Comical Books: 80's "Aliens Omnibus, Volume 1"

Confession: I'm an "Aliens" guy.

Not that I think "Alien" is a bad film, it just didn't blow my skirt up.¹ It has some great visuals and classic moments. But it wastes too much time on people walking down hallways and wandering through empty rooms. A whole lotta long set-ups for jump-scares that only work once. On repeat viewings, when you know what's gonna happen, it's not atmospheric. It's just boring.

My biggest beef: only ONE measly alien?! "Aliens" spoiled me rotten with an army of those jokers. Plus, it had the Marines taking 'em on. Consequently, when I finally saw "Alien," I kept shouting "Why don't they fight back?!?" Because "Aliens" taught me that when you see an alien, you blast it with a flamethrower or pulse rifle.

Which brings me to this here comic collection, which was made in the late 80's/early 90's by some other folks who favor "Aliens" over "Alien."

Dark Horse Comics was a pretty new company at the time and this was one of their earliest titles.² This first omnibus was originally released as three graphic novels, never in single-issue comic book format.

Overall assessment: It's okay.

They made a bold narrative choice in the first section: Earth gets completely overrun by the aliens and the human race abandons the planet. Then there's an alien on one of the escape ships and it turns out a super-cray-cray military guy is trying to breed the aliens to create an army that will serve only him. And in the last part, Ripley returns and fights some more aliens.

The quality varies wildly. Some panels are exquisitely shaded and composed. And some look like this.

They do a lot of cool, wide-angle stuff that just wasn't possible with the pre-CGI effects technology of the time.

There's some planet that also has dragons that's menaced by the xenomorphs.

And remember the giant Nostromo ship from "Alien," the one with this joker?

Well, unlike the convoluted creation myth hypothesis in "Prometheus" that tells us that thing was an outfit concealing a member of a proto-human race that seeded Earth with their DNA to create us...this comic tells us that thing was just a member of some random alien race.

And their motivation is to let the aliens attack us and overrun our planet so that one day we can return to Earth and reclaim it from the aliens and THEN this giant Cthulhu-elephant-looking thing will enslave all humanity in a weakened state on our reclaimed planet.

Running the long game there, man. Good luck!

Now, gotta say there are too many direct shout-outs to "Aliens." Much as I love that film, I don't love pandering. And these comics repeat several of its best lines³ and recreate several of its best scenes. Over. And over. And over.

It's at its best when it's doing completely nutty and unexpected things, like with the televangelist who starts an alien-worshiping cult, convincing his followers to sacrifice their bodies to the alien hosts.

The first two "Alien" films had strong anti-corporate, anti-institutional leanings. So it makes sense that the military leaders are evil here. But the commander who ruthlessly kills people left and right on his way to creating an army of slave xenomorphs is just too evil to be believed.

He never twirls his mustache, but he comes close.

Other nitpick- this is not what brains look like.

It looks like someone's intestines were blasted out of their forehead. That's not where intestines are stored. I've checked.

So overall- this is a neat bit of "Aliens" fan fiction in comic form. It's obviously not canon, since every narrative choice it makes is nullified by the films in the franchise that followed.

It's better than "Alien vs. Predator" but not as good as "Alien: Resurrection."⁴

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1. Plus I saw "Aliens" first. I recorded it off HBO- on a Beta cassette- and watched it exactly one gazillion times when I was six. I didn't see "Alien" until my voice cracked, so I was a bit harder to impress by then.

2. I always wanted to read it, along with "Aliens vs. Predator," but I couldn't find any issues until I was old enough to be too old for them.

3. "Eat this!" "They mostly come out at night," etc.

4. "Alien 3" I could give or take. "Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem" I saw on Christmas in the movie theater with my dad and just loved, even though it's awful.

-Phony McFakename

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