[Review by Doug Glassman, who Tumblrs at Hell Yeah '80s Marvel!]

I applaud Dark Horse’s attempts to collect the numerous Aliens comics in order of publication, but a conflict between Aliens Omnibus Vol. 2 and Aliens Omnibus Vol. 3 made me skip reviewing the second volume for the time being. The last story collected in Omnibus Vol. 2, “Colonial Marines," is a failure of a maxi-series that took two years to publish ten issues (cut down from a twelve-issue run). Over a dozen Aliens, Predator and AVP projects were published in the meantime, including “Rogue," the first mini-series collected in Omnibus Vol. 3. The ending of “Colonial Marines” ultimately tied into the (much better) “Rogue”… but “Colonial Marines” was published in the Omnibus Vol. 2 published before Omnibus Vol. 3 with “Rogue," making the ending of Omnibus Vol. 2 nonsensical.

Actually, because the Aliens comics continuity is so loose, it’s easy to just switch the Omnibus numbers and consider this book I’m reviewing the "second volume" instead of the third. After the superlative Aliens Omnibus Vol. 1, the Xenomorphs have infested Earth and rendered it uninhabitable. All of the stories in Omnibus Vol. 3 take place in space and on other planets, as do most stories from this era of the franchise. Corporations still reign supreme now that humans have spread out past any effective form of government. All the same, the films’ Weyland-Yutani still doesn’t appear. Is it because of rights issues, or have they been bought out by another, even greedier and more corrupt corporation?

Omnibus Vol. 3 contains seven stories, with three shorts from the Dark Horse Presents anthology closing out the book. The “Advent/Terminus” two-parter is a little dull and hard to read due to weird lettering, but oddly prescient of the first Aliens Vs. Predator film. “Horror Show," set in an insane asylum, definitely needed more time to be developed, as it expands on Mark Verheiden’s ideas of Xenomorph telepathy. Sandwiched between is a unique story, “Reapers," by John Arcudi and Simon Bisley. It’s told without dialogue to let Bisley’s amazing artwork shine. Instead, we watch as the Xenomorphs meet up with a species who literally eats them (well, their eggs) for breakfast. The titular Reapers apparently never made another appearance, which is a shame; I’d love to see them square off against the Predators or even the Engineers/Space Jockeys.

Two of the main stories, the aforementioned “Rogue” and also “Labyrinth," are more or less the same story told in different ways. Both feature mad scientists raising Xenomorphs to do their bidding on a remote space station, with a corporation representative and a driven female pilot opposing them. It’s actually eerie how the female pilots look identical; if the creative teams weren’t different, I would’ve guessed that “Labyrinth” was a prequel to “Rogue” with the names changed by the editors. “Rogue” features Ian Edginton, writer of my beloved AVP: Eternal, in his first work for the franchise, joined by Will Simpson on the art. The villainous Ernst Kleist is a delightfully creepy and ruthless antagonist, and I can’t help but love his scheme. He’s able to create docile cloned Xenomorphs, but he can’t create a cloned queen . . . so naturally, he creates an “Alien King” to overthrow a real Queen and take over her hive. It’s hard to make a Xenomorph look “wrong," but Simpson does it (in a good way) with the King due to bizarre mouth tentacles which make it look like a Zoanoid straight out of Bio-Boosted Armor Guyver.

“Labyrinth," by Jim Woodring and Killian Plunkett, has sketchier art but an even more intriguing villain. Paul Church is surprisingly sympathetic for a mad scientist, and the detour to tell his origin is actually the highlight of the story. His scheme isn’t as grand as Kleist’s; that might be why he’s far more successful. Plunkett has some of the book’s weaker art, but he does manage to pull off a jump scare in the middle of a comic book, which I didn’t even think was possible. He also draws Church’s origin story on black paper, which enhances that chapter in much the same way as Den Beauvais’ Nightmare Asylum artwork.

Speaking of Beauvais, “Sacrifice," which sits between “Rogue” and “Labyrinth," is fully painted, in this case by Paul Johnson, yet another Aliens creator recruited from the pages of 2000 A.D.. Writer Peter Milligan seems to have taken the religious themes of Alien3 as a challenge; he ends out outdoing the film on those grounds. It’s one of two stories in Omnibus 3 which tackle religion, in this case putting a female priest on a distant planet with a Xenomorph out in the forest. You can see the ending coming after a while, but it’s worth reading just for the art, including a protagonist who looks an awful lot like Jesse Tyler Ferguson from Modern Family.

The other religion-themed story is “Salvation," which was initially put in a trade form with Sacrifice during the original round of trades. As if to one-up its trade partner, the artwork here is from Mike Mignola, so if you’ve ever wondered what Aliens Vs. Hellboy would look like, now you know. Following the “Rogue”/”Labyrinth” paradigm, “Salvation” is similar to “Sacrifice” in broad strokes. Dave Gibbons spins the tale of a stranded religious man and his struggles with an abusive captain and hostile world. Had the final panel not been a splash page of a silly-looking spaceship with a gigantic and out-of-place cross painted on it, this story could well have been Eisner-nominated. It’s that gorgeous and well-done.

There are really only four Aliens plots when you boil it down: alone on a ship, bug hunt, stranded on a planet, and mad scientist scheme. Even the films realized this; they map out to those four basic plots in order. It all comes down to the talents of the creative teams, and in that respect, Aliens Omnibus 3 shines.

Next week, I return to Marvel NOW! and Kate Bishop’s other gig in one of the most unique team books from a mainstream publisher.

[Review by Doug Glassman, who Tumblrs at Hell Yeah '80s Marvel!]

One of the biggest appeals of the Aliens vs. Predator franchise is that to use the Xenomorphs, you don’t have to explain what they’ve been up to since their last appearance. There are millions (if not billions) of them spread out throughout the universe, and their motive is simple: they want to breed. They just happen to require the bodies of living creatures to do so. As a result, you can take the Xenomorphs and cross them over with other characters without requiring a lot of backstory. They’ve met Batman, Superman, Green Lantern Kyle Rayner, Judge Dredd, Witchblade, and even the Terminator (although, surprisingly, not Robocop, despite that franchise crossing over with The Terminator).

Because of the inter-company crossover nature of those stories, they aren’t canon. Few stories of that stripe can be, apart from JLA/Avengers. The Stormwatch: Final Orbit trade contains another exception: the infamous WildC.A.T.S./Aliens, which will unfortunately not be reprinted in the upcoming Stormwatch: Vol. 2. But publishing rights aren’t the only reason why it won’t be in that volume. As it turns out, the Stormwatch team doesn’t really appear in WildC.A.T.S./Aliens at all. Only a few living members factor into it; the majority of the Stormwatch cast are slaughtered before the WildC.A.T.S. even arrive on Stormwatch’s orbital headquarters.

Warren Ellis famously used WildC.A.T.S./Aliens to change the entire Wildstorm status quo so that he could introduce The Authority. Under the aegis of Jackson King, the Weatherman, Stormwatch protected the Earth and beyond in a fairly standard superheroic manner. This kind of guardianship wouldn’t be conducive to the Authority’s antics, so they had to go; why not do it in the most gruesome and publicity-grabbing way possible? It helps that they got Chris Sprouse and Kevin Nowlan to draw the crossover. As much as I like Jim Lee, his slick style of art wouldn’t have worked for a mass-slaughtering horror story.

As for the WildC.A.T.S. themselves, I know about them mostly from their appearances in the New 52 titles and -- just to show my age -- their short-lived animated series. Mind you, I can’t really name any of them off-hand apart from Grifter and Maul. The WildC.A.T.S. may be the only team with two warriors wearing their hair in high-off-the-head ponytails. Zealot and Warblade are sometimes indistinguishable due to the dark coloring; I’m happy that they identified Zealot in this book very quickly, because otherwise I would have pegged her as Glory. The team was going through rough times during this story’s publication, so there’s a lot of arguing, with ex-lovers Grifter and Zealot doing the bulk of the sniping. They also have a manager patterned after Justice League International’s Oberon, which I didn’t remember the team having on the cartoon.

So if Stormwatch isn’t the focus of WildC.A.T.S./Aliens, then why is this a Stormwatch trade? Well, the trade includes issues #10 and 11 of Ellis’ tenure on the title, which take place before and after the crossover one-shot. Wisely, the trade was designed to sandwich the one-shot between these two issues, so that you can read them in the proper order. I decided to do a little test: could I understand what happened to Stormwatch by reading just those issues without WildC.A.T.S./Aliens? You can certainly do that, but the end result is anti-climactic. The Xenomorphs aren’t shown in the Stormwatch issues; when their asteroid ship appears in issue #10, it’s at the end, so there’s a cliffhanger about what will happen with the heroes. In issue #11, the Stormwatch members are already dead and buried, and we’re not told the details of how; the WildC.A.T.S. aren’t even shown!

Going into this, I knew a little more about Stormwatch than I did about WildC.A.T.S., mostly because of The Authority and DC’s current Stormwatch ongoing. None of the killed-off members have made appearances in the New 52 as far as I can tell, since DC’s Stormwatch is essentially The Authority plus Jackson King and the Martian Manhunter. Honestly, reading these issues after reading The Authority really does feel like I’m taking a step backwards. The Stormwatch heroes are visually rather bland, and King’s struggles with funding just aren’t that interesting of a story. When the UN decommissions Stormwatch, it feels like what would have happened even if the Xenomorphs didn’t attack.

At the very end of Stormwatch: Final Orbit, Jenny Sparks, Swift, and Jack Hawksmoor come out of hiding and brutally attack recurring villain Henry Bendix. This is the true start of The Authority, especially because the art is by Bryan Hitch and Paul Neary. Parts of both issues were drawn by Michael Ryan, and his art is a little less detailed but still high-quality, but the final pages were by Hitch and Neary specifically to flow right from Stormwatch into The Authority.

There are many ways to clear out a comic’s status quo, from dismissing members in conversation (like in Avengers: Avengers World) to just rebooting the universe entirely (like in Justice League: Origin). Warren Ellis would have likely killed off most of Stormwatch anyway, so the fact that he was able to use the Xenomorphs to do so is just a bonus. The presence of the WildC.A.T.S. is intrusive, and if it had been Stormwatch fighting for their lives against such a powerful threat versus just dying off-panel, then I think this would have been a much better story.

If you’re just a fan of Aliens, there’s not much here for you. That said, Ellis puts some good work into this crossover, aided by Sprouse and Hitch’s artwork. Since it might not be reprinted any time soon, if you’re a fan of The Authority, you can just pick up the one-shot if you can get it at your LCS. Alternately, since comiXology hosts most issues of WildC.A.T.S., there’s a possibility that WildC.A.T.S./Aliens might one day be put up there. Otherwise, Stormwatch: Final Orbit is a decent buy, cataloging the fall of early 1990s extreme comics and the rise of the more mature era of the late '90s.

[Review by Doug Glassman.]

Movie adaptations are a tricky business. You have to stay as close as you can to the original material while adapting it from one medium to another. Often, the script is an earlier version, containing scenes or characters cut from the final film. That’s without factoring in the artwork and maintaining likenesses. One of the best film-to-comic adaptations is of Ridley Scott's original Alien. It was published in Heavy Metal back in 1979, and Titan Books put out a gorgeous rendition, Alien: The Illustrated Story just in time for the release of Prometheus.

The book’s cover tells you exactly what you’re in for. Walt Simonson’s rendition of the xenomorph is utterly terrifying. You can’t tell from the image above, but this is an oversized paperback; Heavy Metal is a full-sized magazine, giving the artists more room to work. As a result, the xenomorph on the cover is gigantic, taking up 2/3 of it while lunging diagonally at the viewer. The xenomorph’s most inhuman feature is its head, and Simonson takes advantage of the angle to show off the elongated, eyeless cranium. The reverse has the image of when the crew finds the Engineer’s ship, which makes up a massive two-page spread on the inside. It’s as breath-taking in the comic as it is in the film.

Archie Goodwin sticks very closely to the plot and script. Most of the dialogue is intact, including the cursing, which sort of surprised me, though Heavy Metal has always been raunchier than normal comic books. The character voices are all solid, but some of the characters run together, especially Kane (John Hurt) and Brett (Harry Dean Stanton). It helps that Dan O’Bannon’s original screenplay is excellent, with a crew of competent people and one sinister android. I do like that Ash’s bizarre “running in place” spasm was cut; I never quite got why he did that.

Goodwin and Simonson first collaborated on Manhunter, and Simonson’s sense of storytelling is top-notch. He’s not afraid to come up with different panel layouts, such as having smaller panels on top of what would otherwise be a full-page spread, which is one of my favorite illustrative techniques. One great example of their combined storytelling skills comes at the very beginning, with the classic scene of the crew awakening from hypersleep. The lights come up over the controls and Dallas’ eyes slowly open over a series of four panels. I do need to mention the ingenious title illustration, which looks like it was drawn by H.R. Giger himself. Goodwin pairs it with a quote from Joseph Conrad, whose books provide the names of the Nostromo and the Narcissus. Simonson also keeps the characters looking like their respective actors.

The film’s centerpiece -- from the discovery of the ship to the chestburster -- actually plays out better in the adaptation. In this version, the ship is discovered in daylight, so you can see even more of the details. This might simply be a function of changing mediums, since the stormy night of LV-426 never lets up in Alien or Aliens. At first, the discovery of the Engineer’s body seems a little less grand, but if you look closely, it’s another case of layering panels on top of a splash page. All of the grandeur is still there beneath the storytelling. A row of panels conveying the opening of the egg is still suspenseful, even though you know what’s about to happen.

In the dinner table scene, Kane looks even worse than he does in the film, and the ensuing chestburster scene has one major advantage over the film. This time, we don’t see it scurrying away in a silly manner. I think Spaceballs had it right when they redid this part of Alien and redubbed it with “Hello My Baby.” In this case, we don’t see the chestburster’s legs -- instead, its lower body is blocked by a stream of blood, and there’s only a bloody trail showing where it went. The chestburster is also much, much larger in this adaptation, and it’s not just a matter of it being drawn so that it’s lunging at the reader. Goodwin and Simonson actually kept the adaptation as scary as the film, which is impressive.

There’s actually a third component to this creative team: John Workman, the best letterer in comics. He’s known for the dramatic sound effects in Simonson’s The Mighty Thor, but here, he creates the sense of the Engineers’ message with a stream of broken-up red letters. When one engine on the Nostromo lights up, he draws a massive “BRAMM” over it. Brett’s message to Kane after he’s been attacked by the facehugger has blood dripped on it, almost as if blood has been sloshed on the “camera.” Even the computer language, when Brett and Ripley communicate with Mother, has an interesting red and orange tone to it. The colors have been completely redone for this edition and look spectacular.

Walt Simonson’s artwork and the Aliens franchise are two of my favorite things in comics, and it’s pleasing to know that the two have come together. For a long time, Alien: The Illustrated Story was a lost gem. Along with this edition, there’s an even larger “Artist’s Edition” which features Simonson’s original pencils and various stages of creation. It’s a tempting buy, but for now, if you’re a sci-fi or horror fan, make sure to pick up Alien: The Illustrated Story.

[Guest review by Doug Glassman]

In my review of AVP Omnibus Volume One, Aliens vs. Predator: Eternal barely got a paragraph, and most of it was spoiler-warned. Now that I own the single trade, I felt it was time to return to this fantastic story.

Like all good AVP stories, it’s the future, although it’s not so far in the future that it seems removed from where we are now. Wars are still being fought, and covering an African war is Becca Shaw, a gorgeous English reporter. Becca isn’t exactly Ellen Ripley or Machiko Noguchi, but she holds her own as a character and doesn’t grate on the reader’s nerves. She also keeps up with the rapidly changing situations of the comics, occasionally getting one step ahead of the reader and the other characters. The ending hints at a sequel with her character, and it’s something I’d like to see.

Becca’s reporting is interrupted by a gunshot from an invisible assailant, which sends a possible peace agreement into a murderous frenzy. Have the Predators turned to political warfare? No, they’re humans wearing technology derived from the Predators, including cloaking devices, IR helmets and shoulder cannons. These men work for Gideon Suhn Lee, an opportunistic Asian businessman. I call him “Asian” because this is just one of his many identities over hundreds, if not thousands of years of life. He began as a lowlife scum somewhere in Asia until a botched “snake oil” elixir killed a bunch of villagers. This is when he stumbled upon a crashed Predator ship and gained the secret to eternal life. Lee’s greed and self-obsessed nature define him; he fancies himself a schemer, and he does pull off some good plans. His eternal youth was granted by a mysterious aspect of the Predator ship.

This is the big spoiler that I couldn’t reveal in the Omnibus review. Eternal life is granted by… eating Predator flesh. At first glance, this is a stupid concept. Why have we never heard about this before? Well, think about it: almost all of the contact between humans and Predators has involved hunting, and if a human found a dead Predator during a hunt, would they really try to see if its meat tastes good? They’re either on the run from Xenomorphs, more Predators, or Topher Grace, so there’s not a ton of time to rest and try it out.

It reminds me of a conversation I had with my mom a while ago, wondering how humans figured out which parts of the cow tasted good, or if sea urchins were edible. That takes a lot of experimentation; Lee could have just as easily died from eating something with glowing green blood, just as early Japanese died a lot from eating fugu before they learned how to cut it properly. Thankfully, Ian Edginton doesn’t try to explain it with some sort of technobabble. He just puts it in as a plot point, as Lee has begun hunting Predators for more flesh. His success also makes sense: many of the Predators that come to Earth are younger and are more vulnerable to human ingenuity.

You might have noticed that I’m talking a lot about the Predators. That’s because the Xenomorphs are only barely relevant in the story. Their infestation of Tokyo’s sewers almost seems like an afterthought. I wonder if Edginton wrote a Predator story and had to turn it into an AVP story by order of the editor. Despite the thrown-together feeling, it actually helps the story. There’s a great “silent” battle scene, wherein the two species fight without any dialogue or word boxes getting in the way. These kinds of fights pose a challenge to the illustrator, and Alex Maleev is up to the challenge.

Maleev loves his shadows, and with two races who love to play “hide and seek” with their victims, he gets to indulge in them a bit. At the same time, he draws some excellent regular art, including some very expressive characters. He does indulge in a little “cheesecake” with the armor Becca wears towards the end. It’s so outrageously skintight that it almost seems like an intentional joke. (Nipple armor, for God’s sake!) The art also tends towards squatter Predators, which is a legitimate portrayal versus a taller, thinner one. Not every Predator is a basketball player; one of the title creatures in Predators was played by Brian Steele, who was also Harry of Harry and the Hendersons and Samael in Hellboy, both broad and massive creatures.

I also need to mention Glen Fabry’s beautiful covers, which are collected in full in this edition. This trade is actually the source of the cover image for the AVP Omnibus Volume 1. Fabry’s art is far more solid in nature than Maleev’s, and the image of the Xenomorph on the cover of issue 3 is one of the more terrifying versions I’ve seen in a while. It’s one of the few times that I’ve found the second mouth more menacing than silly.

I stand by my assertion that Aliens vs. Predator: Eternal deserves to be made into the next film in the franchise. Since reviewing the Omnibus, I’ve started writing my own adaptation. With strong characters, a nicely complex plot and beautiful artwork, this is perhaps the best AVP story outside of the core trilogy.

Slightly off-topic, I have found my white whale, and it is Uncanny X-Men: The Draco by Chuck Austen. The author alone may convey the reason why I need this book. At its core is a plot hole so massive that it’s sucked me in. However, I can’t find it for less than double the cover price. If you have a copy of this stinker and would like to get it off of your bookshelf and into a good home, leave a message in the comments and we’ll work something out.

[The second of Doug Glassman's two-part review of the Aliens Omnibus. Read part one here.]

From the end of "Outbreak" in the Aliens Omnibus, we follow Wilks (formerly Hicks from Aliens), Billie (the grown-up Newt), and Billie’s damaged android boyfriend Bueller as they discover a bioweapons outpost—the first human contact they’ve had in weeks. Unfortunately, said outpost is headed by General Spears, a madman in the vein of Dr. Strangelove’s General Ripper. If you’ve read some of my old reviews, such as Carnage: Family Feud and Sinister Spider-Man, you’ll know that I love gloriously insane villains, and General Spears is in the top tier. He keeps his outpost under his thumb with promises of glory and instant death sentences for anyone who opposes him.

What puts Spears at the top of the crazy general pile is either a fluke or a connection between two distant pieces of the franchise. I mentioned River’s rescue in Serenity in the previous review, and continuing the Joss Whedon connections, "Nightmare Asylum" features a general who wants to breed, train and control the Xenomorphs. It seems a lot like the blueprint for Aliens Resurrection, and Spears, in both looks and tone, is very reminiscent of Dan Hedeya as General Perez. Whether or not Whedon gleaned any elements for his film from the comic, I can’t say, especially since his script was infamously mangled for the film’s production. However, the connection kept coming up as I read on.

Spears’ delusions of Xenomorph control are partly encouraged by the hive mind from "Outbreak," but I think he was crazy enough to try it anyway. The Xenomorphs are seemingly trained to follow orders using Pavlovian methods. Orders are issued to the drones through their queen, and if either disobeys, they are immolated in special tanks. They are conditioned to fear fire . . . or at least, that’s the plan. In a great moment of comeuppance at the end, it turns out that the Xenomorphs weren’t trained at all. They were faking it, and when they are released to fight the hive infecting the Earth, Spears is dead almost immediately.

Perhaps the story’s most striking image is conveyed in the one cover used in the Omnibus as a story divider: Xenomorphs with army stars and insignias painted on their heads. In part it’s because the idea of controlling such violent creatures is an intriguing idea; Aliens vs. Predator: Three World War actually accomplished it. But the other reason is that it’s the first taste of Den Beauvais’s art. The entire four-issue miniseries was painted, and it’s absolutely gorgeous. Not only is the action extremely clear for a painted work, but it was also printed on black paper. As a result, the shadows are heavy one moment, but then you turn the page and find a brightly-lit operating room, changing the visual tone completely. I wish Beauvais would do far more work in comics.

Another striking image leads into the final collected miniseries. After a narrow escape, Wilks and Billie are reintroduced to a long-awaited figure. Ellen Ripley returns as the star of "Female War" and completely steals the story away from Wilks and Billie, for both good and ill. Billie getting shoved into the background takes away from a narrative thread continued from "Nightmare Asylum": she has been monitoring the video feed of a young girl, Amy, whose messages are being broadcast by automatic satellites. She sees Amy as what she used to be -- a young girl living in fear -- and the connection is immediate, despite having never met in person.

However, Ripley is still a great character to follow. She’s even more angry and sarcastic in this miniseries, especially after the retcon which separates the comics from the movies without any possible reconciliation. Ripley was awoken after only three weeks of hypersleep and coerced into working for the government, which was on the Sulaco’s tail the entire time. I love this retcon; it allows Ripley to grow and maintain her tough status while not losing her adopted family.

The main mission of "Female War" is a bit complex: capture the Queen Mother and bring her to Earth so that she can summon all of her followers into one place, then nuke the entire site from orbit, since it’s the only way to be sure to kill all the Xenomorphs. It’s good to see that Ripley has her priorities straight. One cool artistic feature is that the ship they use to capture the Queen Mother has a large containment cell in the back lined with Xenomorph corpses in an attempt to keep it sedated. It doesn’t work, since as mentioned, the Xenomorphs are smarter than we think. This ship was later turned into the Alien Attacker toy for the Aliens toyline.

Speaking of the art, this time it’s by Sam Kieth, which took me by surprise. However, this was a few years before The Maxx came out, so his art was more reined in by the editors. It ends up being very effective in its use of shadows and in providing an even more nightmarish quality to the Xenomorphs. Like all of the stories in this franchise, it ends with a massive explosion and a seeming victory, but of course, there’s no way to really get rid of the Xenomorphs.

Two short stories finish off this collection. The first is “Theory of Alien Propagation,” presented as notes from the scientist in "Outbreak" and drawn by Mark A. Nelson once more. It’s a simple piece which canonizes the basic detail of the Xenomorph lifecycle while demonstrating the process on a nameless race. The other, simply entitled “The Alien,” is by John Arcudi (in the first of his many Aliens writing roles) and Tony Akins. It wraps up a subplot left over from "Female War," wherein the Space Jockeys are terraforming Earth to their own liking. A human delegation takes out one of the beings in a way similar to the death of such a being in a recently-released motion picture.

The rest of Aliens Omnibus Vol. 1 isn’t quite up to par with the first part, but it’s still a fantastic ending to the saga. This is a must-buy if you like the franchise, especially if you’re on an Aliens kick after Prometheus.

[Join Doug next week for our special Guest Reviewer Marvel Week!]

[Guest review by Doug Glassman]

During the six-year stretch between Aliens and Alien3, Dark Horse Comics turned to screenwriter Mark Verheiden to create a comic book continuation of the it first movie. What resulted, collected in Aliens Omnibus Vol. 1, not only redefined the franchise, but also brought Dark Horse into the spotlight. I have so much to say about the first part, “Outbreak,” that I’m splitting this up into two reviews.

“Outbreak” answers one of the franchise’s major questions: “Why do these stupid humans keep trying to capture, breed, and even train the Xenomorphs?” The answer is a combination of two major themes: the Xenomorph hive mind has a telepathic influence, and humans are utterly greedy bastards. Drawing from the scene in Aliens wherein the Queen reacted strongly to Ripley destroying her eggs, as well as the Xenomorphs’ strong communication despite lacking sense organs, Verheiden extrapolated a powerful psychic influence. A “Queen Mother” on their homeworld induces motherly feelings in other beings, drawing them towards her and her children so that they can continue to breed. Artist Mark A. Nelson takes it a step further and uses the Xenomorph’s toothy grin as a memetic image of this psychic link.

But the Queen Mother’s plan wouldn’t work if humans didn’t bring themselves down due to their own sense of superiority and drive for money. The government still wants to capture the Xenomorphs and breed them as weapons. A private company, Bionational, wants to get there before the government and is willing to commit piracy and even murder to do it. I’m not entirely sure if Bionational is meant to be Weyland-Yutani and was changed in the reprints, or if it was always its own company, but either way, it’s similarly corrupt. The leader of their mercenaries, Massey, is an incredibly cold-hearted soldier despite his first appearance as a family man. He quickly becomes the “designated human villain” of the piece, much like Ash and Burke before him.

Verheiden moves between a number of plots and subplots, including the escape of an infected salvage pilot (and his “Incident at Owl Creek Bridge”-style demise) and the priest responsible for the memetic infestation. Verheiden predicts the speed of media with the “eye-box,” which uses messages as short as a second to gain the attention of viewers. An image of the Xenomorph is all that is needed; people start having dreams combining their mother and the creatures. Although the term "xenomorph" was used in Aliens, “Outbreak” came out it was applied as the official term for the creatures; instead, they’re simply called “the Alien,” used as both a singular and plural interchangeably due to the strength of the hive mind.

Hicks and Newt are the stars of the series, but they have been renamed “Wilks” and “Billie.” This was supposed to keep the comics in-canon after the characters were killed off in Alien3 and the books were reprinted. The situation gets complicated during “Female War,” as the characters return to their regular names in the first part . . . and then become Wilks and Billie for the rest of the story. I’ll refer to them by their new names, as their experiences have turned them into new characters.

Billie is now all grown up and even nuttier than before; not even the advanced psychiatric treatments of the future can get the Xenomorph queen out of her mind. The poor girl has grown up living in fear and with her only attachments to humanity snatched away from her. Wilks, scarred by acidic blood, is still in the Marines, but has settled into a pattern of self-destructive behavior to try to get expelled. The only thing that snaps Wilks out of his funk is the knowledge that Billie is about to be lobotomized. His rescue of Billie involves blowing up a wall of a skyscraper-sized psychiatric hospital and jumping on to a hovering platform. It’s surprisingly reminiscent of the rescue of River Tam in Serenity.

As the story goes on, we meet new characters, such as Billie’s android love interest Bueller, and explore some of the future’s technology, such as gravitationally-balanced ships. In order to fly properly and use their artificial gravity, ships have to meet a weight limit; Wilks has to jettison some food rations to get Billie on board. It’s a minor piece of technology but, like the eye-box, it adds to the world of the future. We also encounter a live Space Jockey for the first time. At the time, no one knew that the Jockey seen in Alien was a suit, and it looked like an alien with a proboscis. Both versions of the Space Jockey share the same malicious intent towards the Earth and have the resources to back themselves up.

Artist Mark A. Nelson is better known today for his work on various source books for role-playing games. He has an excellent use of shadows and his depiction of the Xenomorphs is dead-on, especially the memetic mouth image mentioned before. Nelson’s depiction of the Xenomorph homeworld is incredibly sparse and desert-like. This might seem like a lazy approach, but consider this: with the sheer number of drones, would there really be anything left on the planet? It’s amazing that there are still cacti.

Verheiden leaves it open as to whether the Xenomorphs are actually malicious or just incredibly dedicated to their lifecycle. At the end, Earth is overrun by the creatures and ort heroes barely escape. We’ll pick up on these aspects of the Aliens Omnibus next time in “Nightmare Asylum” and “Female War,” but “Outbreak” works well on its own as a sequel to Aliens, a sci-fi story, a horror story, and even a piece on memetic imagery.

[Guest post by Doug Glassman]

When I reviewed the Aliens vs. Predator Omnibus Volume 1, it was during the lead-up to Predators. I wasn’t the only person excited for the film; Dark Horse Comics used the opportunity to release a number of new Predator comics into the market, much like how Marvel used their various films to launch all sorts of mini-series and collections. These Predators tie-ins include a surprisingly good prequel, adaptation and sequel trilogy for the film. But Dark Horse’s best move was using the film’s popularity to release the long-awaited sequel to the original Aliens vs. Predator story.

Randy Stradley returns to write Aliens vs. Predator: Three World War and complete the story he began all those years ago. Also returning are the planet Ryushi and its most famous resident, Machiko Noguchi, now living among the humans, apart from her clan. As is typical in these stories, the conflict revolves around the relationships between humans and Predators, especially whether the latter should hunt the former, despite the humans' ability to kill both of the titular species when necessary.

The xenomorphs in these stories often get the short shrift ... but then again, there isn’t too much you can do with them aside from people being slaughtered and running away from them. A huge part of their appeal is their mindless monster nature and their sheer inhumanity. Unlike the Predators, aside from being bipedal, xenomorphs are so warped from humanity as to be unrecognizable. Otherwise, you end up with things like the Predalien, the King Xenomorph or the Hybrid from Alien Resurrection which take the concept to really weird places.

What rallies Machiko back into action is a rogue tribe of Predators, called the Killers, who hunt the “normal” Predators and control packs of xenomorphs. These were either inspired by or are the same as the Super Predators from the recent movie, as they are larger, far more violent and hateful of their smaller brothers. I really like this new idea in the AVP universe; now that the Predators are (relatively) kinder, the Killers can act as the truly villainous third faction. The ending hints at a sequel, a development I look forward to.

You will have to read the previous two stories to understand the plot, as the backstory is only hinted at, but fans of the franchise will see all sorts of memorable elements. On the human side, we have the Colonial Marines with their dropships, APVs, cryogenic sleep chambers and an android. On the Predator side, the Killers wear helmets resembling those worn by the samurai, hinting that they have had past Earth encounters similar to Predator 2 or “Old Secrets” from the Omnibus. On the xenomorph side, there is a queen, and that’s really all you need. There are even some internal AVP references, including a fight in a swamp reminiscent of the one from “Blood Time.”  Not to mention, there’s a scene where they actually nuke the planet from orbit.

Joining Stradley for the art duties is Rick Leonardi, a highly regarded Aliens and Predator artist (along with a frequent Peter David collaborator). I was a bit apprehensive when I found out that he was penciling, as I had seen his art in New Thunderbolts and was unimpressed. Many of my art problems often boil down to the inks or colors, and that seems to be the case with Leonardi’s run on that title, as Three World War has some glorious art.

This franchise has two modes, Alien-style monster horror stories or Aliens-style all-out bug wars, and Stradley wisely decided to make this story the latter. An armada of Marine and Predator ships form an epic canvas for Leonardi, with massive space battles interspersed with ground combat. Stradley likes to write fight scenes with either no dialogue at all or just thought captions, and Leonardi is able to convey clear motion in these silent fights.

I should also mention the fantastic painted covers by Richard Swanland, which only add to the epic nature of the book. The cover for the trade uses the cover of the first issue and both draw the reader in with the first view of the Killers. If you saw this on the shelves, wouldn’t you want to know why (and how) the Predators are controlling the xenomorphs?

If you enjoyed the Aliens vs. Predator Omnibus or the stories contained within, this story is a must-read, especially as it provides a solid conclusion to Machiko’s story while opening up a new direction for the franchise. If you haven’t read the Omnibus, go back and read it, and then pick up this book. This is a book not only for the Aliens vs. Predators fans, but all sci-fi fans in general. Three World War brings the bug hunt tradition to a whole new level.

[This review comes from Collected Editions guest-reviewer Doug Glassman]

I’m looking forward to two movies this coming summer. One of them, naturally, is Iron Man 2 (which I’ll talk more about when I review some Invincible Iron Man and War Machine trades). The other is Predators, the long-awaited revival of the Aliens/Predator franchise. With Adrien Brody and Laurence Fishbourne starring, Nimrod Atal directing and Robert Rodriguez producing, it should be able to wash away the lackluster Aliens vs. Predator films. (Maybe I’m being too soft on Requiem by calling it lackluster.)

While awaiting this film, I’d like to go back to the very start of the franchise with the first Dark Horse Aliens vs. Predator Omnibus. This volume collects over four hundred pages of story in digest form for $25. Unlike Marvel's Essentials and DC Comics' Showcases, these keep the stories in full color, if not the original size.

[Contains spoilers for the Aliens vs. Predator Omnibus Vol. 1]

For a long time, I wouldn’t go near this franchise. It’s not because of any quality issues — it’s because, to be honest, both of the titular species scared the living crap out of me. Growing up in Baltimore, I used to go to a shop at The Mall in Columbia called Forbidden Planet (at least I think that’s what it called — feel free to correct me in the comments if you remember the store). It was amongst my first exposures to science fiction and general nerd culture. It also had life-size Alien and Predator models in the front windows which terrified me. Eventually, I saw Aliens and Predator and started to get further into their respective universes. This omnibus is my first foray into the comics, and I was impressed by what I found.


The meat of the book is a pair of storylines: the initial, unnamed story (which will be called “AVP” for the sake of this review) and its sequel “War,” both written by Randy Stradley with art by Phil Norwood (Chris Warner steps in for one chapter). These star Machiko Noguchi who, in the first story, survives a hunt on the planet Ryushi, is branded by a dying Predator hunter, and eventually joins up with them. If this sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because this arc very loosely inspired the plot of the first Aliens vs. Predator film. There are a few other bits picked up by the movie, such as the sequence of the eggs being taken from the queen, but the “AVP” comic has a much tighter plot and a much more interesting main character.

While Machiko is more or less a Ripley clone — pardon the Alien Resurrection pun — she has a nice character arc, going from ice-hearted office drone to action girl, driven by the desperate circumstances around her. Unlike some of the films where you root for the characters to die, the characters presented here, especially the doctor dealing the loss of her husband, actually click with the reader.


“War” picks up one year later with Machiko living amongst the hunters. As they go on another hunt, she meets three other characters … from another comic. It gets a little annoying, in that the story crosses over with Aliens: Berserker, not collected in the omnibus (although it is available in Aliens Omnibus 4). The events of Berserker are explained in enough detail to get the plot moving, but this half of the story falters because of the crossover and in part because, in my opinion, Machiko’s arc moved too fast off-panel. It does wowever wrap up the storyline nicely and sets the stage for Aliens vs. Predator: Three World War, which is well worth a read, even if the trade won’t be out for quite a few months.


Sandwiched between “AVP” and “War” are “Blood Time,” again by Stradley and Norwood, and “Duel,” by Stradley and Javier Saltares. The former is a nearly-silent character piece about a hunt uninterrupted by humans. This is how my dream Aliens vs. Predator movie would play out: no humans, no talking, just a two-hour bug hunt. It’ll never happen, of course, but it’s nice to see that it could actually work. “Duel,” bridging the gaps between the two major stories, is closer to the tone of Aliens, featuring the first sign of Colonial Marines in the comic. It references the “Acheron disaster” (the first film), has one of the few mentions of Weyland-Yutani, and introduces what would become part of the franchise’s nadir: the Predalien. In the book’s defense, the creature is executed much better here.


Ian Edginton takes over writing duties for the final third of the Omnibus, joining up with Alex Maleev for “Eternal," with a story that I can’t bear to spoil here. This is easily one of the cleverest stories in the franchise despite an odd bit of Predator physiology that I don’t think is ever brought up again. If the new Predators does as well as I hope it should, then I’d really like to see “Eternal” adapted as its sequel. (If push comes to shove, I’d even write it myself!) Maleev also writes and draws the tantalizing “Old Secrets,” which folds the Predator into our own history and religion.

The last story is “The Web,” by Edginton with Derek Thompson, and Brian O’Connell drawing the black-and-white art. This is an unexpected mad scientist tale about a character from “AVP” that I had nearly forgotten about. It seemed unfinished, and worthy of a much longer story than the one provided.


After reading these seven tales, a template for the Aliens vs. Predator stories develops. Basically, humans land on a place seeded with Alien eggs, the Predators come to hunt, and the humans get stuck in the middle. Where the stories get interesting is how they play with the formula. “Eternal” and “The Web” use this formula to turn the Predators into prey; “War” and “Blood Time” go into Predator society to understand why they hunt. Because any scenes without humans are essentially silent, the authors use the room to add monologues which speculate on the creatures; Stradley especially uses the interplay of words and images to consider human culture in view of the Predators. This actually gets a little boring after a while, but the art kept my attention throughout.


Thankfully, none of the stories in this volume have overly glossy, early-Image-Comics-style art despite being published in that dark, dark early '90s era. The art is surprisingly non-gratuitous; perhaps the fact that both species of creatures bleed green helps reduce the bloodiness. Norwood and Saltares have a sketchier style to their art, while Maleev’s art is shadowy and atmospheric, much like his later work on Daredevil. In all cases, the artwork is extremely detailed, with care taken to draw every Predator’s mesh outfits, every Alien’s organic ridges and the labels on every piece of human technology. None of this is lost in the shrinking of the pages down to digest size. My only art complaint is again with “The Web,” but only in that it looks like inked pencils and not like a full comic; I would love to see it fully colored and fleshed out. Thankfully, none of the bizarre yellow-green lighting that sometimes makes appearances in Dark Horse books (I’m looking at you, Dark Empire) appears here.


Aliens vs. Predator Omnibus Volume 1 is a great look back to one of the backbone franchises of Dark Horse Comics. Some of it might seem cliché now, but keep in mind that this originated many of the tropes seen in the franchise. The smaller size does nothing to hurt the story and in fact might make the details even easier to see (it's also cheaper than tracking down old issues or out-of-print trades!). Check this out if you’re a fan of the franchise or just of science fiction comics in general.

[$24.95. Does not contain original covers.]

Number 261

Happy Valowe'en!

All of this artificial sweetness about Valentine's Day. Ugh. I'm not against love, I'm against greeting card companies, candy manufacturers and florists telling me when to tell someone I love them.

I found these valentines a few years ago at a local thrift store. The Universal Monsters package is still in its plastic wrap. Now these are valentines that get the Pappy Seal Of Approval: alien abductions, medical experiments in space, anal probes…or the monster valentines: bites on the neck, werewolves ripping people limb from limb, monsters to trample someone and throw them down a well.

Now that says "I love you!" Pappy-style.