Dark Horse To Reboot Comic Series

[RakaiThwei]

All this rag on Three World War makes me want to re-read it again.. Yeah, the art is terrible but was the storyline really that bad? I mean the last time which I read it, it seemed pretty passable to me. It was the art that bothered me most.

[SM]

I don't see why anyone rags on TWW especially.  It's no better or worse than a bunch of other comics.

[RakaiThwei]

I don't see why anyone rags on TWW especially.  It's no better or worse than a bunch of other comics.

That's the thing with the comics. You get some with phenomenal art but a sub-par storyline, or you get one with a fair storyline but mediocre art, sometimes you get both phenomenal art and a good storyline, sometimes.. you get a cow pie.

This also applies with the crossover comics. Especially the Top Cow crossover comics, Mein Gott.

[Ultramorph]

It's just a matter of opinion, I suppose. For me the art killed my ability to enjoy the story. I actually like the idea behind TWW, but I just don't think the writing did the whole "Humans and Predators team up to wage a war against evil, xeno-controlling Predators!" idea enough justice. They had six issues and didn't really do much with the story, which is what I'm most fearing about "Fire and Stone": that it winds up being 17 issues of padding.

I think starting in August as a lead-in to "Fire and Stone" I might re-read all the old comics and do a post-mortem, because I think they actually have more thematic coherance than people give them credit for, especially when it comes to AI/sythetic paranoia and the Big Deletion.

[RakaiThwei]

I think starting in August as a lead-in to "Fire and Stone" I might re-read all the old comics and do a post-mortem, because I think they actually have more thematic coherance than people give them credit for, especially when it comes to AI/sythetic paranoia and the Big Deletion.

How many of the comics do you have?

[SM]

You'll have to look mighty hard for comic themes about AI/ synthetic paranoia and the Big Deletion.

[Ultramorph]

I have all six Aliens Omnibus volumes, both AvP Omnibi, Predator Omnibus 4, TWW trade paperback, Civilized Beasts, and (unfortunately) the Mindhunter Witchblade/Darkness crossover. I plan on picking up the way of the Predator Omnibi over the summer.

As far as tha AI themes, it's pretty easy to read the Toy incident from DOTS as a catalyst for the anti-synth paranoia that led to the Big Deletion.

Stronghold also shows exploitation of synths, so I would put it in that category, too.

There's also a pretty clear arc of humans eventually overcoming the xenomorphs, pushing them back to a few planets where The Company is hiding them (Salvation and Xenogenesis)

[SM]

The Big Deletion occurs about 50 years or so after DOTS.  And they're not viewed especially negatively in the multitude of stories in between.

And there's no paranoia against robots in Stronghold - they're good guys in that.  Mostly.

There's also a pretty clear arc of humans eventually overcoming the xenomorphs, pushing them back to a few planets where The Company is hiding them (Salvation and Xenogenesis)

There's an arc between Salvation - one religious nut on a planet full of Aliens with a mad captain and Company robot - and Xenogenesis - a complete clusterf**k?

EDIT - Went back and checked my figures.  Deletion happened in either early 23rd century (which it didn't) or early 24th century (which it also didn't).  Or you push it out to the 25th century and make it all redundant.

[Ultramorph]

The Big Deletion occurs about 50 years or so after DOTS.  And they're not viewed especially negatively in the multitude of stories in between.

And there's no paranoia against robots in Stronghold - they're good guys in that.  Mostly.

There's also a pretty clear arc of humans eventually overcoming the xenomorphs, pushing them back to a few planets where The Company is hiding them (Salvation and Xenogenesis)

There's an arc between Salvation - one religious nut on a planet full of Aliens with a mad captain and Company robot - and Xenogenesis - a complete clusterf**k?

I place DOTS much later in the timeline, at right around the period of Xenogenesis, eliminating the "stories in between." I see the destruction of a safe haven for wealthy elites by an out of control AI as catalyzing the powers that be against AI and sythetics.

As far as Stronghold, perhaps "paranoia" wasn't the best word. Rather I mean to say that it shows abusive trends toward syths that can be read as precursors of what led to the Big Deletion. IE, if they could be exploited (even if by a mad scientist stereotype) it's not hard to imagine opinion shifting against them.

As far as Salvation and Xenogenesis, I know that my statement was controversial, but let me elaborate. I also place Salvation toward the end of the pre-Big Deletion timeline, based on comments by the main character that The Company was hiding xenos on remote worlds because there were drives to remove them from inhabited space. I read that in conversation with Xenogenesis because I assume much more competent Strikeforce teams are the ones out there using their advanced weaponry to rid inhabited space of the xenos.

These are just some examples I see of little places where, if one wanted to, one could see cohesion between some of the stories over time.

[SM]

I place DOTS much later in the timeline, at right around the period of Xenogenesis, eliminating the "stories in between." I see the destruction of a safe haven for wealthy elites by an out of control AI as catalyzing the powers that be against AI and sythetics.

But there's still Aliens running around on Earth in DOTS, so it's not long after Ripley faux-nuked everything.  (Also see above about actual date of Deletion)

These are just some examples I see of little places where, if one wanted to, one could see cohesion between some of the stories over time.

Cohesion in themes perhaps - the only one I see is mankinds exploitation of the Alien for some sort of gain repeated ad nauseum - but if you have to edit things, isn't that forcing cohesion that isn't really there?

[happypred]

All this rag on Three World War makes me want to re-read it again.. Yeah, the art is terrible but was the storyline really that bad? I mean the last time which I read it, it seemed pretty passable to me. It was the art that bothered me most.

It was mainly the art. The story wasn't horrible but it was pretty bad. However, it wasn't so bad that it could not have been saved by good art. However, we got horrendous art with a rather disappointing story

[Ultramorph]

I place DOTS much later in the timeline, at right around the period of Xenogenesis, eliminating the "stories in between." I see the destruction of a safe haven for wealthy elites by an out of control AI as catalyzing the powers that be against AI and sythetics.

But there's still Aliens running around on Earth in DOTS, so it's not long after Ripley faux-nuked everything.  (Also see above about actual date of Deletion)

These are just some examples I see of little places where, if one wanted to, one could see cohesion between some of the stories over time.

Cohesion in themes perhaps - the only one I see is mankinds exploitation of the Alien for some sort of gain repeated ad nauseum - but if you have to edit things, isn't that forcing cohesion that isn't really there?

True, there are Aliens on Earth, and that is a hole, but a strong argument can be made that it's not that close chronologically to Ripley nuking the Queen Mother. Samara station and the "Starship Ellen Ripley" are clearly listed as under the command of Ash Parnall, who died several decades before the events of DOTS proper. Now, one would assume that Ripley had starships named after her only after her role in liberating Earth, ergo, I see DOTS proper as taking place several decades after those events.

As far as editing, I don't see my extrapolations as "editing." Most of these stories have only circumstantial evidence as to when they're set, especially in the nebulous post-Earth War period. I really only differ from most timelines I've seen in the dating of DOTS and Salvation, anyway.

[SM]

The 'Starship Ellen Ripley' was something of a joke from memory.

A joke about as shite as the rest of DOTS.

[Ultramorph]

A joke perhaps, but it's there. Little things like that are what makes and breaks timelines in series like this. But since we disagree, we disagree.

Not to mention Xenogenesis pretty much establishing Strikeforce, to which two of the characters in DOTS belonged, as a later-period unit.

[The1PerfectOrganism]

Sounds like the Alien/Predator canon needs to be Star Wars'd.