group hiding out on a dirt ball orbiting the planet, where he’s stashed a secret supply of his company’s weapons for the inevitable fight ahead.

So, I thought he was the obvious mysterious bad guy to begin with but I couldn’t be happier to have been proven wrong. I love well-written misdirection. Marine Chen’s addiction to the alien jelly almost causes more disaster but I was less interested in that than the introduction of this hideout and its wonderful array of new additions. Like Rogue before it, this is about establishing characters and a scenario more than moving the plot forward.

But it still had me gripped thanks to this mechanical ragtag team and I’m gutted I won’t see them develop further. The overall Colonial Marines story had gone a bit stale in my opinion, possibly from the lack of an overall guiding hand (as I detailed last time) but this has reignited my interest again, just in time for us to say goodbye. I won’t forgive them for Billy, though.

The last Technical Readout is for those big-ass guns used in the movie that had to be attached to their users by a hip mechanism, then it’s time to move on to our final strip of the read through, the still-confusingly titled Aliens: Alien. Just eight pages but there are some great moments here. The hunting party keep failing to track the alien properly but for the readers its presence is always felt in neat little panels like this one below. You can also see what I meant last time about how Vickie Williams’ lettering hints at an alien tongue.

The teenager sees the men gruesomely taken out one-by-one, and even when they do manage to spear the monster they’re unaware of what its body contains. He tries to save his mentor by dragging him across the desert, desperate for somewhere to hide in the barren landscape. While the xenomorph retreats to heal, they come across a strange, alien (to them) structure in which they take shelter. But this sanctuary has more to it. In the morning he steps outside and, while he doesn’t realise it, we can see it’s a crashed spaceship. We also see a broken sleep chamber and the source of the xenomorph, which he remains blissfully unaware of.

This moment is a classic bit of Alien atmosphere. Things end when he spots a human in their full space gear, face obscured, making their way back. With a “To be concluded next issue” adding to my frustration, this neat this tale leads us into a four-page interview with no less than Bishop himself, Lance Henriksen. When I bought these comics for the read through I thought the cover was familiar, but it was the inclusion of this interview that confirmed this was the issue I’d bought as a teenager.

It’s a fascinating read, although it does annoy me somewhat that Dave Hughes concludes Alien³ didn’t work when he’s been happy to promote it in the comic and even work on the spin-off mini-series. I’m saddened that Lance didn’t like the film and I wonder what he’d have thought of the special edition released later, which also confirmed the Bishop cameo mystery. I’ve a funny memory of this article. Back in 1994 I was disappointed his role in the Super Mario Bros movie wasn’t mentioned anywhere, but seeing as how his cameo in that amounted to one line and about ten seconds of screen time I can understand why.

While I remember my surprise at seeing Bishop pop up briefly in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, I’d forgotten all about him being in The Terminator until I saw it for the first time in years a few weeks ago on TV. There are a multitude of roles that sound interesting here, as well as some truly awful schlock horror. I’m intrigued with the idea of what The Terminator could’ve been like with him in the title role, although of course I think Arnie’s depiction is perfect.

Lance states the audience’s familiarity with him playing villains kept them on their toes with Aliens, but I think he’s selling himself short. That was the first film I saw him in and how he played the role did that anyway. I agree completely with him about that scene with Hudson, too. With the gift of hindsight of what he later directed (including the restoration of his original Alien³ vision), leaving David Fincher out of the great directors list doesn’t seem fair. It’s an interesting interview nevertheless, before we round things off with Bug Hunt and the Checklist.

As with Star Wars and Dracula before it, Total Carnage bit the dust after ten issues, and after we had to miss out on the AvP strip so it could print it instead! Gotta say Alex Impey’s complaint about “scrubby little sound effects or speech” ruining the strips is… a unique opinion. The Checklist shows us what might’ve been with #23. Crusade, Rogue developments and the conclusion of the teen alien’s story. Even a Chris Halls cover! Damn. Then, just to confuse things further the next page rounds the final issue off with subscription offers for all of DHI’s freshly canned range.

I have mixed emotions about the end of Aliens. It’s always disappointing when a comic just ends with no proper conclusion, even more so when it’s an anthology. All-in-all it’s been a fun ride. Nothing truly scary but plenty of atmospheric moments. The stories didn’t always hit the spot, but when they did they really did and the good definitely outweighed the bad. It ended because the publisher itself imploded, so its premature end shouldn’t reflect on its quality.

As it stands, Dark Horse International’s UK Aliens comic wasn’t just a flagship title for the publisher, for me it stands as a flagship for the UK comics scene of the 90s. Big, bold, brash, adult, gripping and, despite its limited subject matter, hugely varied. I’m so happy I finally got to read it all. I just wish teenage me hadn’t missed out. He’d have been thrilled with it!

BACK TO iSSUE 21

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ALiENS #20: APPARENTLY SHE SAW AN ALiEN ONCE

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This month’s cover by Charlie Adlard (The Walking Dead, Nikolai Dante, Savage) may be more comic book-like than the usual painted images we’re used to, but you can’t deny it would’ve stood out on the newsagent shelves. The comic really does appear to being in rude health, not that this would matter in a couple of months. On the editorial page I’ve already had my doubts about Alien War and what’s mentioned here does little to assuage them.

You’d think they’d have had more than one person to play the alien! Anyway, there are your credits for the issue and it’s straight on to the strips and their recap pages have all been given a fresh new look. These are much better, more informative, look great and carry the credits so you don’t have to look back at the editorial to see whose work is terrorising you. Up first is part 13 of Colonial Marines written by Kelley Puckett and unfortunately it’s one of the weakest chapters thus far.

I simply can’t recognise anyone anymore. No one is distinctive so you can’t tell who’s talking or doing something unless their name is mentioned in response, negating any kind of character drama or suspense. Main character Lt. Joseph Henry’s plan is shockingly heartless and not like the character we met and enjoyed so much in the early chapters. To set the kelp beds on fire with a chemical that’ll never stop burning is extreme, and will leave the innocent people here hungry and penniless! To add insult to injury the fire is just forgotten about in the story, its consequences completely ignored.

At one point Vasquez is rescued by a new random character called Herk Mondo, some “legendary” alien killer. This was his first appearance and I instantly disliked his inclusion. Having a lone man capable of destroying hundreds of aliens reduces the xenomorphs to nothing more than pests. It feels like Kelley has backed himself into a corner; a cleansing fire and sudden appearance of a randomer to save the day at the last second is a hugely unsatisfying resolution to a months-long part of this story. Mondo would go on to star in his own comic but that doesn’t make this feel any less than a conclusion plucked out of thin air at the last moment.

Surely the biggest announcement on the cover is the interview with Sigourney Weaver. It’s only two pages but full of fascinating tidbits, even more so with the gift of hindsight. The question of returning to the franchise after Ripley’s death foreshadows what would eventually be the fourth film, although it certainly wouldn’t have the quality she speaks of here. There’s some information about the making of the first two films which should put to rest the silly myth surrounding the filming of the original chest burster scene. It’s telling how she doesn’t mention Alien³ director David Fincher, it appears her project with Dave writer Gary Ross never materialised according to their filmographies and the penultimate question is surely a sad indictment of the times.

I have to say I question the editing of this interview. Sigourney’s answers read like very stilted responses, certainly not like her from the countless interviews I’ve watched over the years. Maybe they’ve been badly edited to fit two pages, or taken from quickly scrawled notes at the Alien War grand opening. A shame, as the information in here is fascinating.

The second part of Dave Gibbon’s Salvation takes up a whopping 16 pages of the issue. Days after killing his captain, Selkirk is still eating his rotting flesh when he finally stumbles across the crashed ship, but he’s being driven mad by fear while he’s awake and by terrifying nightmares when asleep. First Officer Dean shows up to rescue him and of course Selkirk instantly believes this proves god is watching over him.

Dean knows how to get to the escape shuttle, so she takes charge and they slowly make their way through the jungle, coming across some of the primitive ape-like creatures who live there. Taking cover, they witness an alien jump out of the tree canopies and tear one of the creatures apart. Selkirk immediately panics and screams to his god, which of course is an idiotic thing to do. Dean chastises him and tells him to “Shut…”

Too late. Over the next few pages they run through the overgrowth firing in all directions as swarms of aliens descend. I have to say I’ve been loving this tension-filled strip up to this point but let out a bit of a sigh here. I generally prefer stories with one solitary alien, they’re just so much more suspenseful. Now, the movie Aliens is the exception to the rule of course (because it’s perfect) and is my favourite of the franchise. But it was expertly crafted. In everything from Alien: Romulus to these comic strips, when it was one alien it’s more suspenseful and was disappointed when loads turned up. Having our two characters so easily outrun them kind of ruins things here too.

Falling down a multi-tiered waterfall gives them ample distance from the xenomorphs and a chance to catch their breath. Quietly, mind you, as they shelter in a hideout and the aliens begin to stalk nearby. Selkirk starts thinking Dean likes him, that that’s why she came back for him and he starts imagining having sex with her, before coming to the conclusion that god didn’t send her to rescue him, but to test him. The guy is quackers. And a creep.

Dean sets a charge, attracts the aliens, then they make a run for it and detonate the bomb, taking out most of the creatures. Not all though, as Selkirk finds out when he doesn’t see a wire on the ground, trips over it and falls flat on his back in front of an alien for this month’s cliffhanger. There’s a lot to like here, and a lot to love above Mike Mignola’s shadowy, atmospheric art in particular.

I like the fact Selkirk isn’t likeable, in fact he’s a real piece of work. Its original. There’s also something about Dean which makes me believe there’s something we don’t know about her. Is she a figment of his imagination? By the end, after she sets explosives I realised she has to be real, but that initial feeling of ‘something’ is still there. Wonderfully bleak, only the unnecessary inclusion of so many aliens keeps this from being the best strip in the comic’s run so far.

Motion Tracker brings back more happy memories of those days when I began transitioning my VHS collection to widescreen, always excited to learn of a favourite movie being released in the format, and then enjoying seeing more on the screen. Around that time I was also discovering the vast catalogue of movies at my local rental store instead of repeatedly renting favourite films and shows over and over again.

I always knew I should’ve been trying new movies, but it was like wanting to try something different from your local takeaway; after perusing the menu (or the video store) for ages we always pick what we already know we like. But this was indeed a time of discovery and Solar Crisis was one such weekend rental, although I remember absolutely nothing about it. It’s exciting to see Stargate mentioned, I’d loved to have seen the news stories develop if the comic wasn’t coming to its end soon.

UK strip Crusade’s eighth part runs to eight pages and while the art can once again be confusing in places, for the first time every single character featured is well developed and the inter-personal drama is superb. So it appears the Archbishop has been trying to save the city, albeit with human sacrifices! The missing ship crashed through the church, spilling the alien eggs into the Thames from where he’d been able to contain the threat, tying up two of the mysteries including why London had apparently been spared (it hadn’t).

Just as with Selkirk in Salvation, here was another nut job who thought his prayers were being answered and he was doing god’s work when really he’s just twisted. Meanwhile, Channon’s plan is for her and Lesley to slip under the cathedral in their boat and plant enough explosives to take the whole building out. But there are aliens in their way. As always. Inside the church, Foster and Rani discover a crystal boinging to Martha.

Given to her by Rani years before, the Archbishop can’t say whether Martha still lives in the complex or not, he’s seen many pass through these walls… and sacrificed so many! This is getting really good; I’m really caring about the individual characters and the mismatch of settings have come together into one clearly defined whole. If only it hadn’t got off to such a shaky start, we could’ve had this level of quality storytelling for over half a year already.

The Technical Readout this month is intricately drawn but lacks the in-depth prose from early issues. At least the cutaways are back after a long absence. This reminds me of the cutaways from Thunderbirds The Comic in the 90s, even if it does read a little dry by comparison. The drop ship was a cool design in the film though and the model work was top class, so this is a fun look at how it was supposed to work.

Back in #7 of Jurassic Park there was a teaser advert for the upcoming gaming magazine/comic hybrid, Max Overload. I remember later adverts focussed on certain videogame characters alongside a random list of features and it always seemed like a rather cringey idea, even back when I was the target audience. We had our computer and video game magazines, we had our comics, but to join them together always seemed unnecessary. This launch advert from the back page doesn’t change my mind.

A good allrounder of an issue. The initial disappointment with Colonial Marines dissipated with both Salvation and Crusade. However, I can’t help having that nagging feeling over the first strip because it was just so good when it first began. If it had retained that quality this could’ve been a near-perfect issue. Only two more to go. The penultimate trip into the world of the Aliens will be here on Tuesday 17th February 2026.

iSSUE 19 < > iSSUE 21

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ALiENS #19: DiD iQs JUST DROP SHARPLY WHiLE i WAS AWAY?

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It’s only a couple of days before Christmas Day, so where’s the special cover? Well, Aliens mightn’t have had the easiest of logos to cover in snow, but we did get a (somewhat) festive themed front page last month instead. In case you missed it, you can go and check out Chris Halls’ second yearly seasonal treat in #18’s review. For now, it’s back to the January edition.

Dave Gibbons (Watchmen, Ro-Busters, Doctor Who) joins the Aliens fold at Dark Horse International with the brilliant cover and as writer on a new strip inside. Of course, long-time blog readers will have seen Dave’s work before on the site in the read throughs for OiNK, Death’s Head and Dragon’s Claws, as well as a post about his autobiography Confabulation, so it’s great to see his work back on the site, especially in this comic. A comic which is very strip-heavy this month.

As you can see the Features side of the contents is rather bare looking and this is mentioned by editor Cefn Ridout. It certainly sounds like they’re going to make up for it next month though. Of course this issue has to kick off with Dave’s story as the headline event. Salvation was an American one-shot comic split over two issues this side of the Atlantic and the artist bringing Dave’s script to the page is just as exciting.

Mike Mignola, whose dramatic and original artwork I enjoyed so much in the comics adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula recently on the blog (also see Hellboy, Rocket Racoon) makes his Aliens debut and these 15 pages are dripping in atmosphere, his art taking an already interesting story and making it absolutely compelling. And this is even before we’ve seen him really handle the aliens themselves. We only see part of one dead xenomorph here but that’s enough to have me anticipating the next chapter.

Matt Hollingsworth provides the suitably subdued colours and Clem Robins the lettering to Dave’s story of the survivors of the Nova Maru, a ship whose company trawled backwater planets looking for people desperate for no-questions-asked work to deliver a cargo to a deserted planet. I think we can all guess what the cargo is. Our main character is Selkirk, a religious cook who is mocked both for his religion and the fact he can’t actually cook.

When an alarm sounds we know exactly what’s happened, we’ve seen and read enough Aliens by now. The captain picks Selkirk at random to pilot an escape craft to get him off the ship, so horrified and scared is he by what he saw in the cargo hold he abandons his crew to die. After the crash the captain starts going insane, thinking the aliens are behind every tree, even suspecting Selkirk of being an alien trick. This leads to Selkirk killing him in self-defence in a particularly tense moment, made all the more so by the pitch black shadows of Mike’s art.

All through this Selkirk’s been praying (more Aliens+religion, there’s definitely been a theme recently) and every time a tiny bit of good luck comes his way he thinks it’s a sign and has occurred only because of his prayers. After discovering a half-submerged dead xenomorph and witnessing a bright light in the sky he deduces the Nova Maru has landed or crashed and will be stocked with provisions. Before heading off though, he’s hungry and needs energy for the journey. Looking at the captain’s body he believes god has provided for him again… and he cooks him.

By the end of this first chapter he’s completely relying on prayers and sees everything as intervention from his god, believing he’s being tested. All of the death, all of the people wiped out, and all because god wants to test him? It’s obviously hard to empathise with this lunatic. I’d be quite happy for him to be impregnated but we’ll see what happens next time in this short two-part tale.

In the Motion Tracker news pages Dave Hughes tries his very best to provide yet more hype for the interactive Alien War experience by reporting on its grand opening night. However, it still doesn’t come across great, does it? I had my doubts when it was previously announced it’d been cut down by half to squeeze more people in each day, and I think I was right. I also think he’s imagining things with the Dave movie poster.

Part 12 of Colonial Marines has a new creative force at the helm. Kelley Puckett (Batgirl, The Comet, Kinetic) takes over as writer and in comes Allen Nunis (Classic Star Wars, Images of Omaha, The Frankenstein Dracula War) on pencils and inker Paul Guinan is now joined by John Dell (Speed Racer, Lobo, Femforce). I do prefer this team for the aliens and layouts but the humans seem to have lost their defining characteristics.

Lt. Henry’s plan is to defend Bracken’s World’s central harbour with its tall concrete walls and one entry point, but this is Aliens and we know us humans are spectacularly bad at trying to outthink them. It’s also not much of a plan, simply sending some of the team out to lure the aliens back into a trap. It isn’t the most exciting of plots. Of course, the aliens are actually already at the harbour entrance, predictably lying in wait under the surface and quickly overpower the marines while the rest are out at sea.

Then the drop ship pilot disobeys orders to protect the harbour and instead, in an attempt to save her teammates, she destroys a huge alien Queen right next to the harbour wall, its acid blood producing multiple holes and weak points, eventually leading to its collapse and leaving the harbour exposed. This is the main bulk of the story and it’s just too predictable to be exciting. However, goings on elsewhere intrigue me.

Again the huge bulking android refuses to fight because of how much he cost to make, so are Beliveau’s comments last month ringing true yet for Henry? They seem to be, because amongst the chaos he orders his tech to hack into the android. That’s a big gamble when there’s a battle afoot but Henry must be thinking it might be worth the risk. I’ll look forward to afinding out more about that at least.

Moving on to the concluding part of Chris Claremont’s Renegade, this aliens-less prequel to the new Predator crossover would’ve been better in Total Carnage and the crossover in this comic, surely! But nope, that other comic would get the main event instead. So it turns out Ash’s big secret is that she’s really an android. To be fair, I should’ve clocked that the moment her name was given last issue. However, throughout the galaxy she’s known as Renegade and here she shows us why.

The Ransome ship’s security spot a small 12-year-old girl on a hill with binoculars watching them and immediately classify her as a threat, despite clearly identifying her as a child. When they take aim, meaning to kill her, Ash takes them all out. I’ll admit, it’s a thrilling read and in places Vince Giarrano’s art is powerful! But it’s all tempered by my original point, that it’s being used to promote Total Carnage to Aliens readers, while we miss out.

Crusade may have been the UK exclusive strip at the time but with everything else included this month it’s been reduced to a measly five pages and it suffers as a result. Foston and Rani try to explain to the Archbishop they need to evacuate the cathedral because the aliens are loose in the city. When he can’t convince them to put their faith in god he finally admits he’s been sheltering the aliens in the tower.

He moves to lead them out the door but the aliens from the sewers are there, waiting to get inside, which they can now do easily and immediately start killing his innocent followers. I’m not saying it’s impossible to tell a good story in five comic pages, but writer Michael Cook usually had more space to work with. The story had also started to become more interesting and involving in recent months, so this quick in-and-out is a bit of a let-down; it feels like it’s getting started when it just… stops.

After all the strip action we can take a breather with the letters page and someone asks if a competition can be run for readers to come up with story ideas that could be turned into strips. The answer is interesting, explaining many readers have already sent in unsolicited material, but everything published in the comic has to be “rigorously approved by 20th Century Fox so that new comic strips and illustrated stories featuring their characters do not contravene the nature of those characters and remain faithful to the Alien films.”

The problem is that sometimes the strips remain too faithful. Last month’s issue was great, this month the strips with fewer (or no) aliens that concentrated on the human element were the most interesting, while those filled with aliens basically retread familiar ground from the film series. There are only a few issues left so here’s hoping the new year brings a bit more balance before the comic is placed in its own chryo-chamber.

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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.

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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.

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