Presumably, the very, very important Communist character would’ve had a more significant part in the movie. However, in the comic adaptation—in Johnnie Christmas’s adaptation, anyway—not so much. Maybe because their story is entirely the Aliens thriller and suspense sections. It’s unfortunate, though, only because the conclusion—where they talk about how we’re supposed to share these new worlds in peace or whatever—doesn’t work without having better emphasized the Soviets. Or whatever they’re called.

To get over rough spots—where he doesn’t have time for the action sequences—Christmas once again lets Alien 3 feel like a comic adaptation, not an adaptation of an unproduced screenplay. Christmas rushes through the alien action sequences, as they keep breaking out, page after page, as the survivors realize there are a lot more aliens around than they thought. Luckily, Hicks has a weapon—“you have no weapons of any kind”—so they’re not helpless.

There’s also what should be a tense action sequence for Lance Henriksen’s Bishop, who gets a far better arc in this version than the produced movie. Unfortunately, it’s not particularly tense in the comic. The action’s just the wrong type, or Christmas just doesn’t have the pages. You’d need maybe three all-action issues to get through everything in this issue. And maybe it would read better in a single sitting. Alien 3 never can catch any breaks.

As is, this issue needs another five pages. There aren’t so many aliens we can’t keep track, so Christmas needed to keep better track instead of summarizing. Especially when they start in-fighting; no spoilers, but it’s a precursor to Alien Resurrection.

There’s one other big surprise to the comic. Again, no spoilers. But the Alien³ they made closed off a franchise; this Alien 3 they didn’t make… it opened it up.

It’s not unimaginable; with a good director and some decent script doctoring (Alien producers Walter Hill and David Giler probably could’ve handled it easily), this version would’ve been superior to the theatrical version (which I like okay). But it’s hard to tell from William Gibson’s Alien 3. It’s an okay Elseworlds Aliens comic. It’s unique due to its context, not its content. Christmas’s distinctive, but at the end of the day, he’s just adapting.

I was expecting more, but I’m not disappointed.

Like I said, Alien 3 can never catch a break.

Thirteen or so pages of this issue are the best work Johnnie Christmas has done on William Gibson’s Alien 3. There’s a lot of action at the start of the issue; the company suits finding out there might be an alien onboard, the alien arriving and killing, the crew panicking. It’s a slightly new kind of alien, “hatching” fully formed from the human host. There’s eventually a Thing 1982 reference with it. Not sure if it’s the source script or Christmas, but Alien 3’s gorier and, presumably, even slimier than any of the movies.

But then Christmas finds this tempo and rhythm as he rushes through the second act of the series. Starting with Hicks sending Ripley off safely to the next sequel, the issue is beautifully paced. Christmas takes his time on a lot of the action; he’s not conservative with his panels. The action scenes get at least a full page more than they need, including the cliffhanger, which is slightly disappointing just because I didn’t want the issue to end. Still… outstanding work.

I’d read most of Gibson’s Alien 3 before, and I thought I’d been more enthusiastic last time, but getting through this issue, I see I just needed to get to this issue. It’s an outstanding comic; all the herky-jerky storytelling of the first three issues pays off here. The relatively short resolutions throughout this issue—as the alien starts attacking—and the lengthy earlier introductions; somehow, Christmas makes them balance. It’s excellent comics adapting.

Christmas also does another comics adapting device I like; mixing in call-forwards in addition to callbacks. Except, of course, with something like Gibson’s Alien 3, calling forward to the fourth Alien movie hops continuities. The alien here looks a little like the skull alien in Resurrection, but also the original Kenner toy for the first Alien with the predominant skull peering through the membrane. Scary looking thing.

I’d started second-guessing myself on this series. I’m glad I was right the first time. Can’t wait to see how it finishes.

It’s old home week this issue; not only do Newt and Hicks have (relatively) big scenes this issue, but Bishop is also back in one piece. All of a sudden, it feels more like a sequel to Aliens, but only slightly. This Alien 3 hasn’t got any time for a kid, so Newt’s got to get gone. Adapter Johnnie Christmas has a wonderful sense of how to handle the scenes he can’t actually convey—in a movie, Carrie Henn and Michael Biehn saying farewell would have some timing, some just right music cues to refer back to their adventures in the previous film.

Christmas barely has time for them in the adaptation, and he can’t do music cues. So instead, he just plays it like an old comic book movie adaptation. He’s got the moment, but the filmic context is gone, and it’s just awkward but earnest. He gets credit for the trying, not the succeeding.

Both the Company and the future Soviets are experimenting on the alien eggs they’ve got. The future Soviets—the U.P.P., yeah, you know me—are working on an alien embryo; the Company scientists are just growing tiny versions of the alien eggs. When there’s the inevitable containment problem, it’s entirely unclear what happens. Christmas’s art has a lot more personality than it needs for a traditional comic adaptation. It’s pretty good art.

But Christmas isn’t good at the action layouts. They’re confusing. With personality.

The issue ends with the station staff getting together and telling Hicks about the bad Company weapons division people. Next issue it’ll be important. This issue was about getting the supporting cast arranged and bringing an alien into Alien 3.

I’m not sure how Christmas will wrap this one up in time. He’s only got two more issues, and he’s barely into the second act. More movie adaptation tricks, no doubt, but it’s still bizarre to have Sigourney Weaver sleep through Alien 3. Even if it’s on purpose, it seems like it’s not.

Apparently, William Gibson’s Alien 3 was going to be one of those sequels where the franchise lead spends a bunch of time off-screen or unconscious; Ripley’s knocked out this issue, so Sigourney Weaver would be doing the Jamie Lee Curtis Halloween II thing in extremis. We get a couple scenes with Newt, but some more significant ones with Hicks. Sort of. He’s not allowed to phone home and debrief, so he spends the issues asking the same questions over and over. Well, at least in his few scenes.

The longest scene involves the U.P.P.—the future Soviets—discussing how they’re going to return Bishop the android to the Americans—the Company—forcing them to reveal they want to use the alien for biological warfare. It’s four pages, with a couple of them recapping everything we already know about the alien thanks to having seen Aliens. The scene’s long, redundant, and a potential waste of time. It provides context for later on when the Soviets call the Americans, but that call suggests it’d be more compelling if we didn’t know there was a scheme.

Otherwise, the comic moves between the various crew members of the space station as they deal with two sets of unexpected visitors: the Aliens survivors and the Company biological warfare team. Writer and artist Johnnie Christmas does a good job making everyone visually distinct, but their characters are all pretty bland. There are about fifteen characters in the comic already; it’s way too many, especially for a sequel, especially when Christmas isn’t doing any character setup. People have personality traits to get them through scenes, but it’s setup.

It’s so set up the cliffhanger doesn’t raise the pulse. Someone gets threatened with bureaucratic menace. It’s an inert finish, and I was hoping Christmas would figure out a better stopping point.

I just wish there was a single good character. Unfortunately, Christmas keeps pushing off character development, but only three issues are left; these interchangeable red shirts aren’t cutting it.

William Gibson’s Alien 3 is two levels of incomprehensible to the non-Alien franchise fan. First, you’ve got to know your Aliens, then you probably should know your existing Alien³. Familiarity with Dark Horse Comics’s original Aliens series might not hurt either, so you can better appreciate when Hicks shows up on the very last page. He was the protagonist in that series, which was a direct sequel to Aliens too.

This adaptation comes after the two or three deaths of the Alien franchise and its two or three resurrections; it depends on how you want to count them. It’s one of Dark Horse’s last Aliens licensed titles before Disney bought Fox, presumably with Newt the Disney Princess in future offings. Newt’s not awake yet in this issue. Adapter Johnnie Christmas—writing and illustrating—is just setting things up (presumably based on Gibson’s original plotting).

Instead of crash-landing on a prison planet, the Sulaco (the ship from Aliens) ends up at a waypoint station after passing through U.P.P. space. The U.P.P. is the future Soviets; I can’t remember my Alien³ trivia well enough, but I think the Berlin Wall coming down spoiled them as villains for movies set in the future. The Sulaco passes through their space, so they board it before it crosses their borders, snagging Bishop the android, who has a big alien egg growing out of him. That moment answers one of Alien³: The Movie’s more annoying questions; makes you wish they’d at least kept it from the Gibson script.

When the ship arrives at the Company waypoint station, there are already weapons department scumbags there ready to intercept. They want the aliens, as usual, only it’s illegal for them to be on the waypoint station because of treaties with the future Soviets, putting them at odds with the station crew.

The comic gets through the crew waking up the cast of Aliens, but so far, Sigourney Weaver’s knocked out, and Hicks is smoking somewhere he shouldn’t be. Where’d he get the cigarettes?

It’s a little rushed at the end and a little drawn out at the beginning—Christmas does a 2001 homage with the station boss’s meeting with the weapons division jerks, which is cute but drags. Still, it’s a compelling mix of curiosity, sequel, sci-fi, and politics. There’s not much in terms of character so far, but he’s got four issues to emphasize some of them.

Though, once again, it’s got a very limited appeal just because of the many pre-existing knowledge assumptions.