Can't say I was a fan of how this one panned out.
Quality-wise, it's like a generic Dark Horse comic, but because they decided to take a dip in Lake Retcon, instead of just making it about someone's link to a completely original colony, it kind of f**ks itself over the head at points.
At least one major canonical mistake: The Colonial Marines, during '
Aliens', were never "hired out by Weyland-Yutani". This is one of those false assumptions fandom popularises in the same way as thinking 'xenomorph' specifically means
the Alien, instead of understanding the context in which Gorman applied it (and obvious fact that nobody, including the scientific community at large, acknowledged the creatures Ripley described even existed, let alone gave them an official designation).
The troops bitch about always having to go out and check whenever a colony goes dark, typically having to fix malfunctioning communications equipment. Burke's there in the same capacity as Ripley - a civilian advisor. There is an
entire scene devoted to Ripley pointing out he has zero jurisdiction over the mission.
Then there's the nuclear winter scenario depicted on LV-426, which is a... Questionable concept.
https://www.quora.com/Is-the-nuclear-winter-a-hoaxEven if it was possible, LV-426 certainly had no woodland to create massive fireballs. It's the equivalent of an isolated nuclear test, here on Earth, in a desert environment - and we never had nuclear winter occur because of those. They might as well have just had the place still raining.
Then we get onto spoilery things:
Spoiler
As Sil, me and others have pointed out, why a domed Alien? Well, now it's even more weird, because this one seems to have somehow spontaneously evolved from a ridge-headed Alien. Why? Well, that's... It's... Never explained. It was never even explained why it mutated, in the first place.
How do acidic fluids become like liquid nitrogen? No explanation. Guessing it was an 'Alien Resurrection' reference, where the security guard had the same arm frozen and shattered? But it's ultimately a pointless change. It's just change for the sake of change. Doesn't really achieve anything or change the story.
Could have just as easily been a normal Alien. They could have said it was going through one of the sewer ducts when the blast hit or something like that. It's literally just an Alien which seems to glow (making it less able to achieve any surprise, ironically enough).
It's like if a Terminator was showing up in a story with a red endoskeleton. Wow... Interesting visual, but surely, there's a reason for that? Something which could subvert expectations? Change up the usual narrative! Does it mean something other than Skynet manufactured it? Or that different materials are being used, due to a story development? Or maybe some Skynet units somehow got cut off and are making their own faction? All sorts of possibilities!
And then you discover it's... Literally just a red Terminator. It got splashed with paint or something. It's just a normal Terminator and adds nothing. In fact, it got itself out of a car crash and hauled itself through some red paint in the process. That's basically what we have with an Alien in this story.
We also have a terrorist organisation with some strange logic. They're some sort of Marxist-type or eco-terrorist organisation, because they make a big speech about championing workers and standing against "raping planets", but it's difficult to see how they're improving the lot of Weyland-Yutani employees who will, presumably, be unable to complete their voyages shipping out mineral ore. At worst, this could mean they're stranded without fuel and die. At best, they won't be able to complete their contracts and might mean they won't get paid.
So, yeah, kind of counterproductive.
A character talks about his 'tia' being Vasquez (auto-translation tells me this means 'aunt'). He's on a hunt to figure out what happened to her. Now, there's also a character with the surname of Drake, which begs the question of why Drake's fate wasn't an issue, too. Why only interested in Vasquez and not Drake? I might have confused something and need to re-read, but that struck me as odd.
Then there's some bullshit for bullshit's sake: A character who was one of the original colonists of Hadley's Hope, who was facehugged. Which means it was someone who should have been kept in med-lab, with all the facehugger specimens, who were there to try and learn things from. He wasn't, though. No, some of the Hadley's Hope staff decided to take time otu of their busy schedules of survival to insert him, all on his ownsome, down a few levels. It's not clear why they would do this, knowing what's running around, but... It was done.
We also find out the ECA are in cahoots with this terrorist organisation, specifically to f**k Weyland-Yutani over. Why would they be hiring a terrorist group to do this? Why would a government department even choose that route by which to do it? Nobody clarifies... Nobody cares... It's basically an excuse by the writer to do a canonical name-check.
What does the ECA want? Well, instead of hiring their own people to do it, they decide a handful of members of the futuristic equivalent of the Weather Underground would be the super-logical choice to undertake this dangerous mission. It also requires paying them a hefty sum, but... OK, just ignore this. You have to ignore a lot of things in this story.
But behold! A Weyland-Yutani hologram appears! Somehow... On a colony where the Marines had to rely on a big 2D map table to bring up schematics with. Again, ignore the bullshit. Who could it be? It's a wild Miss Yutani! It's super-ineffective!
Ooh, they're going to be nefarious! Mwah-hah-hah-hah! They're going to OFFER MONEY! Yeah!
So, here we have Space Terrorists being offered money to take a clearly important "infected" catatonic body to either a government arm which is evil enough to be working with terrorists - or a private company, which is also evil for similar reasons. It's all kind of... Everyone's evil, everyone wants to f**k everyone else over, everyone is demented, at this point. Except for the guy in the cryopod. Why there would even be cryopods at Hadley's Hope is not made clear, but it was there.
Mind you, considering Burke only ever sent a directive to check out a grid reference, why there would even be communications about secret infected specimens, etcetera, in itself, is a little weird, but again... Ignore the bullshit. Just sit back and enjoy how nobody's worth giving a damn about. It's like 'Alien 3', except without any cool dialogue.
And that's good advice, because someone also gets randomly killed by the X-Man Alien. A very generic kill. Zero tension. Tail goes through gut. You've seen it a million times before. You don't care about the character. Then it shows up again and, y'know... "Rargh! I'm an Alien!" As y'do in a comic.
And that's kind of it. You're treated to a skeleton in Colonial Marine armour. Nice visual touch. Vasquez's smartgun, too (somehow not in the APC where it was originally discarded - Drake's would have been more logical). It's meant to be spooky, but feels by-the-numbers. Because you're here for that glowing Alien! And it glows... And apparently sprays liquid nitrogen. And is only interested in killing, nothing else. Yeah... Totally worth the wait?
That's a big part of what makes this feel so pedestrian. If the big mystery the story sets itself up to be hyped by, that glowing Alien, turns out to not be such a big mystery, after all, then the rest sort of feels like a deflated balloon.
But that mysterious body has a chestburster in it! Even though we knew it would! Like, we were literally shown that communication telling us it would, in advance. So... Predictable ribcage shenanigans ahoy?
And there we have it.
Story: 3/10
Art: 6/10
Tension/atmosphere: 1/10
Believability:
