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Alien³, Comic Reviews

ALiEN³ MOViE SPECiAL #1: THiS iS RUMOUR CONTROL

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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 Doctor Paul 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 Alien³ Movie 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.

ALiENS iSSUE 2 < > ALiENS iSSUE 3

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Aliens, Comic Reviews

ALiENS #2: TiMMY, THEY’VE BEEN GONE A LONG TIME

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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.

ALiENS iSSUE 1 < > ALiEN³ iSSUE 1

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Aliens, Comic Reviews

ALiENS #1: STOP YOUR GRiNNiN’ AND DROP YOUR LiNEN

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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-Yutani Corporation from the films but we do get an insight into his addiction to a particular drug, a raw form of the slime (or “jelly” as it’s called here) produced by the aliens. It relieves his cancer symptoms and puts him into a sort of trance state where time slows down, his world goes blue and he revisits his memories of how he got to this point. It’s essentially a bit of exposition for the readers.

Having to buy the substance from drug dealers, he eventually met Julian and devised a plan to build an alien android to infiltrate a hive (that explains the reference to thousand of aliens and the title) and bring back the jelly. Stan is in it for himself, Julian appears to be in it for the money, and their mutual desire for the same outcome results in a passionate, mutually selfish love affair. Using the example of ants above and the aforementioned ability to make convincing androids, it’s an interesting set up for the first story in the comic series. There’s also a funny moment when Julian even suggests naming their alien ‘Norbert’!

In their ship The Dolomite they take a crew to a far-flung planet called A6 454 upon which humans have never set foot, and Stan and Julian stand up in front of their crew and ask for volunteers before showing them what they’re there for. As a bit of foreshadowing, revealing their android goes horribly wrong. Not that either seems to care.

I remember seeing scenes like this when I flicked through my friend’s Aliens comics as a teenager and being amazed it could show such images. I’d never seen anything like this in comics before. Anyway, Stan finally uses his override command to stop his android from continuing its killing spree and the final image of the strip has it holding another man’s head and looking directly at Stan. Whether this is where the original first part ended in the US comic or this is where the UK’s comic has cut it off is difficult to say, although the sudden end makes it feel more like the latter.

The first part of Hive is intriguing, full of atmosphere, has plenty of horrific moments and really sucked me into its world. It’s a fantastic start to the comic and this already has the potential to be an excellent read through. As a teen it was no wonder I loved the one issue I picked up if this is anything to go by. It would’ve shocked and scared me, and I would’ve been loving every page of it. Before moving on to the back up strip there’s a bit of news in The Motion Tracker segment and a middle-page spread about the making of Alien³.

I wonder if anyone actually went and rented The Commitments back then just to get a glimpse of the film? It’s interesting that there was a different direction for the film originally planned, so much so that a teaser was made. The Unnatural Selection spread isn’t the easiest to read but it does explain a lot of the infamous difficulties in making Alien³. I’m particularly interested in the various writers and script drafts and the evolution (hence the subtitle) of the story over the years before filming began. If this is an indication of the extras the comic will contain I can’t wait for future issues.

In case you’re wondering, the “Free Comic” on the cover is a sequel to Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons’ Give Me Liberty (which I’d never heard of until now despite it being a best seller) and nothing to do with the Aliens franchise. While the Predator movies would eventually cross over into the Aliens universe, at the time they had nothing to do with the franchise either. However, in comics they were always closely related and thus a perfect choice of back up strip.

Predator: Cold War is written by Mark Verheiden (Phantom, co-executive producer on Battlestar Galactica and Falling Skies), with pencils by Ron Randall (The Dreaming, Action Comics, Supergirl), inks by Steve Mitchell (Aquaman, Batman, G.I. Joe), colours by Chris Chalenor (Barb Wire, The Mask, Hieroglyph) and Rachelle Menashe (The Terminator, Icon, Virus), and letters are by Clem Robins again. Lieutenant Ligachev has been promoted by a General of her army just so he could send her to take charge of an oil field pumping station in the middle of the Siberian nowhere. When their equipment discovers large seismic activity accompanied by high levels of radiation they go to investigate, discovering the decapitated body of a local deer herder, strung up on a pole as if he’s on display, like an animal at the end of a successful hunt.

Soon they’re under attack by a Predator and, upon being hit and half buried in the snow, Ligachev can only watch as her young team are cut down one-by-one by this strange creature. Setting the beginning of the story in desolate ice fields adds a level of desperation to her plight but we soon find out she’s recounting it to a military tribunal who wants to send her back! 

If this is anything like Aliens then she’s probably being sent back out to face certain death in order for the government (rather than a private company) to get access to powerful weapons. As someone who has only ever seen the second movie a long, long time ago this plays out like a typical 80s monster movie, which is no bad thing of course. More interesting is how the rest of this 16-page chunk of the story tries hard to tie it in closer to the film series.

The American military have picked up on the weapons fire and automatically assumed the Soviets were test-firing nuclear weapons, so they reach out to General Philips. He was played by R.G. Armstrong in the first film although here he’s described as having something to do with the “business in New York last summer” and I’m not sure what that’s in reference to. After all, the first film was set in Central America and the second in Los Angeles.

A second character, a New York sheriff, is seen having flashbacks to being attacked by a Predator (while at the dentist no less, so double the horror!) so maybe it’s in reference to an earlier Predator comic, perhaps one printed in Trident’s first volume. Meanwhile, the general goes to meet a Detective Schaefer who turns out to be the brother of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character Dutch, still M.I.A. from the first film. As you can see he’s drawn as another version of Arnie and basically feels like a way of getting the big name star into the strip without actually doing so.

So far, as someone who knows next to nothing about Predator the opening scenes were exciting but the introduction of Schaefer feels a bit like the Jurassic Park comic’s own desperate attempt to get another character from the film into its sequel strip, when it reintroduced Robert Muldoon who had clearly been killed by the Velociraptors in the movie. I’ll not dwell. Going into the Predator strips essentially blind means I can just enjoy them for what they are.

Towards the rear of the comic are three pages detailing some of the weaponry used by the Colonial Marines in the Aliens movie. For fictional weapons the Technical Readout really does go into a lot of detail. If this is the beginning of the comic adding some background depth to not only itself but also the universe of the films then it’s another great start. These pages bring back exciting memories of their onscreen use, especially the M56 Smart Gun as used by Jenette Goldstein’s Vasquez character, decades before “smart” devices became the things to own.

Finally, just as in Jurassic Park (and many Marvel UK comics) we get a comics checklist, although at this stage Aliens was Dark Horse International’s only UK title so it focusses solely on the imported comics available in specialist comics shops. These weren’t as easily found at the time (Northern Ireland only had two such shops back then) so for most of us these were beyond our reach. It’ll be interesting to see this develop as the company settled (at least temporarily) into this part of the world.

With that we come to the end of the first issue and it’s off to a cracking start. The Aliens strip itself is fantastic and it hasn’t really got going yet, but the set up has plenty of potential for things to go horribly wrong for the cocky humans. Predator is also enjoyable and might be more so once I actually watch the films (which I now want to do, so that’s another good point) and the extras are interesting. Lots of potential here. This is a lengthy read through that’ll take us all the way to March 2026, so settle in and come back on Tuesday 23rd July 2024 for the next instalment.

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Comic Reviews, Jurassic Park

JURASSiC PARK #16: FACiNG EXTiNCTiON

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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 (Marvel What 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!

“Spared no expense.”

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Comic Reviews, Jurassic Park

JURASSiC PARK #15: ANiMAL iNSTiNTS

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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 Manga Publishing 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.

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