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.
From the moment I picked up this sophomore issue of Dark Horse International’s Aliens comic with Paul Johnson‘s (Legends of the Dark Knight, Spinechiller Collection, Janus: Psi-Division) cover I was excited. Not just because this last month has felt like an age and I’ve been looking forward to it, I was excited to see a third strip has been added. Inside it’s explained that there were meant to be three strips last time but an issue with resizing Newt’s Tale for the larger pages of the UK comic delayed it. So here we are with the proper format now of two main Aliens strips and a Predator back up, plus all the extras of course.
One of those extras leaves a nasty taste in the mouth this month (and contradicts the comic itself) and I’ll get to that further along in the review. There’s also the first letters page, the next Technical Readout and the latest Xenomorph news. There’s also exciting Alien³ news which will mean more blog content too. But we’ll start with that new story, written by Mike Richardson and credited as “Based on the screenplay by James Cameron”. This is because it’s a retelling of the movie’s story but from the perspective of a different character, which is rather special.
Anyone who’s seen the Special Edition of Aliens (which is the default version today) should recognise this scene. We’re on LV-426 near Hadley’s Hope and Newt’s prospector dad has struck gold. Sent by the Wayland-Yutani company to a specific spot he’s taken his whole family along for the ride. Finding the massive alien ship from the first movie they think they’ve struck it rich, and the company has given him the rights to whatever he finds! Of course they knew what he’d find, and that he won’t be around long enough to claim anything.
So far, so familiar but this moves beyond a basic movie adaptation pretty quickly as we see Newt and her brother creep into the air ducts of the settlement they call home to find out if their dad is alright, since they haven’t been allowed near him while the doctors fail to get an unknown (to them) creature detached from his face. But in trying to protect them it’s just led to the kids being kids, and now they’re about to be witness to something much more terrifying.
The artwork here is by Jim Somerville (The Walking Dead – not that one, Maelstrom, Warlock 5) on pencils and Brian Garvey (Transformers, Gunfire, The New Gods) on inks with colours by Gregory Wright (Elephantmen, co-creator of the 90’s Deathlok, co-writer of Sensational She-Hulk) and the lettering is by Pat Brosseau (Hellboy, Wonder Woman, Wolverine). It reminds me of Stephen Baskerville’s inking (especially when working with Andrew Wildman) on The Real Ghostbusters and as such it feels a bit too cartoony for the subject, especially for this scene.
But I do love the idea behind it and I’m intrigued to see the rest of a story I know so well played out from a different viewpoint, even if one of this very publication’s feature writers thinks otherwise. I’m getting to that. Up next though is our back up strip. In between the two Aliens tales is Predator: Cold War written by Mark Verheiden, with pencils by Ron Randall, inks by Steve Mitchell, colours by Chris Chalenor and Rachelle Menashe, with letters by Clem Robins. In this chapter we continue getting to know Arnie’s apparent brother, Detective Schaefer as his drugs bust goes wrong.
This takes up pretty much all of the strip’s eight pages, although to be fair to editor Dick Hansom the chunks of story presented were originally meant to be different until that technical fault last month. What we end up with here as a result is a rather clichéd 80s police flick, but it ends with Schaefer being kidnapped by some Men In Black-types for the general and then we head back to Serbia and the rig workers are getting panicked that there’s something out in the snow coming for them. They’re not wrong.
As someone who has only seen the second film many decades ago (I’ve decided I’ll get around to them this Hallowe’en) this comic is basically my introduction to the Predator and so far I’m just getting impatient to find out exactly what we’re dealing with. That’s not the strip’s fault obviously, it’s my own, and I’m sure fans of the original movie would get a kick out of this.
The Aliens Special Edition video had proven to be a huge success for 20th Century
Before we move on to the funnier (no, really) of our strips we’ll take a look at some of the extras. On the news pages it’s Alien³ release season with news on dates and box office numbers, a special mention for the poster design and (alongside a spot of Batman) the Aliens Special Edition video had proven to be a huge success for 20th Century. This particular news item and the inclusion of Newt’s Tale make another page in this comic even more surprising.
Quite a lot of my friends were huge fans of the Alien films and not a single one of them had anything but utter love for James Cameron’s Special Edition of his sequel, happily contributing to the sales figures above. (Then happily buying it again several years later in widescreen, then DVD, BluRay, iTunes 4K… you get the idea.) At the time of writing this review Disney’s new Star Wars series The Acolyte has proven very successful but there are some dark corners of the internet that I’ve heard are attacking it and this page reminds me of that to some degree.
This page of the comic reads like one of those Threads posts bulked up to a full article
Of course, a lot of the hate for the Star Wars show is because of ‘reasons’ from some very horrible types that we won’t get into here, but some others are just complaining because it’s adding to the lore. Surely that’s a good thing? It reminds me of when Doctor Who had mystery injected back into the character with The Timeless Child (when we found out they’d led many more lives than we’d thought, which even brought a lot of classic episodes/scenes back into canon). Some fans online don’t like not knowing everything about whatever they’re a fan of, and will instead say something “isn’t canon” and is an example of “bad writing” instead.
This page of the comic reads like one of those Threads posts bulked up to a full article. It also doesn’t sit well within a comic that has a strip (Newt’s Tale) that takes scenes from that very same Special Edition to explain more of a character’s backstory, the exact scenes that are being complained about here. If I’m not mistaken, while buying these comics for the blog I’m sure I noticed a future cover promoting a competition to win this video! This really is rather strange and not what I would expect from an otherwise quality comic. So let’s get back to the good stuff with part two of Aliens: Hive.
Regular readers of the blog may be familiar with how the Jurassic Park comic’s editorial recaps of previous chapters were described as ‘What Has Gone Before’ and here we get a full page of this for each strip, using cover images from the original US comics. I really like these. It’s like they’re announcing the next strip’s arrival as I read through the issue. As the crew leave the Dolomite for the surface we see Norbert has been able to keep its name after all and this produces some of the lighter and, surprisingly, funny moments. At least until we meet Gill, a synthetic human the likes of which is synonymous with the Alien films.
Always drawn with shadows covering his face, Gill is suitably creepy. As they move towards the 1000-meter high alien nest on the surface, the main ship has been scanning the debris encircling the planet and they’ve detected the remains of a ship, so of course they send a couple of people to recover the black box. Shockingly, they make it back safely. The recording shows the captain warning another ship of criminal trespass before the tape just stops. The Dolomite commander contacts Gill to tell him said criminals could still be about so to watch out, but instructs him not to tell the crew, not even the expedition leaders. This back-stabbing between humans who all have their own agendas fits perfectly into the Alien universe; human greed is basically the cause of all the horrific events in the movies.
Down on the planet we get to see their landing disturb one of the sleeping residents. As you can see this is a very stylised version of the alien, its head isn’t one long smooth curve for example. I do like this style of art though by Kelley Jones (with colours by Les Dorschield and letters by Clem Robins), and in the years since we’ve seen how the alien species can adapt to whatever living being its transplanted into by its facehugger (beginning in Alien³) so we can always describe it away.
I’m eagerly anticipating the gruesome moments (if last month is anything to go by) and action-packed scenes we’ll see drawn in this very particular way in the following chapters. It’s very 90s, isn’t it? I love it. The strip ends with Doctor Mayakovsky in another alien slime-induced trance while Julian Lish looks on and thinks about the two of them together. It appears, contrary to the impression given last month, that they’re very much in love. Or is one using the other? More intrigue.
There’s another Technical Readout and this time it goes into a lot of detail about the drop ship we saw in the film before the issue rounds off with the first letters page, Bug Hunt. It might seem very quick to have this in the second issue but that’s because the last comic of volume one (all of which we’ll get around to eventually, I promise) saw Dark Horse come in and shake the comic up before their full relaunch. There’s the explanation about Newt’s Tale, a brief description of how setting up their UK office has opened the doors to talent in this part of the world working on their American comics, and there are hints about future Dark Horse International titles.
One isn’t just a hint though, backed up as it is with a back page advert.
While I’m not usually a fan of comics adaptations I’m looking forward to this regardless, especially the extra features. Just like Jurassic Park’s first few issues this had a three-weekly release schedule so of course that’ll be the case on the blog too. I’ll talk more about the movie itself during those issue, however I’ll just say that those friends of mine I mentioned above weren’t that crash hot about it on its initial release but I always enjoyed it.
However, the Collector’s Edition released since then has turned even them into die-hard Alien³ fans and in my eyes it puts the film on a level peg with the first two! So it’ll be interesting to see what the adaptation includes and you can come along and find out from Monday 5th August 2024 when Alien³ #1 hits the blog. Then it’s not a long wait at all until Aliens #3 (this could get confusing) arrives on Tuesday 20th August. See you then.
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.
There’s no mention of it on the cover along with Michael Golden‘s image, nor in the editorial. In fact they’re still offering subscriptions to the comic, and there are just two little ‘The End’ captions attached to the final panels of each strip. But this is the last issue of Jurassic Park. As discussed last time, new publisher Manga Publishing knew this was going to be the end, so it’s rather misleading of editor Dick Hanson not to edit out the subscriptions!
We finish what was originally Dark Horse International’s series with another 40-page issue, although the inner 32 pages are of pretty poor stock compared to previous issues. The back up is the second half of last month’s Xenozoic Tales, but first we’ve the final part of the four-issue American mini-series ‘Raptors Attack’, which is the name referred on the cover. As mentioned before, this meant nothing to us UK readers because we didn’t know how the comic series was broken up into mini-series over there, so this just confused us.
The first chapter of the mini-series was called Rush! but the following three had much more imaginative titles that changed to match the evolving storyline. Back in #14 we had Animals/Men, then Animals/Gods and this issue’s final story is Gods/Men as the now wild Velociraptors once more become the stars of the strip. Written by Steve Englehart who has been responsible for every chapter since the adaptation ended, it’s again pencilled by Chaz Truog and inked by Paul Fricke, letters are by new addition Brad K. Joyce (MarvelWhat The..?!, The Ren & Stimpy Show, The Sensational She-Hulk) and Renée Witterstaetter colours and story edits.
For a final chapter there’s more background character information than actual plot. There are quite a few pages given over to the history between Robert Muldoon and the late George Lawala, how even though they were rivals Lawala saved his life so Robert will avenge George’s. I don’t see the point in this at this late stage and it’s all rather predictable. Much better are the pages given over to developing our dinosaur characters Alf, Betty and Celia, mainly through a lengthy dream sequence as they finally sleep in peace away from us apes.
Clearly we’re getting a translated version of the information their mother passed on to them, correctly identifying the humans behind Jurassic Park as apes. The resting ‘raptors (only three of them left now) continue to dream about being captured and losing their family, reminding them that humans are their enemy. We get more chances to see them acting as regular wild animals too, drinking, playing and basically living and enjoying life. Then we find out one of the tribal men from last issue has survived and finds his gods, who are tempted to kill him as they did the rest, although he’s making such strange hand movements they begin to feel uneasy and take off instead.
“They’re so alien, so different from us — maybe they are gods — because it’s sure that we’re only men…!”
Dr Alan Grant
He was trying to warn the ‘raptors of the humans nearby, our main characters, and how they were in the area to hunt his gods. Drs Ellie Satler, Alan Grant and Ian Malcolm have joined Muldoon as he hunts, the three of them making it very clear they are not there to kill. There are local villagers tagging along to help and Muldoon comes across as a bit of a racist, although thankfully called out on it by Alan. I really don’t like this version of the game warden character from the film and novel. Much more entertaining, as always, is Ian.
Still flirting with Ellie, despite Alan being right there, it’s clear it’s meant in good jest and his continual talking annoys Muldoon which is a bonus. Yes I still have a bee in my bonnet over the return of Muldoon and I’ve already gone into the ridiculousness of his survival. Here, it’s also explained that the reason the ‘raptors already had a family of adolescents was because they were able to escape their cage in Jurassic Park, find a secluded spot to lay their eggs away from the humans and then… went back inside their cage?!
Clearly this makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It could easily have been avoided by having a larger gap between the end of the movie and the beginning of the comic’s continuation instead of picking things up only three days later (back in #6). The whole series hinges on these animals so it’s annoying to read this so-called explanation, it kind of ruins the whole set up. It’s ill-conceived and reads as a lazy way of getting the action going. Add in Muldoon’s survival and this official sequel is contradicting the movie it’s based on more and more.
Shoving these inconsistencies to the back of my mind, the race towards this particular story’s climax is exciting. They track the Velociraptors to a part of the jungle separated from the humans by a long rope bridge. Muldoon is stopped from sniping them from afar by the locals, which attracts their attention. The ‘raptors sprint across the bridge to attack, coming face to face with an unarmed Ellie first of all.
Due to Ellie and Alan’s capture alongside the dinosaurs in previous issues and being forced to tend to Celia’s wounds, they’ve formed some form of cautious bond with these creatures. Indeed, we’ve seen Celia stop her siblings from killing them. But it looks like Alf and Betty no longer care about this. They’ve suffered enough at the hands of the apes. In the first of the two pages below I particularly like the ‘raptor on the bottom left, it’s a classic pose from the films and really gets across their ferocity.
Then the unthinkable happens.
This genuinely shocked me. I half expected Muldoon to fire at this point despite currently being attacked and restrained by the villagers and it was still sad to see one of them fall, despite the fact they were about to attack. However, who actually fired was the shocking part! This went against everything Alan stands for, everything he was trying to achieve. But he had no choice, it was either Betty or Ellie.
This was always the dilemma in the Jurassic franchise, the danger of these wild animals against the need to preserve them, to understand they’re just acting naturally, to nurture their instincts and let them be themselves. But of course, a little bit of Chaos Theory always got in the way and made it more exciting for us. In the end Muldoon is subdued by the villagers and the ‘raptors are poised to attack again, no longer in any mood to discern friendly human from foe. But the villagers and their strange movements jump in front of them and kneel before their gods.
With the death of their sister, the confusion over friend and foe and now these strange people Celia and Alf decide to take off. There are only two of them now. They know they’re the only ones but the world is a big place, so they run across the bridge, chew at its ropes to collapse it and head off in search of more of their kind. The last word is left to Alan Grant.
In America readers got another mini-series and an annual before a short-lived ongoing monthly, altogether another 14 stories which we never got here. In fact, it wasn’t until I was researching the comic’s origins for the blog that I discovered there had been any more after this. Back in the 90s it was a couple of months before I realised the comic had officially finished, what with it having taken a lengthy break before between #10 and #11 and of course the Christmas season kept me busy after this issue.
When I eventually realised the next issue was overdue I went back and checked and of course there was no date for its release, but as discussed above there wasn’t really any finality either. But I have to say I ended up really liking this ending, with the three ‘raptors out in the wild they could pop up anywhere in the world. Who knew what chaos could be sowed from having extinct creatures back in the world. In fact, 24 years later this was how Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom ended.
Before this comic series is over there’s the small matter of what caused the future cataclysm in Mark Shultz’s Xenozoic Tales: History Lesson, written and drawn by him and coloured by Christine Courtier. It was renamed Cadillacs and Dinosaurs for these final issues (although a story has been chosen without dinosaurs) because the cartoon based on Mark’s comics had begun in the UK, but these are the original comic strips, so the blurb on the cover is somewhat misleading. So, do we get our answers as promised last month? Annoyingly, no.
My annoyance isn’t Mark’s fault though. This was an early story of his, meant to drop hints, not offer an answer. It was this comic’s editor who decided to use it as a finale and hype it up for Jurassic Park readers last time. As a result of this I’m feeling rather short changed.
Hannah discovers a shell of an atomic bomb in the secret library within the catacombs and we’re led to believe this is what caused the world to basically end. This is also what some of those present believe. However, researching the books it then transpires the world was on the cusp of nuclear war when the cataclysm happened and stopped it, so it was a separate event (thus no straight answer). Then the library descends into chaos in a way that’s scarily prophetic of where we find ourselves in the world right now.
Hannah and most of those present know the bomb is just a shell. It’s been dismantled and emptied, they know it didn’t cause the cataclysm because of facts in the books. However, there are a band of people who don’t care about facts and instead believe the bomb itself is ‘evil’ and should be destroyed, even if that means taking the library and the entirety of human history with it, along with everything they could learn about their history, the actual cataclysm and how they can overcome it.
In other stories in this enjoyable back up it hinted that the cataclysm was caused by climate change, not least thanks to Hannah’s disgust at Jack’s garage of old cars. These mechanical relics may have been converted by Jack to run on dino doo-doo but they were referred to as being partly responsible for the destruction in the first place.
The Jurassic Park comic was a big deal to me as a teen and I’ve really enjoyed reliving it 28 years later
Back to this issue and Hannah’s frustration is palpable and I can imagine how this would’ve read in the early days of the original comic, so that’s how I’m reviewing it, instead of the disappointing climax it was never intended to be. She pulls a gun on one of the workers and demands to be taken to the sluice gate where she’s able to stop the flood and save about half the books from being completely destroyed, almost losing her life in the process.
Read in the correct order this would’ve solidified Jack and Hannah’s friendship (and perhaps more) for Mark’s original readers, with Jack’s concern for Hannah written as being something of a surprise to him. Then, as you can see on this final page he doesn’t understand the importance of the books, putting the two characters back to being at odds with one another as their relationship developed. Unfortunately we never got to enjoy this aspect of Xenozoic Tales because all our chapters were out of order.
So that’s it for the UK’s version of Jurassic Park. Back in the 90s the movie’s comic sequel was left hanging yet at the same time it felt like the perfect end. Taking these characters and dinosaurs so far outside of the confines of the movies had enthralled me and they’ve held up really well. Yes, I didn’t like the contradictions to the original film and so sadly by the end the strip simply can’t fit in with the movie sequels anymore.
Steve Englehart had been given free rein to do whatever he wanted, which is surprising given the high profile nature of the new franchise and the fact Amblin knew Michael Crichton was writing The Lost World novel. Clearly, having two sequels being written at the same time was never going to work. The Jurassic Park comic was a big deal to me as a teen and I’ve really enjoyed reliving it 28 years later.
The last back page finally announced the release of the movie on VHS to buy, which I’d very gratefully receive for Christmas in a special fossil box (you can see an image of it in the original introductory post) and let’s not forget you could also buy it on Laserdisc! How very 90s.
As I close this final issue it’s reassuring to know that I’m not done yet with Jurassic Park on the blog. This isn’t the end, only a bit of a pause.
There was another, short-run UK Jurassic Park comic a few years later that I only recently discovered, so watch out for that in 2023 and while I can’t see me being able to collect the rest of Xenozoic Tales, thankfully the same isn’t true of the main strip. IDW reprinted the series in graphic novel form over a decade ago and I’ve finally been able to collect the ones I needed to finish the story. I haven’t read them yet, I will when I’m ready to write about them but I’m sure they’ll make an excellent addition to the blog. They’d better, given what they cost!
Another exciting cover from Michael Golden, right? Shame it has absolutely nothing to do with what’s inside. In fact, Drs Ellie Satler and Alan Grant don’t even see the Velociraptors, none of our regular human characters do, so this is a somewhat misleading choice by editor Dick Hansom to pull readers in. That’s not to say the strip isn’t entertaining, it’s just not Ellie-holding-on-for-dear-life entertaining.
After last issue’s ‘Animals/Men’ story comes Animals/Gods!, as ever written by official sequel scribe Steve Englehart with the same art team as last time I’m very happy to say. Chaz Truog is on pencils, Paul Fricke is inking, letters are by John Costanza with Renée Witterstaetter bringing it all to colourful life as well as being story editor.
We have two completely separate stories happening here, our people becoming reunited while the ‘raptors enjoy life as wild animals. Things kick off with the dinosaurs hunting down a cheetah. Naturally the big, powerful cat comes off the worst against these new-old predators but it’s still a thrilling chase. We get four pages of Alf, Betty and Celia living free, ending with them relaxing as they finish off their meal, having a roll about in the sun and simply enjoying time together as a family unit without us humans ruining everything.
They really are the stars this issue, but then Alf starts to become ill, sneezes and collapses. During the human half of the story we find out there’s been a severe flu virus going around and both Alan and Robert Muldoon have come down with it. As Ian Malcom suggests, the Velociraptors aren’t predictable, they aren’t simple free animals (despite the animals thinking this themselves). Interacting with humans, something dinosaurs were never meant to do, will change them.
Ian’s scenes are the most interesting in the other half of the story. I still take issue with Muldoon having survived and his explanation just doesn’t make any sense, completely contradicting what we saw with our own eyes in the film. It’s also rather insulting for the reader to see him up and about perfectly fine, yet have Ian tells us he was laid up in hospital for months on end with his injuries, and he didn’t have a raptor’s jaw squeeze his skull! Anyway, we have to live with this for now and we find out Muldoon knew big game hunter George Lawala, the man whose work started this whole mess back in #7.
What I do enjoy though is any chance Ian Malcolm gets to talk Chaos Theory. If you haven’t read Michael Crichton’s original novel I highly recommend it for the pages and pages of monologues we get from Ian describing the intricacies of Chaos and his predictions for the park. It’s fascinating stuff. The movie did a great job of distilling these into short little scenes to get the essence across and here we get something of a cross between the two extremes. It’s clear Steve has gone back to the original source material when writing this.
That’s basically the entirety of the human story this time, to give some context to the story of the ‘raptors who take up a whopping 19 of the 27 pages of Jurassic Park strip. As I said, they really are the stars this time. We catch up with them as a local indigenous tribe watches these unknown animals succumb to their illness from a safe distance, believing them to be their gods taken animal form. Celia realises they’re being watched and attacks but despite the anger in her eyes she’s too weak to take them all on, reminding us that she may have shown a kindness towards Ellie last time but she’s still very much the same animal.
She finds a dead, sacrificed animal and tries to drag it to her siblings but struggles to do so and collapses. We get a few pages of the tribe gathering around their gods, feeding them elixirs, bringing idols of worship, generally looking after them and taking part in religious chants to impart strength. A long time passes and slowly they return to full strength. The tribe gather tentatively but it doesn’t quite go as they’d thought.
Everyone is slaughtered, but not eaten. These human creatures are now the enemy after all they’ve done to them. It’s as simple as that. The chapter concludes with the Velociraptors disappearing off into the jungle once more, one simple caption underneath: ‘It’s good to be free and wild again…’
While I do enjoy seeing the ‘raptors portrayed in this way I have to say this is probably the weakest of the strips so far because not enough happens. The main bulk of the story could’ve been told in a fraction of the pages without losing any of its impact and the human half is simply a (albeit good) speech by Ian and that’s about it. It feels like a stop-gap, like the comic was taking a beat while it puts the pieces into place for the next story. Transformers would sometimes do this for example and you’d know what it was up to. But with the gift of hindsight there’s one key difference here: the next issue is the last.
At the end of the strip is the line, ‘Next: The Thrilling Climax!’. As a teen I just thought it meant the end of this particular story before the next one kicked off, so this issue’s breather felt like it was gearing up for an awesome finale with the Veliciraptors before leading on to further adventures with the human characters. I now know this meant the end of the comic. Only for UK readers though, which I’ll get into next time.
It’s sad to think this real time read through is almost over
While not designed as the penultimate story it was for us and in this regard it’s lacking. Previous back up strip Age of Reptiles told a better story in a fraction of the pages in any one issue, which is a hard thing for me to say because I’ve been such a fan of the main strip up until the moment they brought back Muldoon, and now it feels like it’s padding itself out, treading water. Maybe it’ll make sense next month and read better as a result, but as it stands this was a fun strip but not worth the 26 pages it took to tell it and would’ve worked much better as a shorter, additional back up.
Moving on and after an advert for the soon-to-be-relaunched Manga Mania (now that the new publisher had gotten their hands into it properly) we move on to Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, or Xenozoic Tales by another name. History Lesson is one of those rare things, a quite lengthy story by creator Mark Shultz (coloured by Christine Courtier), lengthy enough for it to be split into two parts over these final two issues. Taken from #4 of Mark’s original comic it takes place before some of the strips featured already in Jurassic Park.
In fact this picks up directly from the story in #7 and didn’t make a lot of sense to me at the time. It made it seem like they’d had all these other adventures before realising Gorgostamos was missing. I now know better but in the days before having the internet to research it just felt off. Obviously it wasn’t Mark’s fault. What is also not his fault is the fact nothing much of consequence happens here either. Perhaps when both halves are read altogether the story will be much more interesting, but it’s cut off before it gets going.
After finding Gorgostamos’ remains Tenrec and Hannah debate whether the Grith killed him in order to save them, and Hannah once again wants to know more (remember, this happened long before last month’s story). Tenrec tells her of catacombs underneath the city where a library has been found, guarded by keepers of knowledge who don’t want outsiders let in. They fear that with knowledge of how to rebuild humans will just cause another cataclysm. Hannah insists on seeing it and these ten pages are about Tenrec meeting with allies to get them inside. Then, just as they do get in the story frustratingly stops for now.
The only really exciting part is the caption beneath the final panel! As a teen I looked forward to finding out the mystery once and for all but now, knowing the previous strips were actually later chapters in the story and the mystery wasn’t solved in them, I don’t think we’re going to get as many answers as this suggests, which actually makes me all the more intrigued as to what the caption means. If it gives at least a hint of what happened (or maybe the answer without the characters knowing) then at least that would explain why it was used as the final story for this comic.
I may have been none the wiser but it’s clear the new MangaPublishing knew the end was nigh, even if they were still offering subscriptions on the contents page. It’s sad to think this real time read through is almost over. This is the first issue I’ve been disappointed with as a whole, but after 15 of them that’s not a bad track record. It feels like no time since I was reviewing the very first issue and thinking back the comic has changed a lot in a relatively short amount of time. Let’s hope for a spectacular send off. Well, a send off for the time being anyway. I’ll elaborate in #16’s review on Thursday 3rd November 2022.
It’s all change this issue as Dark Horse International has now become Manga Publishing. The UK arm of Dark Horse had gone out of business but the success of its Manga Mania comic and the rapidly growing interest in the UK for the art form saw a purchase of the titles and a rebranding across them all. (The company changing hands could account for the delay between #10 and #11.) I’d assumed all their comics were cancelled by the end of 1994 but Manga Mania (at #15) would carry on all the way through to #39. Jurassic Park wouldn’t be so lucky.
But at least this temporary reprieve enabled our comic to reach a decent ending point in #16 instead of just stopping on a cliffhanger (I’m looking at you,Havoc!). Michael Golden’s cover would’ve been better suited to last month’s issue but it’s still a striking image, even if it’s somewhat disappointing to lose that distinctive border on the left. You’ll notice ‘Cadillacs and Dinosaurs’ is mentioned, is this a new back up strip? Not quite, as you’ll see below. Finally, the mysterious free gift mentioned last issue ended up being temporary tattoos, long lost to the mists of time.
The contents page retains its atmospheric design and still offers up subscriptions so the plan must’ve been (initially at least) to carry the comic on for some time to come. In reality, the boast of “Now With Extra Pages” on the cover meant we were up to 40 pages which, while a good increase over the previous three, is only four more than we had in the first ten issues. It does mean we now get a full chapter of the American story per issue though, with the aforementioned back up bringing up the rear.
There’s now a whopping 26 pages of Jurassic Park to enjoy but it’s still listed using the name of the US mini-series comic it was taken from, rather than the name of the story itself. This was confusing because we were unaware of the mini-series’ name, so to the uniformed (like me) it looked like laziness on the part of UK editor Dick Hansom, like he didn’t check what the strip he was printing was called. As you’ll see over the course of this and the next two issues, Animals/Men was the beginning of a trilogy of stories, the title of each a variation on this theme.
It feels very much like the Jurassic Park movie had been given a cartoon makeover in the same way Ghostbusters had with The Real Ghostbusters
As you can see the art team has changed. Steve Englehart is still the writer of this official sequel, John Costanza is still letterer and Renée Witterstaetter remains as colourist and story editor. However, joining them are penciller Chaz ‘Atlas’ Truog (Green Lantern Corps, Animal Man, Coyote) and inker Paul Fricke (The Fly, El Diablo, Secret Origins). At the time I was a little disappointed in the change from the more scratchy, hard-edged artwork but nowadays I absolutely love this.
Even Renée’s colouring appears to have changed to suit the new style, boldly coloured backgrounds highlighting each frame. The cartoonier style put me off initially as a teenager but it did grow on me. Today, it feels very much like the Jurassic Park movie had been given a cartoon makeover in the same way Ghostbusters had with The Real Ghostbusters. It’s great. It’s a lot more animated and dynamic, and as you can see having better defined facial features means our characters now actually look like cartoon versions of the actors.
Drs Ellie and Alan Grant attempt to escape from Rafael’s compound deep in the Columbian jungle but accidentally set off a hidden alarm, in response to which Rafael immediately unleashes his supposedly trained Velociraptors. Trying to escape their reach up a tree, a vine Alan clings to is grabbed by one of the ‘raptors and suddenly he finds himself flat on his back, exposed and an easy target. That is, until Rafael catches up.
During the attack we find out Alan and Ellie have named the dinosaurs. The alpha is called Alf, the beta is Betty and the injured ‘raptor who is still within her cage is Celia. If this rings a bell you’re not alone. Much later in Jurassic World, released 21 years after this comic, Owen Grady named his four Velociraptors after the second to fifth letters of the alphabet too (Blue, Charlie, Delta, Echo, with Owen as the ‘alpha’). Was the movie inspired by this comic, or was it just a coincidence? Either option is likely.
Having game warden Robert Muldoon alive and well is just stupid
Ellie and Alan are ordered to return and look after the injured Celia, who continues to let Ellie do so, knowing she saved her life. But our doctors think if she wasn’t restrained they’d be on the menu. They’re very aware of how they’ve romanticised the dinosaurs’ place in nature, but they’re still killers. This leads on to a dark scene in which one of Rafael’s men suggests they take it in turns raping Ellie to relieve their boredom and he’s immediately shot and killed by his boss, telling his men to feed him to one of the ‘raptors, so he clearly wants his creatures to maintain their taste for human flesh. But why?
Then, after all the action, tension and interesting story developments the strip unfortunately takes a turn for the absurd.
Even as a teenage reader I didn’t find this to be the thrill it was hyped as on the cover and my opinion hasn’t changed since. Having game warden Robert Muldoon alive and well is just stupid. Remember that “clever girl” scene in the movie? He looks awfully healthy after that, doesn’t he? What elaborate explanation is given for him surviving a Velociraptor jumping on top of him and apparently eating his head? He raised them. I hate this. Not only is it ridiculous to think he survived but if he did it completely ruins that whole scene in the movie.
According to #10Ian Malcolm had to spend months in a hospital after his injuries but Muldoon gets the kind of return we’d expect from a superhero comic that finds some trick to retcon a character’s demise. I remember feeling let down by this but thankfully it isn’t dwelled upon beyond this one page (for this issue anyway) so we can get back to the meat of the story which is much, much better.
“It seems ‘raptors can remember a kindness”
Celia’s training commences but she isn’t cooperating. She responds to commands but doesn’t go for the head of the human-like hay dummies like the others, instead biting an arm or leg, never going for the kill. The ever-paranoid Rafael thinks it’s a trick but we’ll find out the real reason soon enough. Meanwhile the government’s leader is planning to announce new indictments against him in the murder of dozens of law enforcement officials, and the next day as the judges leave the courthouse a van pulls up and out of the doors rush Alf and Betty!
During the attack an electrical cable is damaged which zaps one of them. As the two animals looks quizzically at the electrical sparks they come to realise something and they run off. Rafael’s men can’t take control, somehow the ‘raptors realised the collars were no longer being controlled, the broken power lines causing interference. Free of their painful, torturous shocks they immediately run back to free Celia, taking out with relish the men who previously had all that power over them.
They kick in the large metal doors holding their sister and in no time at all everything has changed. Rafael had thought he was in control, but during the execution of his own plan something unpredictable happened and within minutes all three of the dinosaurs are free to roam and hunt, killing Rafael and the remainder of his men as they unsuccessfully try to shock them into submission once more. Another perfect example for Ian Malcolm’s Chaos Theory.
We see Celia wince from the shocks, but the others’ collars no longer work well enough to stop them. When Alan and Ellie come out to see what’s happening and make their own escape they’re cornered by the three ‘raptors. Alf and Betty prepare to pounce, after all these two humans are just another part of all this, but in a surprising moment Celia steps up to stop her sisters, even though she isn’t the alpha herself.
I remember this aspect of the story. Celia stopping her sisters from attacking Alan and Ellie would resurface and emphasised (once again) how the Jurassic franchise treats its dinosaurs as real animals rather than simple movie monsters. Was this also why she wouldn’t ‘kill’ the hay dummies? Does she no longer see all humans in general as prey? Either way, it’s clear the ‘raptors saw Rafael as a means to an end, to get out of the compound to freedom. The sly looks at each other and the development of their own characters over previous issues now clear with hindsight.
This was even before the Tyrannosaurus rex got off Isla Nublar to run amok through San Diego looking for his baby
The story ends on a superb cliffhanger as they take off into the jungle; three Velociraptor out in the wild, on the loose! Of course, this is now the conclusion to Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and the starting point for the final film in the series, Dominion, but this was published in 1994. As a teenager this was even before the Tyrannosaurus rex got off Isla Nublar to run amok through San Diego looking for his baby in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, so I can’t emphasis enough how excited I was for the next issue back then.
Despite the unnecessary return of Muldoon this was a hugely enjoyable adventure strip for Jurassic Park and one of the best so far, reading like the proper sequel to the original film it was intended as. It’s certainly a worthy follow up, continuing to build upon its story month after month and now, with the new art style bringing a freshness, a larger sense of excitement and better representations of the characters, I’m looking forward to seeing where it all leads.
After a huge chunk of dino action the issue is rounded off with Foundling, our nine-page back up Cadillacs and Dinosaurs strip. A quick glance at the first page will show regular blog readers this is actually Xenozoic Tales (second back up in six issues from #4) under a new name. The Cadillacs and Dinosaurs cartoon series was based on creator/writer/artist Mark Shultz’s cult comic and had just started broadcasting on the Cartoon Network in the UK, so while the strips were still the same, the cover and contents page changed the name to try to entice fans of the cartoon.
Christine Courtier is back on colouring duties and, while I miss Steve White’s colours, in an episode told mainly in flashback Christine’s darker, more atmospheric palette perfectly suits the story. Again Jurassic Park is selective about which stories from the original comic series to reproduce (page count could be a major reason) and in this case we jump forward to #6 of Xenozoic Tales, missing out a handful of tales from the last time we saw Tenrec and Hannah.
“I could feel his hot breath on my neck, then he galloped past me as if I wasn’t even there.”
Hannah Dundee
At points the story is actually a flashback within a flashback. Hannah is telling Tenrec about Maia Abrelatas, a lady whose son went missing years before when he was only three-years-old. She’d begged the governors to renew the search but they’d refused and Tenrec apparently just looked on as they did so. Within this flashback we flash back again to the time when the boy went missing out the back of her home. Later they’d found hyena tracks and blood and concluded he’d been dragged inland, where it was too dangerous for humans in this future world populated by dinosaurs.
Back to the original flashback and Hannah went out to track him after Maia saw him at her window. The governors dismissed this claim but Hannah found a child’s footprints and tracked them. She was almost about to turn back after a day when she eventually found him. Unable to speak, the boy instead drew words using stones, each letter inside a square. This instantly reminded Hannah (and me) of the Grith using Scrabble tiles to communicate with Tenrec. Just like them the young lad can understand her but can’t speak.
Above, the dinosaur that charged her was just a distraction (she does comment how this was strange for that animal) because she then lost the boy in the think forest, spotting him latter with the Grith far off in the distance. Continuing to track them to the entrance of a cave the scene below is terrifically designed by Mark, full of atmosphere and thrills. The story ends with Hannah confronting Tenrec, his association with the Grith and apparent nonchalant attitude earlier leading her to the conclusion he knew about the boy all along.
It turns out the Grith saved the boy after he was mauled by the hyenas and raised him, but now they can’t let him return home because he knows too much about them, even thinks like them. However, he’s at that age where his curiosity is putting him in a dangerous position as he tries to find out more about his origins, so the only solution is for them to take him far away from his mother and for Tenrec to continue the lie. What started out as another adventure strip ends on this heartbreaking reveal, which is a complete surprise.
Then, so it doesn’t end on too much of a downer the last two panels reveal all that horror faced by Hannah was actually the Grith trying to make sure she found her way back home, all finished off with Tenrec being his usual, casual self and asking about food. I’m sure any child buying the comic after watching the cartoon would’ve got a bit of a shock at the tone and the mature storytelling. As a Jurassic Park comic reader this is a great return to the unique and original Xenozoic Tales, no matter what name the editor gives it.
The last three pages are all advertisements, beginning with the latest issue of Manga Mania which I mentioned earlier and the first issue of a new comic based on the Street Fighter II videogame which was all the rage. I saw this and thought that couldn’t have lasted long but I was wrong, Manga Publishing in the UK released 16 issues altogether, the same as Jurassic Park in the end. I know which one I thought deserved to run longer though.
Finally for this month there was big news for fans of the movie on the back page.
I love the way the Velociraptor‘s eye is made to look like the amber that was so important to the film’s plot. Even though I visited our local rental store every single Saturday (because it was closed on Sundays you had the tape for twice as long for the same price) I never rented Jurassic Park. The reason was simple, I knew I was getting it for Christmas to own so I wanted to wait for my own copy before seeing it again for the first time since the cinema. So I waited (im)patiently instead.
While getting a much lengthier main strip was exciting I still prefer the comic’s three-strip format. To this day my favourite issues belong in that first handful after the sequel began in #6. But with hindsight, knowing we’ve only two issues left I’m very glad it changed so we could get three more full stories before the rug was pulled. The next of those stories will be reviewed inside Jurassic Park #15 on the blog on Thursday 6th October 2022.
Another issue of Dark Horse International’s UK version of Jurassic Park hit shelves 28 years ago today with a slight redesign to the cover, an even split inside once again and a few extra pages, although not quite the number it had before. Michael Golden’s cover is framed this time and the text is reduced, resulting in us being able to see more of his excellent art. Such a shame the best cover art of the series wasn’t given this treatment last month, eh?
The monthly comic had always totalled 36 pages but last month this plummeted to 28. There are 32 here so it’s slowly returning to its previous size and it’s made up of 16 outer pages made of a higher quality grade of paper, with the inner 16 the usual matt. Just like last month the Jurassic Park strip and the Age of Reptiles back up are given the same amount of room to breath, so with the increase in pages that’s 14 a pop. A nice chunky read this month and it’s a corker.
Steve Englehart’s official sequel to the first movie continues with the first part of Rush!, however on the contents page it’s listed as ‘Raptors Attack: Part One’, the name of the four-issue mini-series in the US, the first story of which was Rush. A strange decision by editor Dick Hansom, particularly when it’s not explained and at the time, without the aid of the internet to look such things up, I assumed the comic was making up a name on the contents page and I didn’t know why.
But that’s not important. What is, is that this sees the first steps in a story which may seem somewhat familiar to fans of later instalments in the movie series decades later. Doctors Ellie Satler and Alan Grant wake up after supposedly having blacked out when their plane crashed (we’re told the jungle was so thick it slowed their fall just enough) and find themselves guests of a man named Raphael in the middle of Colombia. But it’s not just our human characters he has taken in.
We find out Raphael is known as the “Columbian Criminal” by US politicians, although he says he’s innocent because the drug trade would continue whether or not he was in charge, he just profits. He comes across as a charming individual, but his isolation in the middle of the jungle, hiding from authorities while maintaining his empire, has made him somewhat paranoid. He believes the crash has delivered the perfect solution. Knowing all about Hammond’s island thanks to his links in the corrupt government, he’s going to train the Velociraptors to be his guard dogs to protect those profits.
As you can see above the dinosaurs aren’t happy about this at all. Caged up with electronic collars, the ferocity of the animals trying to get at our heroes through the toughened glass is perfectly captured by penciller Armando Gill, inker Fred Carillo and colourist Renée Witterstaetter (who, as always, is also Story Editor), with John Costanza’s letters working a treat at conveying the sound of their fury. Only two ‘raptors are being trained so far though, the third is being kept separate and still recovering from their injuries, only alive thanks to Ellie’s intervention last issue.
While the American government continues to track their plane, the doctors try to convince Raphael what he’s attempting is impossible, but he uses humankind’s taming of wolves as an example to prove them wrong. Raphael even tells Ellie, while she tends to the wounds of the injured ‘raptor, that if it is indeed impossible he’ll have no more need of her and Alan. They’ve no choice but to help. Above you can see his first attempt at control while Alan and Ellie watch on helplessly.
This continues for a few pages and the reader begins to feel sorry for the ‘raptors as they continue to disobey, trying to escape, their anger at Raphael clear in their eyes and getting electrically shocked again and again. Alan and Ellie beg him to stop but it falls on deaf ears. He’s completely crazed and doesn’t understand why they’d wish to protect animals who would tear them apart given half the chance. Eventually they tire, looking beaten, completely defeated. But they’re faking it to stop the pain, regaining their strength for one final attempt at attack.
The artwork has definitely gone up a notch
Things conclude for now when our heroes’ protests become too much for Raphael and, combined with his annoyance at the dinosaurs’ disobedience, he orders them to go and tend to his new pets. A ‘raptor in a cage weakened from a shotgun wound is one thing, but being thrown into another with these two is something else! This is the cliffhanger for now and I can’t remember what happens next, so the dread is likely reminiscent of that I felt back in 1994 when I also had to wait a month for the answer.
While it’s the same creative team behind Rush! as we had for Dark Cargo, the artwork has definitely gone up a notch. The dinosaurs in particular look how they’re supposed to again and the story was incredibly exciting as a teenager. Remember, this was a few years before The Lost World: Jurassic Park so we hadn’t seen anything like this yet, we’d only seen these creatures on the island, nowhere else.
If you were to read this issue and the following chapters (from what I remember of them) for the first time now the impact may be somewhat diluted after the five movies that have followed, but I’m still just as thrilled as I was back then because that’s how I instantly feel when I open each issue, like it’s 1994 all over again. This was the only sequel and it was developing the original movie’s plot in ways I’d never imagined.
It feels epic yet it’s ultimately a small tale of two dinosaur packs so we’ve got to know the individuals involved
Moving on to the second half of the issue and it’s hard to believe we’ve only had seven parts to the simply brilliant Age of Reptiles, superbly written and intricately illustrated by Ricardo Delgado with the bright and vibrant colouring of James Sinclair. The connection I feel I have with these silent comic stars makes it feel like I’ve been enjoying the strip for a lot longer. It just feels so epic yet it’s ultimately a small tale of two packs of dinosaurs so we’ve got to know the individuals involved, each one standing out with their body language or distinct markings.
We begin with the Deinonychuses walking alongside a huge Ultrasaurus. Initially we think they’re maybe just heading in the same direction, or using the huge beast as cover, but then she begins to tire and eventually collapses, dead from a series of smaller wounds inflicted on her by the pack. But in a moment above that shows the brilliance and the humour of Delgado, they realise they’re not alone for this potential feast.
Regular readers of the blog may recognise some of the characters below, although I must say I’m a little disappointed they’re only in this for a page or two and that’s it. Being named in #9’s ‘Cast of Characters’ I was looking forward to their introduction, especially Hades, our red Carnotaurus friend here but they’re no sooner introduced when the story moves on. But their presence is important. As a result, all but one of the Deinonychuses want to make a run for it, as you can see in the funny series of panels below. This is what I meant by how Ricardo is so good at character through body language.
Surprisingly, while we’re led to believe Hades and his team’s arrival would lead to a fight over the food, instead a battle takes place between Dark Eye, the current Deinonychus leader who listens to the worry of the pack members and leads them away to fight another day (in the photo above see the bottom panel, dino on the right), and Quetzal who wishes to stay and claim their prize (the angry looking one).
There’s a bit of back and forth, then the rest desert Quetzal to fight for the food alone, but she leaps on top of Dark Eye and next thing we’re underneath a huge skeleton in the barren landscape for a leadership battle.
This continues for another page or two and at one point they rush each other, claws bared as they pass and we see blood fill the frame. But whose was it? In the end, in a shock twist, Dark Eye is the one to fall, leaving Quetzal to assume control.
I loved the suspense here (played out over more space than I can show you) and was genuinely surprised when, panel by panel, I saw it was Dark Eye who had lost. I was even more surprised to see the amount of blood and to know they’d actually been killed.
Age of Reptiles isn’t a strip for those who like to rush through their comics, this is for people like myself who really take their time, savouring every little detail in each panel before moving on to the next. Especially since this strip contains absolutely no words at all, establishing characters, changing scenes, times of day and handling transitions all through visual queues. There are so many little details that come together to tell this story, you’ll spend just as long with it as you would with a wordy strip from any modern comic.
So what could this turn of events mean for the pack in their war against the Tyrannosaurus rex families? With their new, dangerous leader at the front the final page of this penultimate chapter sets a moody scene as they return to their nest where one of the rex females had previously killed so many of them. On the one hand it’s disappointing to know there’s only one more part of this wonderful story to go, but on the other it’s the moment it’s all been building to. I’m so glad my memory has failed me and I can’t remember how it ends because I’m as excited as I ever was. I can’t wait to see the conclusion.
A consistently great title, Jurassic Park has evolved and changed over the past year. My favourite format was definitely when we had three strips consisting of the film sequel, the strip set in the age of the dinosaurs and the sci-fi futuristic strip with added dinosaurs. But from memory the rest of the comic’s run would be two strips, with just the one back up, like this and last month’s issues. That’s not to say there are no more changes afoot, however. For now though, there’s another month’s wait ahead until I find out how these cliffhangers revolve themselves. Issue 13’s review will be up from Thursday 4th August 2022.
It’s been a long wait for this issue of Jurassic Park so I’m chomping at the bit to get stuck in. I can remember as a teen being overjoyed to finally see the comic appear again, however my initial reactions once I opened it were mixed. First of all this is my very favourite cover of the whole series. No, a Velociraptor doesn’t really take control of the plane, it’s just a funny reference to the main story inside. To this day Michael Golden‘s cover still raises a giggle which I’m sure was the intention. I just wish it wasn’t covered with so much text.
But then came a little bit of disappointment because I discovered there were eight less pages, reduced from 36 to 28 and there was only the one back up strip, no Xenozoic Tales in sight. I’d been really enjoying those stories but at least Age of Reptiles was still here and it was as magnificent as always. Things would (begin to) return to normal next month but initially I didn’t know this so I wasn’t sure if Tenrec and Hannah would return. What is here is great fun though, so let’s get going.
In the world of Jurassic Park small, seemingly inconsequential actions can have catastrophic consequences
The final part of Steve Englehart’s Dark Cargo begins with the pilot doing what humans always do in the world of Jurassic Park; proving that small, seemingly inconsequential actions can have catastrophic consequences. Feeling the plane’s weight shift about he puts it on autopilot and goes to help George Lawala, finding he’s already killed one of the juvenile ‘raptors. But they don’t see another skulking in the shadows, hunting the two men. It attacks, killing the pilot and maiming Lawala, but not before he’s able to shoot it in the neck.
It’s here when Jurassic Park makes its real point of difference. Dr Ellie Satler (she and Dr Alan Grant were Lawala’s prisoners, check out the previous reviews) hears the gun shot and discovers the horrific scene, the dinosaur dying in front of her. Even knowing it would’ve killed her in a heartbeat and that its siblings must be nearby doesn’t stop her from trying to save its life. It was just doing what it does, hunting prey to eat. I love this page.
A quick note about the artwork. The final panel above is a strange one and at times penciller Armando Gil does seem to draw the ‘raptors in a way in which they’re not really identifiable (sometimes in this chapter it’s also confusing in regards to which one is which and we have to rely on the dialogue to decipher the images), but mainly he has done a great job of capturing the dinosaurs as real world animals (check out his magnificent Tyrannosaurus rex in #6). His action scenes can sometimes seem sparse, but inkers Dell Barras and Fred Carrillo imbue them with great texture and atmospheric shadowing. John Costanza is our letterer and Renée Witterstaetter brings bold colours alongside her role as Story Editor.
“The ‘raptors.. somehow, it’s got to be the ‘raptors..!!”
Dr. Ellie Satler
While Ellie ties a tourniquet around the animal’s neck another ‘raptor is looking on, which Alan spots and distracts, with both it and the final sibling giving chase. Panicking, he dives into an open crate but escapes through a side hatch as the dinosaurs jump in after him. Able to close the hatch and lid he traps them inside, attaches the pulley system and dangles them out the back of the bomber! Well, out there they can’t do any harm. Famous last words, Alan. This is Jurassic Park after all.
Suddenly the plane starts diving and they rush for the cockpit. Refreshingly, they don’t immediately take to the controls and somehow land the plane like in every movie and TV show ever. Instead, Alan admits the only thing he recognises is the wheel and he tries desperately to stop them crashing, not really sure what to do. The plane is being pulled about and the autopilot was knocked off, but why? Ellie is sure it has to be the Velociraptors, but how? Take a look at the page above.
I remember reading this at the time and being thrilled with the intelligence of the dinosaurs, especially this lot. You have to remember before the first movie came along the general public had a vision of dinosaurs as stupid big lumbering lizards. Jurassic Park changed all that and I can distinctly remember that same feeling of excitement from this comic. The swinging crate pulls the plane further down, Alan struggling to level it off in a desperate bid to stop it nosediving when we get to this month’s cliffhanger.
The voice from the other side of the binoculars is going to be key to how this story develops from here on. It’s a more exciting cliffhanger than the one which led to a two month wait, so thank goodness we’re back to a monthly schedule again. I can remember parts of the strips to come, in particular what Ellie saving one of the ‘raptors will mean later, and I can’t wait to revisit these stories and compare them to the movie series we’ve had since.
For now, take a good long look at this piece of gorgeousness.
As I said at the top of the review there are only two strips this month, with our main story and the one back up getting equal space of 12 pages apiece. So we’re straight into the Age of Reptiles. It opens with the panel at the top of this post, which certainly sets the scene! That is followed with the above spread and I find myself just completely immersed in this world again. Still up upon the cliffs, the Deinonychuses attack the T-rex pair. They put their all in, I’ll give them that, but they never stood a chance.
One is kicked over the side and lands in deep water below, quickly swallowed up by a giant ocean predator. The remaining two are swiped off the side by a glancing blow from a ‘rex tail, one landing hard on the rocks at the bottom of the cliff, dying instantly but breaking the fall of the other. Throughout this, and the rest of the story, the individual characters really shine through, as you can see from this selection of highlights below.
From being taken by surprise from behind, to the horror of their friend dying, to the little baby T-rex being coached to hunt by their parent Long Jaw, every dinosaur here is an individual brought to life by the genius of creator/writer/artist Ricardo Delgado and colourist James Sinclair.
The youngster spots Dark Eye who is clearly deliberately wanting to be chased, as you can tell from that final panel above. That pose almost says, “Me?”. Haha, it’s brilliant. The young inexperienced hunter doesn’t realise it’s a trap and gives chase. When his prey disappears behind a rock he follows blindly, right into an ambush of half a dozen of Dark Eye’s pack. Long Jaw is the adult T-rex and suddenly he realises he’s alone! He runs through the forest in desperate panic, following the trail or possibly the scent and finally comes upon this scene on the final page of the chapter.
I vividly remember seeing this image for the first time back in 1994. The towering Long Jaw roaring into the sunset, the flying predators already circling and the heartbreaking image on the ground. It was truly shocking. I’m sure I wasn’t the only reader who’d loved the tiny little ‘rex, such was his depiction in this and previous issues. We’re racing towards the climax of Age of Reptiles and I know it was big, I know it was ultimately a very satisfying conclusion, but for the life of me I can’t remember how it ends. It was 28 years ago after all. I’ll impatiently wait and see.
Both of these strips ratcheted up the tension so I’m really looking forward to the next issue. This one may have been thinner than any other in the series and down one strip but what is here is superb from start to finish. Plus, I’ll just mention how much I love that cover image again. To finish with the final two pages contain more of those retro adverts, the first of which is for a video release of a show I remember being on TV at the time, and the back cover is for a comic magazine from Dark Horse International that would end up saving Jurassic Park from an even earlier cancellation. More on that later in the summer.
Just on a personal note, it’s so strange to look back and see a video for £10 that only contained one episode of a show. I do remember buying Babylon 5 on VHS, each volume costing £8.99 and containing only two episodes. It’s crazy to think back to that now when we’re so used to box sets. Two Christmases ago I was able to purchase the entire five seasons of B5, 111 episodes for £40 on my Apple TV! (All restored to their original aspect ratio and remastered by the way, just to let fellow fans know.) How times have changed.
Anyway, back to Jurassic Park and that’s where we leave things for now. The next issue’s review will be here from Thursday 7th July 2022 and by then I’m sure most fans will have seen the brand new film which is due for release tomorrow as of the time of writing. Suddenly, remembering buying these comics is making me feel very old!
Another exciting Gil Kane cover that bares absolutely no resemblance to anything that occurs inside, or any other issue or even the movie. It’s the second of two covers from the American preview comic, the previous one shown off last month. That Topps Comics preview contained two small strips set before the events of the movie and the first was underwhelming to say the least. The second, the headline story inside this issue, is far better and concentrates on the man we all loved to hate, the person behind all the chaos, Denis Nedry.
Portrayed by Wayne Knight in the film, Gil produces a great likeness here while not getting so hung up on it that he ends up expressionless. Betrayal is written by Walter Simonson and tells the tale of Nedry’s arrival on Isla Nublar to work on the computer systems that would be so instrumental in the creation and eventual downfall of the park; networking of computers, park systems, zoological simulations and crowd control measures all make up his complicated job. Dick Giordano (Detective Comics, The Sandman, Superman vs The Amazing Spider-Man) joins Jurassic Park to ink Gil’s pencils, John Workman returns as letterer, as does Renée Witterstaetter as colourist (and Story Editor for this and the sequel story later in the issue).
Some fans online have mistakenly said there’s an error in Nedry’s and Hammond’s relationship in the film. Hammond‘s favourite phrase was, “Spared no expense” and yet Nedry is constantly saying he’s underpaid, his boss unwilling to negotiate. Here, Simonson picks up on a plot thread from the novel that the film touched upon (and those fans missed) and elaborates on it. Nedry’s bid was very high, no expense was spared, but it was made before he knew the secret of what the attractions on the island actually were. Once he found out he thinks he underbid, but Hammond is a man who honours his word and expects others to do the same.
Realising the fortune Jurassic Park is going to make Hammond, Nedry constantly tries to spin that his work is going to be far more complicated than first estimated, but really it’s not true and he’s just pushing for more money. Hammond doesn’t budge. His computer experts perfectly relayed to Nedry what was required, the fact the animals are dinosaurs doesn’t change anything. Six months in however, Nedry begins to realise extra money will never be forthcoming from his computer work and when he overhears Henry Wu discussing the embryo laboratory he clicks that’s where the money is, in the dinosaurs, and their embryos are perfect for smuggling off the island.
The story ends with his first attempt at reaching out to Ingen‘s competitors but for me the real meat of the story is seeing the beginning of the relationship between these two characters. Also, unlike the previous prequel story (Genesis) foreshadowing isn’t shoved in our faces, instead it just concentrates on telling a good story based around a key plot point in the movie, with the characters at its heart. Hammond comes across as a bit too cantankerous at points compared to Richard Attenborough‘s charming portrayal and more like he is in the novel, but in the end it’s an interesting little prequel and a nice addition to the comic.
There’s no Xenozoic Tales this issue so the remaining strips get more room to breath, although I do miss Tenrec and Hannah. They’ll be back, though. Alongside the eight-page Betrayal and the ten-page Dark Cargo (for a meaty 18 pages of Jurassic Park) is Ricardo Delgado‘s always stunning Age of Reptiles which makes up 11 pages, sandwiched in the middle. It starts off serenely with a large Ankylosaurus enjoying some bark from a monstrously sized tree that dwarfs even this huge dinosaur. Then they hear a noise and step to the side to have a look around the tree. Personally, I think the way this simple gesture is drawn is just so full of character.
I was beginning to feel sorry for the peaceful beast who now found themselves outnumbered three-to-one against our favourite predatory rascals, the Deinonychuses. As you can see from what happens on the next page I needn’t have worried. This is enough to make the smaller dinos run off, beaten with one swipe of a tail. I just love this big action shot though, especially since the build up was so peaceful, it’s such a surprise! We get another little respite when we check in on the Tyrannosaurus rex pack as Long Jaw arrives back and nuzzles the noses of his mate Talon and their baby, with the other male Blue Back and his mate Climber looking on.
The whole pack is angry and soon Long Jaw sees why. The large circular nest is empty of all its eggs except for a few pieces of broken shell and one last intact egg, tucked in next to Talon. We then get a double-page spread and a really brilliant moment as he looks down at evidence of who robbed their nest and, even though a T-rex‘s face shouldn’t be that emotive, we can tell he knows exactly who was responsible. The way Ricardo lays this out with his face between the footprint and those same feet now on a nearby beach is just genius.
Look very closely at that big panel in the middle of the page. Have a look up into the cliffs and, amongst the silhouettes of the craggy terrain you should spot the shapes of a head and a tail. I’ll admit I don’t think I ever noticed this the first time around back in the 90s because it surprised me when I spotted them now. It’s so subtle, I love it. It also leads on to the climax of this issue’s chunk of the story.
After filling their bellies with the eggs the three thieves start making their way up a very narrow path along one of those cliff faces and come face-to-face with our two female Tyrannosaurs. Their size and power in comparison is perfectly captured and I particularly like the overhead view showing just how trapped the smaller dinos really are. There’s even a tiny bird looking on. Little details like this amongst all the action and drama is a trademark of Ricardo’s and one of the reasons I love his work so much.
The leader of the Deinonychuses turns and barks orders at the others, one of whom turns and runs at the T-rex coming up behind them, the story cutting off for this issue as they leap into the air, claws bared. Age of Reptiles was never intended to be told in this way; it was created as a graphic novel to be read from beginning to end in one sitting. But it just works so well, editor Dick Hansom doing a great job of knowing when to edit to make each piece feel like a complete chapter. It’s a great cliffhanger. (Yes, that was very much an intended pun.) However, it’s a particularly frustrating ending this time, which I’ll explain after the third and final strip.
“Phooey on your ‘Chaos’! We’ve got boats, planes, radar…!” Renny
“So does the war on drugs.” Dr Ian Malcolm
Steve Englehart‘s Jurassic Park: Dark Cargo continues with Dr Ellie Satler, Dr Alan Grant and the juvenile Velociraptors transported from boat to a huge air transport and during the flight our human heroes eventually awaken to find their cage surrounded by the hissing, clicking raptors. One tries to pick the lock of the cage just as they did to their own, but Alan’s broken belt buckle from his failed attempt, still caught in the lock, stops them. They run off, the pilot noticing shifting weight so George Lawala (the first in a long line of greedy humans who would underestimate the intelligence of dinosaurs) goes to investigate. He frees Alan and Ellie and gives them shotguns, the chapter ending with them all searching the huge plane.
That’s the main plot out of the way. That’s not to say it isn’t fun, it certainly is, it’s just there are two individual pages elsewhere in the story involving subplots that really stood out to me. The first involves the army’s continuing attempts to clean up the mess of the island’s failed park. Having tracked Alan and Ellie to the beach they’re at a loss as to where they are. For me it’s great to see the new character, INgen‘s Dr Fischer back again (he first appeared in #6) and I’m still hoping we get to see more development of him in the future. But it’s the person on the next page that elicited the highest level of excitement when I read this back in 1994.
Of course, nowadays we’ve seen Dr Ian Malcolm, so memorably played by Jeff Goldblum, in The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and he’ll be returning again in the sixth film, Jurassic World: Dominion later this year (at the time of writing). At the time his return was a complete surprise. If the comic had a proper editorial and Next Issue promos I’m sure this would’ve been mentioned before it happened, so for once I was glad of the minimalist approach. It meant the surprise was kept until this very moment. He just appears in this one sequence as he recovers from his injuries from the movie but it’s exciting to see the character in this first official sequel, and he’s perfectly drawn by Armando Gil and Dell Barras (with John Costanza on letters and Renne colouring).
Also mentioned here is ‘The United States Central American Command Center’, or ‘CENTAMCOM’, the comic’s own take on the real world CENTCOM and the resources they have in their search. It brings a larger scope to the background story that’s slowly developing while the main plot focusses on our two main characters. I always enjoyed these aspects of the films, always wishing they’d delve deeper into the inner workings of INgen and the larger world within which the stories were set. Then it all ends with the biggest shock of all. Under the final panel we’re unceremoniously told #11 wouldn’t be on sale until Thursday 9th June. What?
This issue went on sale on Tuesday 29th March 1994, so suddenly my favourite monthly comic was telling me I had to wait ten weeks for the next chapters to all these stories. Can you now understand why I was so frustrated earlier? The use of the JP logo on the cover instead of the previous title graphic (I love the logo but preferred the previous one for the comic) was just the first big change to come. Ironically, this issue felt once again like the first one I bought, settling back into a great format after a couple of months of trying to fit too much into its 36 pages. But that would all change. I’ll go into that next time because at this point originally I hadn’t a clue why there was such a long wait. You’ll just have to wait to find out too.
I’ll finish off with a look at the very-90s adverts this issue contains. There’s a teeny tiny liddle widdle radio which would’ve been right up my alley back then and it isn’t dissimilar to that given to Bond by Q in Skyfall many years later. The back cover has an advert for Dark Horse International‘s Manga Mania as the animation style started to take hold here, mainly thanks to Akira (with a hint of things to come for Jurassic Park on the bottom-left of its cover) and there’s a convention to match. Finally, those highly expensive phone-in competition lines which, when you think about it, should never have been in the pages of comics such as this (or the magazine Commodore Format I was collecting at the time which had plenty of them) when so many young readers could be tricked into spending a fortune on their parents’ phone bills. (No, I didn’t.)
So, with a clifftop battle in full swing and a pack of deadly Velociraptors on board a cargo plane we have to be patient and take a breather from the comic for a while. It’s difficult enough to not read ahead but this is going to be ridiculous! I’ll just have to cope somehow. The next Jurassic Park review will be here from (big sigh) Thursday 9th June 2022, just one day before the release of the next movie in fact. Oh, now I’m all excited again!
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