Aliens: The Original Years Volume 2

About the only bad thing I can say about this collection is that I didn’t think it was quite as good as Aliens: The Original Years Volume 1. Given how highly I rate what’s been done with the Alien franchise in comics, that can’t be taken as a criticism though. These are all great comics.

Specifically, what you get here are a bunch of stories that ran in Dark Horse publications in the early 1990s (the rights to the Alien comics line were sold to Marvel in 2020, so that’s why these Epic Collection anthologies are published under the Marvel logo). There are three main stories on tap, introduced by a few shorts. Here’s the line-up:

Countdown: a team of space marines tries to escape a planet with a Xenomorph infestation problem. One of the survivors has a little secret. I knew where this was going but it was still great.

Reapers: I did not know where this was going! A funny Aliens story from the great Simon Bisley. This is a quickie with a surprise gag ending that actually made me laugh. Not a twist I was expecting!

The Alien: the president has to go negotiate with one of the Xenomorph-hating Pilots, who is terraforming Earth for its species to colonize. The Pilot isn’t someone to be negotiated with, but the president has a nuclear-option bargaining chip.

Genocide: a pharmaceutical company that makes a super-steroid named Xeno-Zip needs to harvest a special chemical ingredient contained only in the “royal jelly” of a Xenomorph queen. A joint corporate-military mission is sent to the Xenomorph’s home planet, now riven by civil war, to grab some of the stuff. You may have sensed by now that all of these stories tend to play on basic plots and characters introduced in the first two films (the military-industrial complex seeking to mine or exploit other worlds, the kick-ass but ultimately out-of-their-depth marines, the slimy, soulless corporate hack, the question of who’s human and who’s an android, etc.). What’s odd is that the stories are all so fresh regardless. They add just enough stuff that’s new that every story has its own character.

Hive: a different team are looking for that royal jelly, now described as “the most sought-after consciousness-altering substance in existence.” Giving it a further gloss: “It gives some an intense feeling of well-being and competence. Others experience levels of their own being not normally perceived. Still others have an orgasm that seems to go on forever.” Sounds great! One of the scientists on this mission is addicted to the junk. The great new element here is that they’ve invented a robot Xenomorph to help them. Why hadn’t they thought of that before? I mean, if they can make human androids that nobody can tell aren’t real it wouldn’t seem too hard.

Tribes: this isn’t a comic but a novella with lots of art work. The art is great; the novella isn’t. I couldn’t finish it. Maybe it just wasn’t my thing.

Aliens: Newt’s Tale: this is basically a graphic version of the 1986 film Aliens, except told from Newt’s point of view. There’s some new material at the beginning giving Newt’s backstory but otherwise it’s a quick run through the highlights of the movie, including most of the main moments and memorable lines. Although Hudson’s “Game over, man. Game over!” is oddly missing. I guess it hadn’t become a meme yet.

So aside from “Tribes” this is a line-up of great, (mostly) original stories, each illustrated by a different artist in a distinctive style. I particularly liked the work of Kelley Jones in “Hive.” Another can’t-miss title then in the terrific Alien comic franchise. This is a series that, for decades now, has never seemed to miss.

Graphicalex