I know I write a comics blog but I’ve been looking forward more to the written features in this second issue of Dark Horse International’s three-issue Alien³ mini-series, way more than the comic strip. This is not only because the previous edition’s features were so good, it’s also because there’s a big, meaty interview with none other than Ellen Ripley herself, Sigourney Weaver!
Dave Hughes’ piece is definitely the highlight of the issue, although other pages do come a close second. If DHI had instead released a one-off special magazine with all of these articles and left the strip out it would’ve been the most amazing tie-in for this movie. But at £1.50 per issue it’s not like this was overly expensive anyway, even back in 1992. So let’s see what our star has to say about the film, her career and even her family over the opening five pages.
My first encounter with Sigourney on film was the original Ghostbusters but to me the first three (we’ll forget about the fourth) Alien films are what I know her for best (although her cameo during the end credits of Ghostbusters: Answer the Call is hilarious). After the article in Aliens#2 which negatively reviewed the Aliens Special Edition it’s nice to read Sigourney’s viewpoint. It really did reinstate Ripley’s “raison d’être” as she says, something that had angered her when it was cut because she’d been playing the character a certain way, only to have the whole reason for her performance edited out.
I also totally agree with her description of Ghostbusters II; despite loving it as a kid my adult eyes see it for what it was now. The original idea for back-to-back third and fourth Alien films sounds interesting and I adore her initial reaction to meeting director David Fincher. I’m not at all surprised at the pathetic criticisms over the cast being bald (I mean, you’d expect stuff like that on certain social media sites these days) and while reading this I was actually saddened they brought her back for Alien: Resurrection.
“I came to realise that the only way she [Ripley] could finally get any peace was if I, the actor, was willing to go deep into the material and allow her a release.”
Sigourney Weaver
Sigourney was adamant at this stage that Alien³ was her final film in the series but that they should definitely continue without her. What she says about giving the character this interesting situation, this amount of courage, and how she saw her as a friend and going deep into the material to give the character a release feels so genuine. I remember the first time I heard the recording from the end of Alien played out at the end of Alien³ and it was so poignant. She also doesn’t spoil the ending!
It’s touching to read how filming Aliens with Carrie Henn resulted in Sigourney wanting to start her own family and how this led to the autopsy scene in Alien³ being so excruciating for her to film (although she says it should be an excruciating watch), and I wonder if her wish to make a film about obsession led to Copycat, the fantastic 1995 thriller. It’s a fascinating read so please do take your time to enjoy it all.
After this great start I turned the page and realised I was about to endure 24 pages of the comic strip adaptation again. Maybe that’s unfair, perhaps it would see an improvement over last issue’s chapter. There are definitely some nicely realised scenes with the alien here, Christopher Taylor (pencils) and Rick Magyar (inks) seem to revel in bringing this very different version of the xenomorph to the page, but they still manage to make all of the human characters look identical.
While the film has a muted palette, just like the film the moments of horror bring an outburst of colour from Matt Webb that make these really stand out but the script by Steve Grant (written up by Clem Robins on letters) still reads like a copy-and-paste job from the film script. Overall, it feels like one of those rushed “Previously On…” bits you’d get at the start of a TV show which rushes through things as quickly as possible before getting to the main event. It’s just that this is actually the main event.
It does contain one of the main missing plots of the original theatrical release when they capture the alien only for Golic to become obsessed with seeing it released. This whole character arc for Paul McGann was excised, despite him being credited as the second lead actor, but any excitement felt at its reinstatement in comic form is soon dispersed because it’s all done within a few pages and really adds nothing to this version of the story, unlike the Special Edition of the movie. Such a shame.
Some of the funny moments are also conspicuous by their absence since they rely on swearing which the comic has to limit. It also really makes you appreciate the performances (both powerful and subtle) of all of the fantastic cast assembled for Alien³ and makes me want to watch it again to see how this story was meant to be experienced. In that regard I guess it does the job for a comic adaptation, promoting a film which was in the cinema at the time.
After I praised editor Dick Hansom for keeping the poster separate from the pages of the comic last month, he’s now unfortunately gone and done that pet peeve of mine and called it a “free” poster on the cover while printing it on the middle pages, with the comic strip on its rear. At least it’s still printed on lovely high-quality gloss paper so it really pops next to the matt paper stock. Those pages of the strip also look better now too, so it’s a shame they’d have to be removed to use the poster.
Alien³ Bug Hunting takes a look at some of the merchandise available for the movie, confusingly listed with letters instead of numbers, momentarily making me turn the page to look for the remaining 19 lettered entries. It’s a shame the soundtrack isn’t available on Apple Music because Elliot Goldenthal’s music really was incredible, and I like the funny comment here about what wasn’t included. Fans of the film will know exactly what this is in reference to.
Next to that entry is news of the UK’s version of the VHS pack containing Alien and the Special Edition of Aliens, both in widescreen which was a big deal at the time when we all had 4:3 TVs and were so used to only seeing half the picture of our films. With postcards of original art by Simon Bisley also included this would’ve been on the top of my wish list at the time… if I’d known about it.
After another two pages of that Aliens Vs Predator II strip (I showed you a chapter of it in the review for Aliens #3) You’ve Been Bugged contains no less than 16 quotes from various people involved with Alien³ (and one reviewer) and it’s a quick grab bag of opinions about the film, a smorgasbord of information for fans to lap up. Actor Brian Glover, who played prison warden Harold Andrews, is spot on and perfectly sums up what made the first three movies stand out so much to me (and to my mum when she and I both watch Aliens for the first time together, something she really enjoyed because of what Glover says here ).
By contrast the xenomorph’s original designer, H.R. Giger doesn’t seem to understand this very salient point, which seems somewhat short-sighted when you read the next quote from Tom Woodruff Jnr, who explains just how much Giger’s work inspired not only the alien but the design of the third film. There’s more contradiction between writer William Gibson and writer/producer David Giler in the next two quotes too.
Unfortunately the superb Michael Biehn’s (Hicks in Aliens) quote makes him come across as rather bitter that he’s not in Alien³ but of course we’ve only got this very small quote to go on, without the larger context of the conversation he had with whoever was interviewing him, so we’ll not dwell. David Giler returns with the final quote to ruin the ending again (even before the strip got to the end) and Screen International film reviewer Patricia Dobson seems to have wanted no more than a rehash of the second film instead of something original, which ironically I bet reviewers would’ve heavily criticised.
This bodes very well indeed not only for the next issue of this comic but also for the remaining 19 of Aliens itself
The issue rounds off its nicely varied features with a two-page Technical Readout which is always a great read in the regular monthly title. You may take a glimpse at this double-page spread and think, “Really, Phil? You expect us to read an article about an escape pod? About what is basically a space lifeboat?” Well yes, I do. When I saw this I immediately assumed I wouldn’t be including it here, because how interesting could it be? When I started reading I realised my assumption had been wrong and Lee Brimmicombe-Wood completely surprised me.
Yep, it’s actually an interesting read, isn’t it? That’s testament not only to the detail to be found within every aspect of the Alien universe but also to Lee’s writing, that he can create two pages about a space lifeboat and make it really interesting. This bodes very well indeed not only for the next issue of this comic but also for the remaining 19 of Aliens itself.
So there we go, great features and a strip with some decent alien artwork that has me wishing Christopher and Rick had created a cover or an original poster of their version of the xenomorph. These make up for the disappointing adaptation itself by some margin, and I’m looking forward to the third and final issue in just three weeks. Watch out for the review on the OiNK Blog on Monday 16th September 2024.
While it may say ‘Monthly’ in the Dark Horse International border on the cover, the three issues of the Alien³ Movie Special were released every three weeks (bit of a pattern there) like the earlier editions of Jurassic Park would be the following year when it was also publishing its movie adaptation. Instead of being printed as part of their regular Aliens comic, DHI decided to release this adaptation separately and include a wealth of fascinating extras.
What I instantly like as I flick through the issue is the fact that the free poster is actually free! It’s separate from the rest of the comic and isn’t just the middle pages. (I’m looking at you The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Doctor Who Magazine.) It’s not the image you’d expect it to be from the cover but it’s still a cracker and on the gloss paper it really sizzles.
The comic’s cover is taken straight from their American publication rather than being an original like their monthly and it’s by Arthur Suydam (Marvel Zombies, Deadpool, Moon Knight). Inside, the editorial by Dick Hansom welcomes us to both this limited run comic and DHI as a whole, promising many more titles to come over the years. Of course, DHI would close down in 1994 but I love their ambition. While I hadn’t really discovered James Bond for myself at the time, that definitely would’ve been one for the blog if they’d gotten around to bringing it over.
There’s an interesting feature right off the bat written by the main title’s regular features writer Dave Hughes. 20 Things You Should Know About Alien³ is a smorgasbord of little tidbits about the film which was still 16 days away from its UK release date. What you as blog readers should know is that I’m a big fan of Alien³, even more so today than at the time.
I always enjoyed it and thought it made for an original contribution to the series, making the first three films very different from each other. Some friends weren’t as crash-hot on it though. However, since then the Collector’s Edition has been released and to me it raises Alien³ up to an equal footing alongside the first two classics. In it there’s a lot more story, a lot more to the alien itself and some of the characters we only saw a little of are now central to the plot. In the case of Golic, (played by Eighth DoctorPaul McGann) he went from being a background player to being a main lead and central to the more complex plot.
So it’s interesting to see there were more creatures due to be featured at one point, including a bigger, armoured version of the facehugger and there’s mention of the ‘ox-burster’ being replaced by the ‘dog-burster’. This was switched back again for the Collector’s Edition, which altogether is much closer to David Fincher‘s original vision for the film. Point four above hints at the chaos in pre-production (pre-Fincher) and you can read more about that in the review for Aliens#1.
Point 13 stands out as well to me, both that the film wasn’t trashed across the board and also what it says about American fans. According to Dave, of course.
So now we move on to what is essentially the main event, the 25 pages of strip that make up the first part of the comics adaptation. For those new to the blog I’ll quickly explain I’m not usually a fan of movie adaptations, ever since being disappointed with them in childhood. However, since writing the blog I’ve seen some which definitely start off well and have potential to be really good (so I’ll always give them a chance), but ultimately they’ve fallen apart because there’s so much to cram in.
That’s the main issue here. There are only three chapters, one less than Jurassic Park was given, so within these 25 pages we’re already a third of the way through the film! As such it rockets along and leaves everything I love about the film (the atmosphere, the characterisations, the unique portrayals, the mystery, the plot development) behind in order to simply copy and paste passages from the script into speech balloons and accompany them with something looking vaguely like what we saw on the screen. There doesn’t seem to be any proper attempt to adapt this adaptation for a different medium.
Strangely, it starts off by showing us Ripley being impregnated by the symbiote after Newt dies in her cryo tube. In the film this scene was presented as quick-cut moments between the credits so we didn’t know what was really going on. We knew there was something wrong but the scene later when the alien doesn’t kill Ripley was a surprise and the audience could start putting two-and-two together, but here it’s all laid out for us before anyone in the UK would’ve seen the film.
Another issue is the art pencilled by Christopher Taylor (Old Man Quill, Hulk, Blood Pack), inked by Rick Magyar (Captain America, Deathlok, Rom), coloured by Matt Webb (Spider-Girl, Adventures of The Mask, Fish Police) and lettered by Jim Massara (Transformers, The Real Ghostbusters, Droopy). I do like how it’s all framed in black, giving it an overall darker feel, possibly trying to mimic that atmosphere, but no one resembles their on screen actor in any way, not even Ripley. It also doesn’t help that all of the bald white men look identical here. There’s just no way of following who is who, who they’re talking to, or what’s happening to whom.
Moments that were jump scares in the film just don’t work and a lack of narrative captions doesn’t help either, so scene changes are very jarring, especially when they involve the same characters. Even for someone who has seen the film countless times this is a very confusing read. Unfortunately, script-wise it’s a very by-the-book strip by writer Steve Grant (The Punisher, X, Whisper). I don’t envy his task (as Don McGregor told us in The Lost World: Jurassic Park comic it’s ludicrously difficult to adapt a movie to the medium) but the end result feels even more rushed than most.
Take this scene above. When you first turn the page it certainly catches the eye, that’s for sure. But it’s only from watching the film so many, many times that I know what the characters are doing, why they’re lighting candles (even that isn’t obvious), or what happens in the sequence that sees one of them killed and has the other two running in circles trying to escape in sheer panic. In the film this is a terrifying scene, expertly directed and lit by nothing more than tiny flames.
The latter part of the comic houses more features by Dave, beginning with a look at the complex back and forth between the movie and UK model company Halcyon. I didn’t think I’d find this interesting but it really is, especially when founder Barry Jones admits their model of the alien itself isn’t accurate due to changes made during production of the film. They kept the model as it was because in a stationary pose it just didn’t look right with the changes, while it looked excellent in the film.
Unfortunately for readers at the time it’s a bit spoiler-heavy. Could they not have kept some of these details back at least until the film was released here? Then again, the fate of Newt and Hicks was already in the strip the reader would’ve just read. What’s most interesting is the fact that there was no definitive chest-burster alien to draw from before now, that Alien³ was the first time we actually saw one in its entirety.
“To me, the alien wasn’t just a monster, it was a character”
David Fincher, director Alien³
After that is a strange little two-page black-and-white Aliens vs Predator strip involving no more than three panels and a splash page that tells us the predators are responsible for spreading the aliens throughout the galaxy. It’s to continue across both Alien³ and the monthly Aliens so I’m sure I’ll show you a more interesting bit at some stage. After this is the best feature of the issue, called Trouble Comes in ³s, again by Dave.
Thankfully he moves beyond the heavily publicised pre-production problems and instead concentrates on the actual production of the film. Again, as great as it is I can’t help but feel it should’ve been held back for at least the second issue. Okay, so I don’t know yet what that one will contain but this is very spoiler heavy for any comic fans reading before watching the film.
Even the ending is given away! I do like how the feature praises first-time director David Fincher, who was unfairly maligned for problems the film faced even though they were beyond his control. What he did produce was great, and that newer version of the film in particular is testament to that.
There’s mention too of the more complex story involving the capture and release of the alien by Paul McGann’s character, all of which was excised in the original cut before being placed back in over a decade later. The article also works as a fascinating look at the beginning of what would be an incredible directing career. Finally, effects technician Chris Halls is a name you’ll see more of on the blog as he’s the artist of some stunning covers for the UK comic to come.
The issue ends with a brief one-page feature I won’t include because it’s a very quick interview with an incredibly arrogant British special effects supervisor who boasts about how his team made life awkward for the Americans working on the film and he does nothing but slag off (that’s the best way to describe it) the script. Not what I’d include in the comic when it completely relies on said film.
Out of the 48 pages in total the 23 that don’t contain comic strip are by far the best and as a fan of the movie I’ve found them fascinating, not only for the information on the film they contain but for how this eagerly anticipated sequel was covered at the time. As such, I look forward to more of those pages in three weeks when #2 of the Alien³Movie Special leaps from the shadows and on to the blog on Monday 26th August 2024, and before that on Tuesday 20th August remember to check in on Aliens #3 too.
Off we go with the latest real time read through and this one is rather different than anything that’s been covered on the blog so far, being the first aimed at a mature audience. After licensing their Aliens comics to Trident in the UK, Dark Horse US decided to set up shop in London and print their strips in their own titles. Thus Dark Horse International was created. This was their first, and flagship, title.
I’ve already covered one of their comics. Jurassic Park not only adapted the movie into comic form it also contained the first ever official sequel to the film and book. Similarly, Dark Horse US’ Aliens continued the story of James Cameron’s amazing hit movie and lasted for decades, only coming to an end in recent years when Marvel rebooted it now that Disney owns both the comic publisher and 20th Century, the company behind the films.
As much as I do love the new Marvel series (it really is superb) I’ve been really excited to sink my teeth (just the one set) into these original stories. As explained in the introductory post I’m concentrating on the comics after Dark Horse International took over with Volume Two. At least for now. This is because these were the comics my friends collected at the time and the one I owned was part of this series too. So let’s get down to reliving it.
After John Bolton’s (Hellraiser, Man-Bat, The Evil Dead, and one of the first British artists to work on American comics) incredible, exclusive new front cover the editorial welcomes us to Dark Horse’s vision of what an Aliens comic should be, with Jurassic Park editor Dick Hansom given the title of ‘New Bug’. To place the comic in its time you can see Alien³’s release was imminent and in fact Dark Horse would publish a three-weekly, three-part (bit of a theme there) special series to commemorate. More on that movie as we go along.
So the first strip in the read through is Hive, part one of which takes up 20 pages. Altogether there are 52 pages with a good quality gloss cover and a matt stock inside, all in colour apart from the occasional advert. There’s also a 16-page Predator back up and a good selection of features, the overall format making it a very UK comic indeed. Let’s get started with Hive first of all. In the States each story was released as a mini-series whereas here they’d be printed in an ongoing comic, much like Jurassic Park. It opens with this scene-setting spread below.
This is the perfect opening for the first issue, feeling very much like the movie, complete with the heroine having a somewhat Sigourney Weaver-esque look. The Alien is brilliantly realised by Kelley Jones (The Sandman, Batman: Endgame, Micronauts), with Les Dorscheid’s (Dungeons & Dragons, Deadman, Nazz) muted colours adding to the atmosphere and Clem Robins‘(Amazing Spider-Man, Ghost Rider, Guardians of the Galaxy) letters. Of course in the film the Aliens are black, but conveying that in comic form can be difficult. Les’ use of colours here is inspired, fooling us into accepting this creature as black even though it has to be coloured differently for its details to stand out on the page.
Jerry Prosser’s (The Crow, Predator, editor on Sin City: A Dame to Kill For) story begins with Julian Lish trying to escape from an Alien in a scene that could’ve been lifted straight from the movie with its tight, dark corridors, motion tracking sensors and in the end the alien’s second jaw sliding out for the kill. That is, until an “Override Code” is announced over a loudspeaker and it just… stops.
This is Dr. Stan Mayakovsky and any initial confusion you might feel from this turn of events was echoed by me. That’s the whole point. He enters with his dog in tow who seems completely nonplussed with the H.R. Giger creation standing over them. What happens next continued the confusion as the dog drops their ball from their slobbery mouth and it rolls underneath the alien’s legs.
Didn’t expect that, did you? What with this bit of alien playfulness and our two human characters just standing next to it, even after it looked like Julian was about to be its victim, something is obviously amiss. (It hadn’t been released yet, but the dog in the original cut of Alien³ certainly didn’t get this treatment!) On the next page the alien sizes up to the professor, baring its teeth and hissing, my mind instantly remembering the accompanying scary sound from the films. Then it takes off down the corridor and… well…
I admit I laughed at this! And laughter is not something I thought this comic would produce a lot of. Yes, the film had its moments but those definitely didn’t come from the alien side of things. It does explain things though with its clearly robotic speech bubble. As ridiculous as it sounds to have a robotic alien in the story we must remember this is set in a future where completely convincing human androids also exist, so why not?
We get an insight into his addiction to a particular drug, a raw form of the slime produced by the aliens
The question is, why exactly has this thing been created? Not only that, but it’s being trained to hunt humans, or at the very least act convincingly like a killer. Called XL1, an out-of-breath Julian tells Stan it keeps getting better, that she’s struggling to stay ahead of it anymore, which pleases Stan immensely. However, Julian wonders what 10,000 of them would be like! It’s a terrifying thought and we know that the plans of greedy humans always lead to disaster in the film series. So what’s the reasoning?
It’s not clear yet if the professor works for the Weyland-YutaniCorporation from the films but we do get an insight into his addiction to a particular drug, a raw form of the slime (or “jelly” as it’s called here) produced by the aliens. It relieves his cancer symptoms and puts him into a sort of trance state where time slows down, his world goes blue and he revisits his memories of how he got to this point. It’s essentially a bit of exposition for the readers.
Having to buy the substance from drug dealers, he eventually met Julian and devised a plan to build an alien android to infiltrate a hive (that explains the reference to thousand of aliens and the title) and bring back the jelly. Stan is in it for himself, Julian appears to be in it for the money, and their mutual desire for the same outcome results in a passionate, mutually selfish love affair. Using the example of ants above and the aforementioned ability to make convincing androids, it’s an interesting set up for the first story in the comic series. There’s also a funny moment when Julian even suggests naming their alien ‘Norbert’!
In their ship The Dolomite they take a crew to a far-flung planet called A6 454 upon which humans have never set foot, and Stan and Julian stand up in front of their crew and ask for volunteers before showing them what they’re there for. As a bit of foreshadowing, revealing their android goes horribly wrong. Not that either seems to care.
I remember seeing scenes like this when I flicked through my friend’s Aliens comics as a teenager and being amazed it could show such images. I’d never seen anything like this in comics before. Anyway, Stan finally uses his override command to stop his android from continuing its killing spree and the final image of the strip has it holding another man’s head and looking directly at Stan. Whether this is where the original first part ended in the US comic or this is where the UK’s comic has cut it off is difficult to say, although the sudden end makes it feel more like the latter.
The first part of Hive is intriguing, full of atmosphere, has plenty of horrific moments and really sucked me into its world. It’s a fantastic start to the comic and this already has the potential to be an excellent read through. As a teen it was no wonder I loved the one issue I picked up if this is anything to go by. It would’ve shocked and scared me, and I would’ve been loving every page of it. Before moving on to the back up strip there’s a bit of news in The Motion Tracker segment and a middle-page spread about the making of Alien³.
I wonder if anyone actually went and rented The Commitments back then just to get a glimpse of the film? It’s interesting that there was a different direction for the film originally planned, so much so that a teaser was made. The Unnatural Selection spread isn’t the easiest to read but it does explain a lot of the infamous difficulties in making Alien³. I’m particularly interested in the various writers and script drafts and the evolution (hence the subtitle) of the story over the years before filming began. If this is an indication of the extras the comic will contain I can’t wait for future issues.
In case you’re wondering, the “Free Comic” on the cover is a sequel to Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons’ Give Me Liberty (which I’d never heard of until now despite it being a best seller) and nothing to do with the Aliens franchise. While the Predator movies would eventually cross over into the Aliens universe, at the time they had nothing to do with the franchise either. However, in comics they were always closely related and thus a perfect choice of back up strip.
Predator: Cold War is written by Mark Verheiden (Phantom, co-executive producer on Battlestar Galactica and Falling Skies), with pencils by Ron Randall (The Dreaming, Action Comics, Supergirl), inks by Steve Mitchell (Aquaman, Batman, G.I. Joe), colours by Chris Chalenor (Barb Wire, The Mask, Hieroglyph) and Rachelle Menashe (The Terminator, Icon, Virus), and letters are by Clem Robins again. Lieutenant Ligachev has been promoted by a General of her army just so he could send her to take charge of an oil field pumping station in the middle of the Siberian nowhere. When their equipment discovers large seismic activity accompanied by high levels of radiation they go to investigate, discovering the decapitated body of a local deer herder, strung up on a pole as if he’s on display, like an animal at the end of a successful hunt.
Soon they’re under attack by a Predator and, upon being hit and half buried in the snow, Ligachev can only watch as her young team are cut down one-by-one by this strange creature. Setting the beginning of the story in desolate ice fields adds a level of desperation to her plight but we soon find out she’s recounting it to a military tribunal who wants to send her back!
If this is anything like Aliens then she’s probably being sent back out to face certain death in order for the government (rather than a private company) to get access to powerful weapons. As someone who has only ever seen the second movie a long, long time ago this plays out like a typical 80s monster movie, which is no bad thing of course. More interesting is how the rest of this 16-page chunk of the story tries hard to tie it in closer to the film series.
The American military have picked up on the weapons fire and automatically assumed the Soviets were test-firing nuclear weapons, so they reach out to General Philips. He was played by R.G. Armstrong in the first film although here he’s described as having something to do with the “business in New York last summer” and I’m not sure what that’s in reference to. After all, the first film was set in Central America and the second in Los Angeles.
A second character, a New York sheriff, is seen having flashbacks to being attacked by a Predator (while at the dentist no less, so double the horror!) so maybe it’s in reference to an earlier Predator comic, perhaps one printed in Trident’s first volume. Meanwhile, the general goes to meet a Detective Schaefer who turns out to be the brother of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character Dutch, still M.I.A. from the first film. As you can see he’s drawn as another version of Arnie and basically feels like a way of getting the big name star into the strip without actually doing so.
So far, as someone who knows next to nothing about Predator the opening scenes were exciting but the introduction of Schaefer feels a bit like the Jurassic Park comic’s own desperate attempt to get another character from the film into its sequel strip, when it reintroduced Robert Muldoon who had clearly been killed by the Velociraptors in the movie. I’ll not dwell. Going into the Predator strips essentially blind means I can just enjoy them for what they are.
Towards the rear of the comic are three pages detailing some of the weaponry used by the Colonial Marines in the Aliens movie. For fictional weapons the Technical Readout really does go into a lot of detail. If this is the beginning of the comic adding some background depth to not only itself but also the universe of the films then it’s another great start. These pages bring back exciting memories of their onscreen use, especially the M56 Smart Gun as used by Jenette Goldstein’s Vasquez character, decades before “smart” devices became the things to own.
Finally, just as in Jurassic Park (and many Marvel UK comics) we get a comics checklist, although at this stage Aliens was Dark Horse International’s only UK title so it focusses solely on the imported comics available in specialist comics shops. These weren’t as easily found at the time (Northern Ireland only had two such shops back then) so for most of us these were beyond our reach. It’ll be interesting to see this develop as the company settled (at least temporarily) into this part of the world.
With that we come to the end of the first issue and it’s off to a cracking start. The Aliens strip itself is fantastic and it hasn’t really got going yet, but the set up has plenty of potential for things to go horribly wrong for the cocky humans. Predator is also enjoyable and might be more so once I actually watch the films (which I now want to do, so that’s another good point) and the extras are interesting. Lots of potential here. This is a lengthy read through that’ll take us all the way to March 2026, so settle in and come back on Tuesday 23rd July 2024 for the next instalment.
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