Dark Horse Presents 34 (November 1989)

Race of Scorpions gets even more amazing this issue… Duranona tells the reader what happens to the story’s protagonists in a little text paragraph at the end of the story. The actual story was spent on some supporting cast members. It’s sort of amazing how poorly plotted this story gets. Dark Horse really just didn’t care what they printed. Lots of perspective failures here. Just a dreadful read.

Zone is getting more dramatic–this issue the reporter gets hurt near a fire and Zone saves him, so all the threads are coming together. Unfortunately, Kraiger’s art, which was no great shakes to begin with, is weakening. His faces are poor here and there’s a lot of them because of the talking about the fire. But it’s not terrible.

Stradley and Norwood’s Aliens story is just a conversation over Norwood’s awesome artwork. It’s probably shouldn’t be effective, but it works well.

CREDITS

Aliens; story by Randy Stradley; pencils by Phill Norwood; inks by Karl Story; lettering by Pat Brosseau. Zone; story, art and lettering by Michael Kraiger. Race of Scorpions, By Water and Stone; story and art by Leopoldo Durañona; lettering by Laura Davis. Edited by Randy Stradley.

Dark Horse Presents 24 (November 1988)

And here debuts the licensed property… Aliens. Luckily, it’s a really decent eight pages. Nelson and Verheiden almost make it feel like it’s just a comic book, not a movie tie-in. What’s really interesting is the aliens. Nelson’s able to draw so much fluidity into his own creatures, when he’s got to draw the movie alien, it feels awkward. The shape is defined by being able to be a costume worn by a person, a hampering Nelson doesn’t have with his own creations.

Duranona’s Race of Scorpions continues to be unimpressive. Some more Star Wars homage and a lot of details. The art, once again, makes it impossible to easily discern the content. And a lot of the writing is just silly.

Arcudi and Miehm’s Homicide is a good police procedural. Arcudi is weak on the cop chatter, but the mystery is good. Nice inks.

Geary’s Police Beat‘s fine.

CREDITS

Aliens; story and art by Mark A. Nelson; script by Mark Verheiden. Race of Scorpions; story and art by Leopoldo Durañona; lettering by Tim Harkins. Homicide, A Whiff of Madness; story by John Arcudi; art and lettering by Grant Miehm. Police Beat; story, art and lettering by Rick Geary. Edited by Randy Stradley.

Aliens vs. Predator 4 (December 1990)

It’s a weak close, partially because Stradley probably needed another issue to fully develop the relationship between the protagonist and the friendly Predator (he also needed space to give it a proper ending), but mostly because Chris Warner is no replacement for Norwood.

Warner kills that beautiful design sense Norwood brings to the book. Instead of the panels being so well-composed it can distract from the narrative, they’re rote. Aliens vs. Predator, between Warner and Campanella, becomes a boring movie tie-in. Norwood made it special.

Even with the action pacing and the lack of narration, Stradley’s able to keep his protagonist strong. Sadly, one of her strongest moments is inferred instead of shown.

Stradley can only do so much. He’s a good writer, he clearly has a decent plot. But he doesn’t have the time to tell the story. He also doesn’t adjust the writing for Warner’s pencils.

CREDITS

Writer, Randy Stradley; penciller, Chris Warner; inker, Robert Campanella; colorist, Monika Livingston; letterer, Pat Brosseau; editor, Diana Schutz; publisher, Dark Horse Comics.

Aliens vs. Predator 3 (October 1990)

The change in inkers makes Aliens vs. Predator look exactly as drab and boring as I’d expected the first few issues to look. Campanella can’t do much to Stradley’s figures, but he rounds out the faces–not all the time, which makes the art disjointed–but definitely in close ups. Everyone looks like they’ve had the definition erased.

The issue’s a solid effort. Stradley is fully into the action part of the story now, so it’s nowhere near as good as the previous two. He’s strengthening his protagonist (while taking away most of her narration), but measuring her arc. She’s not acting out of character punching out a rancher, we just never got her in that situation the first issue.

The story sticks with the people, which is smart. Too much Predator stuff is boring and Stradley uses the aliens for mass effect, not to be scary.

It’s winding down.

CREDITS

Writer, Randy Stradley; penciller, Phill Norwood; inker, Robert Campanella; colorist, Monika Livingston; letterer, Pat Brosseau; editor, Diana Schutz; publisher, Dark Horse Comics.

Aliens vs. Predator 2 (August 1990)

The issue opens with some weak dream exposition. It doesn’t fit the narrator’s voice–Stradley never establishes why he’s using it (I think it’s a callback to the Aliens series where people have nightmares around the aliens)–and it’s a weak opening.

But then Stradley recovers beautifully. Until the end of this issue, Aliens vs. Predator is more a Western than a sci-fi thriller. The sci-fi elements are all well-done, but the narrative tone is straight out of Rio Bravo. He continues strengthening his characters as he introduces the titular elements–lots of aliens and Predator money shots this issue, but it doesn’t feel forced.

Norwood has a lot to do with the art being forceful but not overdone. I won’t say his inability to draw figures is a bonus, however. It’s just how well he composes the panels, how well he implies movement.

It’s good stuff.

CREDITS

Writer, Randy Stradley; penciller, Phill Norwood; inkers, Karl Story, Mark Propst, Brian Stelfreeze, Stine Walsh and Dave Dorman; colorist, Monika Livingston; letterer, Pat Brosseau; editor, Diana Schutz; publisher, Dark Horse Comics.

Aliens vs. Predator 1 (June 1990)

Norwood’s very design-oriented–he’s a Hollywood storyboard guy–and the art suffers for it. The setting, the designs of the human settlement on an alien planet, is great. The panel composition is stunning. The figures are awkward and bad. Everyone’s proportions are off a little bit. They’re too stout for their height.

Stradley’s writing here is really strong–he has a female narrator, but makes distance part of her character (I’m not sure if she’s Japanese because it’s a comic from 1990 about the future of corporations or if Stradley used it to add even more distance, this time cultural). But his establishing of the setting is great too. There’s no lengthy exposition, he just sets it up, makes sure to give everyone important a name within a page or two of their first appearance.

The aliens fighting Predators antics haven’t started yet; it’s just solid sci-fi here.

CREDITS

Writer, Randy Stradley; penciller, Phill Norwood; inkers, Karl Story, Mark Propst, Brian Stelfreeze and Stine Walsh; colorist, Monika Livingston; letterer, Pat Brosseau; editor, Diana Schutz; publisher, Dark Horse Comics.

Aliens vs. Predator 0 (July 1990)

Stradley’s issue is two bored cargo spaceship having a conversation while Norwood’s art shows us all about the Predators getting ready for the Aliens vs. Predator series. First it’s showing the alien eggs, then it’s a bunch of fighting for dominance. The off panel dialogue back and forth constantly relates to the dialogue-less action going on.

The issue is reprints of prologue stories from Dark Horse Presents, which explains why it’s always a surprise when the story continues following a climax in the conversation, but it works.

I’m not particularly familiar with Norwood but he does a fine job here. A lot of the art is just the Predators, which aren’t the most exciting topic, but the composition and designs of alien worlds are good. Story’s lines are nice too–I’d forgotten black and white forces the attention to the artwork.

Stradley’s dialogue, Norwood’s art–it’s a neat issue.

CREDITS

Writer, Randy Stradley; penciller, Phill Norwood; inker, Karl Story; letterer, Pat Brosseau; editors, Stradley and Diana Schutz; publisher, Dark Horse Comics.

Aliens (1988) #6

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 as the previous issue. The problem is with the plot. He’s back in summary mode, but he’s just fitting too much into it–and Newt’s not the right narrator of the events he’s showing.

It’s a downbeat conclusion (and not a sequel-ready one, which is almost encouraging me to read the second series but I think Verheiden wrote it too and he probably horrifically narrates it with Newt).

The series is a big let down from the first two or three issues. Verheiden had too much melodrama to fit into six issues.

Blah.

Aliens (1988) #5

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 even in the comic anymore. He’s practically a villain at this point. Verheiden never bothered establishing a relationship between Newt and Hicks and it didn’t matter when he was telling the story in summary. But now he’s telling it in scenes and the omission is disastrous.

There’s a lot of really cool alien landscape designs here from Nelson. His art hasn’t gotten much better overall, but the design stuff is amazing. Haunting, even. I mean, I remember it from when I was a kid.

But it doesn’t make up for the narration.

Aliens (1988) #4

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 a quick amount of time (basically last issue and this one), but it’s hurried in an unexpected way.

There’s the whole evil corporation angle here (like in the movie), but Verheiden doesn’t spend a lot of time dealing with it in scenes. So this issue, when he finally has some of these evil corporation types running around, they seem really silly–just as fanatical as the religious fanatics… but he doesn’t seem aware of it.

Again, Newt and Hicks mostly get the shaft on page time. Verheiden’s dismissed them as the series’s protagonists.