Marvel's First Alien Series Announced!

[BlueMarsalis79]

Lmao @ The best news on Alien Day's a chance that the current canon and continuity will not be overwritten this time, and it's coming from the one place tackling similar concepts to the rest of the expanded universe at the minute combined together, but not as good in execution- rough day.

[Voodoo Magic]

rough day.

Predator fans ask you to hold their beers... 

[BlueMarsalis79]

If it comes to that I'll do us both.

Various spoilers for The Cold Forge, Into Charybdis, Prototype and chiefly Infiltrator:

The Pathogen:

Spoiler

In it defined as a substance that enhances the already present features of something, I can understand that particular interpretation in part, it does that true but it always carries features of the titular Alien with no biomechanics and light skin as opposed to dark skin in it's Neomorphs or Abominations it creates.

It gets this mostly right although I do not believe the Pathogen ought to affect the titular Alien itself, but I do hope that like in Prototype, it is an idea that only applies to the specific circumstances of Infiltrator's story because of the radiation.

Marvel's Alien's strange in that it is apparently exploring identical ideas simultaneously, but both being over the top in approach, and also shying away from tackling the ideas that the aforementioned do in full- and Cold Forge and Into Charybdis did best.

[close]

Similar concepts shared between Marvel's Alien and other recent stories:

Spoiler

Sapient Alien?
Into Charybdis actually tackles the idea whilst being both narratively and thematically appropriate for the character, and does not undermine Xenomorph XX121 to achieve this goal, make the Pathogen arbitrarily feature biomechanics to make it work, it laid the groundwork with Plagiarus Preapotens in The Cold Forge, and it certainly does not plagarise from Species.

Alien Telepathy?
Infiltrator actually tackles this as a major part of the plot progression, and does it in such a way that it is not a vision forced into the character's head at an arbitrary point in time of the author's choosing, but instead it is a subtle disquiet more befitting Xenomorph XX121. I'm all for going Silent Hill but only when it is earned. Using it as a one time thing to bait and switch the audience's about as far away from the enormous potential of this as it gets.

The Alpha?
Infiltrator also includes an "Alpha Alien" a albino Drone created through a combination of irradiation and the Pathogen.

But it is suggested it might just be a natural occurrence in appearance terms,  the Weaver for example, though brought into existence because of the absence of a "Alpha Alien" leader figure.

It is suggested this being with more sapience than normally expected also caused the aforementioned telepathy and it is something that appears more often in the, Queen and Empress etcetera, this may explain the naming convention of a "Alpha Alien" as a leader that's got more tactical authority and so carries a low level of telepathy with presumably the Queen or Empress having high levels of telepathy.

[close]

[Voodoo Magic]

If it comes to that I'll do us both.

👏

[Xiggz456]

Holy f**king shit! Alien issue 1 was the second highest selling comic book for the month of March with 300,000 units sold 

https://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales/2021/2021-03.html

For reference Dark Horse's final original story "Rescue" issue 4 sold 7,277 units and was the 278th best selling comic book for the month it released.

[BlueMarsalis79]

I wonder what Dead Orbit did, considering the oversized edition, it's great to see such an appetite for Alien but I wish it existed under better artistic circumstances.

[Xiggz456]

Dead Orbit issue 1 sold 14,265 units and was the 141st best selling comic book for April 2017. Defiance issue 11 sold 7,501 units that same month.

I can't find the sales for the original Book 1 issue 1 but AVP wiki says it got 6 reprintings. I vaguely recall seeing the number 180,000 copies sold and I think it was in the foreword of the fancy oversized hardback edition of Book 1.

But that's why 300,000 units sold for an Alien book is off the f**king charts!

[Kimarhi]

It is because of the different publishers.  DH has always been an indie brand. 

I remember when the first AvP came out, it was the best selling independent comic book of all time, it had something like 100,000 issues sold.


Somebody else posted a response saying that was like 200,000 thousand short of what Marvel and DC's high comic series had been. 

It is an era thing as well.  Naturally the high mark for these issues will continue to increase as more people read them.  It isn't a subset of culture anymore, but entering pop culture. 

[SM]

Not sure Rescue is a fair point of reference either.  I don't recall a great amount of enthusiasm for Resistance, and Rescue dropped right in the middle of Wood getting the arse.

[Corporal Hicks]

From what I remember when I actually looked into the figures last year, 7/8k was typical of Alien titles, with Gibson's adaptation being a big success around 15k.

[SM]

Guess the Rescue number weren't too bad after all.

[Nightmare Asylum]

It is because of the different publishers.  DH has always been an indie brand.

Yep. I know people that never touched an Alien comic in their life that have been purchasing/reading this run because it is Marvel, as if the Marvel brand somehow "legitimizes" it....

[SM]

Marvel just gives it higher exposure. At least so far.

[Corporal Hicks]

#2 has gone for second printing now too.

[Kimarhi]

We will never know but I wonder what the prime DH Aliens runs were like?

I'm still guessing lowish, because again back in the 80's and 90's only nerds read comics openly.