We first heard the title Dust to Dust back in November but now Dark Horse Comics has officially announced the new Aliens series, Aliens: Dust to Dust! Like with the recently wrapped Aliens: Dead Orbit, the writing and art duties of Dust to Dust will be handled by a single person. In this case, the talent behind the new series is Gabriel Hardman.
“In deep space, the Trono colony on the planet LV-871 finds itself under attack by mysterious and deadly creatures of unknown origin. Emergency evacuations are ordered and shuttles are taking off as the massacre sweeps the colony. All that stands between 12-year-old Maxon and his mom making it to the safety of the spaceport is a horde of Aliens!”
Cover art for the first issue by Gabriel Hardman.
Hardman has previously worked on Alien comics, providing cover artwork for the Aliens/Vampirella crossover series from 2015/2016. Hardman has worked on several different franchises including Planet of the Apes, Green Lantern and previously with Dark Horse on Star Wars: Legacy Volume 2. He also has credits in the film industry as a storyboard artist on films such as Inception, Interstellar and Tropic Thunder.
Be sure to head on over to Comic Book Resources to check out the full announcement with includes an interview with Hardman about Dust to Dust!
“How did you arrive at the story you’re telling in Aliens: Dust to Dust? It appears to be a mother-son story at its emotional core.
I was actually inspired to tell the story from the point of view of a 12-year-old boy in large part because that’s the age I was when first exposed to Aliens. But also because I didn’t want to write about Marines or anyone who seems like they could stand up to the Xenomorphs. Kids lack power — they lack agency. I wanted to throw this boy into extraordinarily scary and difficult circumstances and force him to navigate it. And not tell it from the parent’s perspective, but the kid’s.”
Variant cover art for the first issue.
Aliens: Dust to Dust will be a limited 4 issue run mini-series that launches just before Aliens Day on April 24th!
Thanks to Ultramorph for the heads-up! Keep a close eye on Alien vs. Predator Galaxy for the latest Alien and Predator literature news! You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to get the latest on your social media walls. You can also join in with fellow Alien and Predator fans on our forums!
As for the comic, I loved the art. The story was good overall.
Maybe tomorrow after work I'll get off my lazy ass and pop the bluray into the bluray player.
Cos the button's just sitting out in the open and not under a panel that requires several button presses to open
If it were the crew of the Prometheus, though...
I, uh
I'm not sure decontamination works by spraying a highly contaminating substance into an area. Like, the hazmat link you provided said that if you're afraid you spilled any of it, you should evacuate a pretty wide area and call professionals to decontaminate the stuff. It seems like a pretty mind-blowing safety oversight if any idiot can release the stuff into an enclosed environment with the push of a button and your best solution is "hope you're in the vacuum of space and already suited up, open the airlock, and hope you don't die".
Like I said, I'm not really against the idea but I've got a nagging voice in my head saying we might be reading into an easter egg a bit too much. I'm not saying you're ultimately wrong, especially since the more I think about it the more I like your idea, I'm just expressing my feelings (and exploring the full ramifications of your idea).
Exactly. I'm fairly confident that's what 99% of audience members thought when they watched that scene. It doesn't mean they're right, but the filmmaking language present is still worth noting.
Decontamination, maybe.
As to why she's not affected, dude. She's in a space suit, and
The dissolve allows you to put as much time between blasting the Alien and taking off the suit as needed to make sure everything's clean.
They're not really analogous, though. The things you listed after are goofs or filmmaking slight of hand. Maybe in the future some savvy business person started selling excess Nitrosyl Chloride as a decontaminant in the case you find a deadly alien organism (It's not just toxic, it's highly irritant to mucous membranes -- and we know the Alien is oh so mucousy!)
Like Dallas referring to "molecular acid". All acid is molecular. Maybe it's a thing in the future.
Weird, yes -- wrong, only if you need it to be to win an argument
I don't see how "She sprays it with a toxic chemical that burns mucous membranes and it reacts, ergo it is affected by the toxic chemical" is jumping to a conclusion...
Think about it this way: only mega-turbo-fans who checked the movie frame-by-frame even know that Ripley sprayed the Alien with some special chemical at all (and why on earth would there be a valve to open such a nasty chemical like that into the pressurized environment of the Narcissus' open air, and why wasn't Ripley affected by it?). Your average viewer is going to think the Alien got blasted with air or something, because the movie doesn't convey that what she's spraying is anything special.
Based on the fact that what she sprays isn't yellow, and she doesn't poison herself, perhaps it isn't that chemical?
Granted she does open the airlock and vent the cabin's atmosphere into space, but I don't know if the chemical leaves behind residue that could still be present after everything is re-pressurized. Again, just considering other variables.
I'm looking up Nitrosyl Chloride and I'm trying to figure out why such a thing is present on the ship at all. Like, wikipedia tells me that it's used to combine with other chemicals to fabricate the polymer Nylon 6, and that appears to be its only use.
I mean it's a cool detail that the label for the button Ripley pushes means something in real terms, and it's a neat idea for eagle-eyed viewers (who, in 1979 when the movie came out, had no way to go frame-by-frame through the movie
Like I'm with you that the Alien could be susceptible to specific chemicals - it's even an idea that gets tossed around in the EU (and "the juice", the Alien-dissolving chemical from Xenogenesis, is yellow-green if I remember right), and I think it could be a neat idea that Ripley stumbled across one by accident, I'm more of playing devil's advocate and looking at other ideas before jumping to a conclusion.
All true. I just prefer my aliens to be more of a bigger scale threat than only a threat to unprepared average joes. All personal preference of course.
I like the adaption angle though. That would be a good solution for me
Hicks was, but guys like him don't usually call the shots. And if you nuke a colony, its much more than mere property damage. You destroy something that took decades to build and establish.
I prefer the aliens to be like a particular resistent infection. If it took hold, there is no other way to cut off the entire affected limb to assure survival.
Maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration to what an organism like the aliens could do "realistically" speaking, but i very much would prefer it that way.
That's a perfectly true statement, but it's not really relevant here. There's pretty clear cause and effect. It's like watching someone get splashed with water and saying "but maybe their shirt is wet because it was a hot day and they were sweaty"
EDIT
Actually, I was wrong. I can't find where it's used as a pesticide.
The chemical she sprays that gets the reaction is Nitrosyl Chloride. It's a nasty f**kin' chemical. It's also supposed to be yellow.
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/nitrosyl_chloride#section=Hazards-Identification
they can at least be knocked out by something.
That said, it could still be the temperature or pressure of whatever she was spraying out and not necessarily the chemical itself that drove out the Alien.
threat of the Alien is one that has
not been exploited to it's fullest
on film and that's how quickly they
change, even Ridley Scott had it in
mind for the first film. Describing
the Alien as a parasite jumping
from one creature to the next as
parasites do and changing in the
process. What if it's like the Borg
but the adaptive capability is
more of a gradual process?
Also you could just have average joes encounter the alien just like the first film. There would be no defence against the creature then.
As soon as you can easily kill something without collateral damage or drawbacks it becomes more of an inconvenience than a real threat.
Human's advantage over Aliens is their intelligence and strategy, I see no issue in humans finding more effective ways to kill aliens without collateral damage. I agree there should always be a threat and the danger should never go away but colonial marine and pulse rifles is just going to get old and its not long term effectiveness.
Sure, nothing wrong with that.
But there are risks and a drawbacks to all of that. Sure you can blow up the colony or space station or the lab, but you lose the whole thing if you do that. Sure you can send troops to fight them off, but you lose lives and equipment in the progress.
If you could just pump some gas through a space station, colony, lab or hive, you kill them off with no drawbacks and risks at all. I don't think the aliens should be invulnerable, not at all. But having them be affected easily by chemical weapons neuters them way to much IMO.
Kurgan, the aliens are not meant to be invincible supernatural monsters, they have weaknesses and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. They fear fire, they can be killed with any sharp objects as well blunt so long as there is enough force behind it,. They are still stronger and faster than humans and more dangerous than most animals on earth, if not all because their acid is great deterrant against piercing their bodies. A few weaknesses doesn't stop them from being one of the greatest threats about nor any less bad*ss.
Not quite. If you nuke the whole thing, you lose as much, your colony is gone. If you gas the place, you clean up and all is good. Also you could pump gas in hives or space stations or wherever to support troops in hazmat suits, could use it to make alien breakouts in labs practically impossible etc.
Chemical weapons have a much broader applicability than just blowing the place up.
Good eye, well than we have precedent that whatever it was exactly was at least pretty unpleasant for it.
It's a small detail, but you can actually read the chemical compound on the button she presses. When you look it up, you see it's commonly used as an insecticide. She's basically spraying all of the decontamination chemicals onto the Alien and seeing which one works.
I imagine it was a gag by the prop designers but hey, it's in the film.
Well true, depends on the actual situation. But still, i think effective chemical weapons are too much of an "I win" button.
Wasn't it the temperature that startled the Alien? I thought it was either hot steam or some coolant not something toxic. But i may misremember the details.
Also, you're forgetting that gassing an Alien was tried -- successfully -- in the very first movie. Ripley uses insecticide to drive the Alien out of its hole in the Narcissus wall, and it's clearly bothered by it. Not killed, but bothered at least. Meanwhile, the marines don't bother using nerve gas because they're not sure it would even affect them -- sure, they might breathe it in, but that doesn't mean the chemicals will react the same way with the Alien nervous system.
So, again -- breathing really isn't the Achile's heel people think it is.
Oh sorry, totally missed that. Agreed.
I don't think it's quite the same. I see no problem in guns beeing able the kill an alien, but if you could just gas or poison them big scale, that would significantly decrease their threat. At least for me.
Have an infection? Just gas the colony with minimal structural damage, wait until it dispenses or neutralize it, and the whole thing is as good as new.
For sure, his art would be a nice match.
And for a species that's parasitic, being able to survive places potential hosts can't really isn't that advantageous.
It is a weakness. They can only operate for extended time in environments where they can breath, you could bring poison into their body over their respiratory system, you could suffocate them...
I think it severely limits their adaptability, even if they could breath nearly anything.
Maybe they breath in air to use some exotic sense? Like a snake "smelling" with its tounge.
Maybe to gauge pheromone concentration in the air or something like that.
^
What do you guys mean by "breathe?" Do you mean respiration? i.e. the absorption of oxygen into the bloodstream so that it can oxidize glucose into energy for cellular processes (and expel carbon dioxide waste).
If the alien is a biomechanical being (although less and less so after Alien '79), or some kind of artificial creation, then I don't see why it's creators couldn't have used some kind of alien tech to "power" the xeno's cellular function. (Although surely Ash would have noted it during his examination of the face-hugger - but then again, maybe he did note it but was keeping a lot of secrets to himself.)
So if the xeno's suck air in and out (which they clearly do), not for respiration purposes, then for what?
I've always thought of the creatures as gene samplers. They prefer to prey on hosts that will boost their own evolution as predators. So maybe they suck in air to sample any DNA in the vicinity. Interestingly, humans do just this. In experiments where males and females are given sweaty tee shirts recently worn by the opposite sex and asked to rate the odours by "sexiness," the test subjects will prefer the sweat indicative of a different immunology than their own. This makes for a better mating prospect because any offspring will benefit from a more diversely reactive immune system (and therefore more able to combat a wider range of foreign micro-pathogens).
TC
Shit, you got me there. Totally forgot about that.
So they can endure it, but they'll still die in space faster than in ideal conditions.
And all the Aliens in Resurrection are breathing. I know the argument would be that "it's the genetic crossing", but since the regular Aliens Queen was also breathing, it's clearly not a contamination.
Also the original Alien yawns, which is a product of a respiratory system.
Also if i recall correctly the only undoubtedly breathing aliens are the hybrids in Resurrection. Maybe those do breath as a byproduct of the human DNA in them.
Technically only the ability to push out air.
A steam boiler or steam engine hisses and you can see steam come out of them, does not mean they breath. Considering the biomechanical nature of the things, hissing and "breath" coming out of them, could be something entirely different than the organic equivalent.
They do breathe, they would not be able to make hissing noises otherwise, and their breath can clearly be seen coming out of some of them in of the films.
At least the facehugger seemed to have a highly pressurized bloodstream when they attempted to cut him down from Kane's face.
A tardigrades survivability
has nothing much to do
with their size, amazing
creatures. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade
Let us not forget also, we're
discussing a creature with
quite a few characteristics
uncommonly found/found
in cohesion in macroscopic life.
The Queen, however, is a good enough argument that they can survive much, much longer than a human exposed to a vacuum. Whether they can survive "indefinitely" is another story. They clearly breathe. But she lasted the better part of an hour with no ill effect, so clearly it doesn't bother them as much.