With the Disney Corporation buying Fox it was only a matter of time that the decades long partnerships between the Alien and Predator franchises came to an end with Dark Horse Comics, a company who have been producing successful and popular entries to both worlds (and their shared cross-overs) for as long as I can remember. Not only does Marvel face the daunting prospect of producing a well made and well received Alien comic, they have to compete with what came before and win over the fans of Dark Horse's works. Not an easy feat by any means.
The comic follows Gabriel Cruz, a Weyland-Yutani security chief who's retiring from company life following a career that has caused him damage to his family relationships, the loss of friends, and some pretty deep and dark trauma. We see brief flashes of Gabriel's past scattered throughout the issue, of a time where he seems to have been on a failed mission where most, if not all, of his team were killed by Xenomorphs. The details on this are still very light on the ground, and I expect that the slow revelation of this information will be an important point for this story.
The information we do get is fairly interesting, however, as it seems Weyland-Yutani sent their team to capture a Xenomorph in their continued effort to weaponize the creatures. There's also hints that there was something inside the hive that we've never seen before, some kind of bio-mechanoid like woman who bears a striking resemblance to H.R. Giger's Li 1 painting. It's not clear if this is some kind of new Xenomorph variation that we've never encountered, or a strange kind of hybrid, or even possibly an hallucination, but it does look like Wey-Yu are experimenting with Xenomorph hybrids later in the issue so it could all very well be related.
What I really liked about this mystery back story, however, was that it was being explored in a way where we could see how it was affecting Gabriel, how it all still haunts him. Through conversations he has with his psychologist, a Bishop model android, we get to get inside his head and see that inner workings of a man who I'd imagine doesn't normally open up much.
The issue isn't all about Gabriel though, as we also meet his now grown up son Danny. Danny visits his father once he's back on Earth, and we see the very strained and damaged relationship between the two of them. Danny also uses this as an opportunity to steal his fathers access to the orbiting research station Epislon. We discover that he and his girlfriend are opposed to Wey-Yu, and are something like activists and corporate terrorists, and that they believe the company is up to no good (spoiler alert, they always are).
Once on board the station Danny and his friends expect to find a server farm, but instead find a lab filled with bizarre Xenomorph experiments and hybrids, and as you should expect from a story like this, things go wrong and the creatures begin to escape.
I'm very much expecting that the relationship between Gabriel and Danny will be a big part of this story, and that Gabriel will either have to go to Epsilon to save his son, or ends up joining with the anti-Wey-Yu faction if Danny ends up dying on the station. Either way, I think this relationship is going to be a major catalyst for bringing Gabriel into conflict with the Xenomorphs, and probably the company too.
I liked that the book put Weyland-Yutani front and centre in things, that it wasn't just a shadowy group pulling strings in the far background like in the original trilogy of films, but an active participant in events. Decades after the events of the films they've finally managed to get their hands on the creatures they've wanted, and seem to be getting away with their dangerous experiments. Fans of the series have always been told how bad it would be if they ever got hold of an alien, but now we're actually going to see it unfold, and I'm definitely okay with that kind of story.
No comments:
Post a Comment