Category: Aliens
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Has Warren Ellis read this issue? Because it reminds me a lot of his first issue for Ultimate Nightmare. It’s better than that comic, but very similar. Verheiden opens the issue with a bunch of psychological reports of people freaking out because of the alien–just being near it. It’s a cool idea, the aliens driving…
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The second issue is, generally, fine. Verheiden tries to fit way too much in and his use of Hicks as a narrator is problematic (Hicks is very well-spoken for someone who didn’t talk in the movie much… maybe he just read a lot and kept to himself). The art becomes a bit of an issue,…
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Here’s why I trust Dark Horse on licensed properties. It’s a misplaced trust, I’ve learned as I’ve gone back to read their comics as an adult, but Aliens still holds up. It’s an earnest attempt to make a sequel to the movie, but it also adapts for the comic form. There are dream sequences and…
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The whole series collapses here, thanks to Verheiden’s absurd sense of self-importance. In six issues, he destroys the planet Earth. Wait, no, he doesn’t. In one issue he destroys the planet Earth. He didn’t really hint at that plan until this issue either. He uses Newt as a narrator again and it’s just as bad…
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Yuck. Verheiden writes the majority of the issue–maybe all of it, I can’t remember, my brain is on strike–from Newt’s perspective. He narrates the issue with her. It’s awful female narration by a male comic book writer. Probably not the worst ever, but it’s hideous. The plotting isn’t bad–though I’m not sure why Hicks is…
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Almost the entire issue is told in summary–it’s not bad, actually, since Verheiden is using a layered narrative (he’s gone on to write crappy Superman/Batman comics, hasn’t he? That’s unfortunate). He resolves the whole thing with the aliens on earth, which is both good and bad. It’s nice he was able to resolve it in…
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Has Warren Ellis read this issue? Because it reminds me a lot of his first issue for Ultimate Nightmare. It’s better than that comic, but very similar. Verheiden opens the issue with a bunch of psychological reports of people freaking out because of the alien–just being near it. It’s a cool idea, the aliens driving…
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Here’s why I trust Dark Horse on licensed properties. It’s a misplaced trust, I’ve learned as I’ve gone back to read their comics as an adult, but Aliens still holds up. It’s an earnest attempt to make a sequel to the movie, but it also adapts for the comic form. There are dream sequences and…
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Stradley really doesn’t “earn” his ending here. He decides, on the last issue, to make it all about the protagonist reconciling with her demons and choosing life. It’s inspiration and heart-warming and not at all the story he’d been writing up until this point. Only this issue and the previous one even hint at the…
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Stradley compresses here. Weeks and weeks. Maybe even a month. It’s okay until he gets to the action part of the issue, which is then far less interesting than it needs to be. He follows the civilians (the protagonist’s sidekicks who haven’t really done anything since the first issue–oh, wait, her boyfriend’s there) for the…
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The romance between the protagonist and the nerdy guy doesn’t work. He’s not really a nerdy guy, of course, because he used to be in the Marines. Or something. But he’s basically the nerdy guy. He’s even got a nerdy name–I think Die Hard ruined the name Ellis for anyone serious. But part of the…
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Wow… it’s a good issue. All throughout I mean. There’s even a big action sequence at the end and it works. Probably because Stradley writes the sequence instead of just provides a list of actions for Leonardi to draw. As for the art, it’s still terrible. I might have to revise my opinion. Maybe Leonardi…
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Whatever my problems with Leonardi–they go on and on–I have to give him credit. He draws a female character in, basically, a bikini and doesn’t do it with any of the cheesecake objectification most comic book artists would. In fact, I didn’t even realize it; it just seemed the right outfit. (It’s a human wearing…
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It has a flashback. It has an actual flashback to explain the events in previous comic books to explain to the reader what’s pertinent. I tried the Dark Horse relaunches of Aliens and Predator. Both were atrocious on almost every level, but they also didn’t have any flashbacks to explain the ground situation to readers…
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All right, I’m clearly missing something here. Not only does my android question go unresolved, so does the two major questions the series raised–why are these aliens different than those previously encountered and what’s the deal with the mystical alien canyon? The letters page this issue tells the reader to stick with the comic continuity,…
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Ok, so, a little more information–there was an alien invasion of earth, which I kind of remember from the old Dark Horse comics. Old as in before Alien³. Still, not sure what’s going on here. The android’s a weak lead, but there aren’t any other good options. The supporting cast is all weak too (they’re…
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Thought balloons. Arcudi uses thought balloons. I haven’t seen a thought balloon in a new comic in so long, I thought it was some kind of stylizing error (the character also talks to himself so it’s possible). Um. Otherwise. Huh. Aliens is a competent book. Arcudi doesn’t do a bad job, but it’s all in…
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Wow, Zach Howard’s good. Never heard of him before (or maybe I have), but he’s great. Seems a little bit wasted on an Aliens relaunch (seeing as how the first issue is mostly people, just a couple xenomorphs and Howard clearly is putting more into the composition of the people panels). The rest of it,…
The Stop Button 