Dark Horse Announces "Predator: Life and Death" (FaS-style Crossover)

[Ultramorph]

Just saw this over on CBR (http://www.comicbookresources.com/article/exclusive-dark-horse-expands-the-xenoverse-with-predator-life-and-death-miniseries)

Thanks to Dark Horse Comics, the "Xenoverse" is about to grow a little larger. CBR can exclusively reveal the covers and solicitation for writer Dan Abnett and artist Brian Thies' "Predator: Life and Death," a four-issue miniseries which will kick off the publisher's initiative to expand this universe next year. Several new series helmed by Abnett and as-yet-unannounced artists will follow "Predator" and focus on "Prometheus," "Aliens" and "Alien vs. Predator."

It starts in March 2016.

Spoiler

Predator: Life and Death #1 (of 4)
Dan Abnett (W), Brian Thies (A), Rain Beredo (C), and David Palumbo (Cover)
On sale Mar 2
FC, 32 pages
$3.99
Miniseries
Colonial Marines on the planet Tartarus battle extraterrestrial hunters over the possession of a mysterious horseshoe-shaped spaceship of unknown origin.
The Weyland-Yutani rep wants the ship, and the marine captain wants to protect her crew. But neither objective is likely when a band of Predators attacks!
• Predator: Life and Death begins chapter one in a new story cycle involving Predators, Aliens, and the mysterious Engineers from Prometheus!

[close]

All I can do is try and breathe. Dan Abnett writing a FaS-style A/v/P/Prometheus crossover? I'm adoring he and Andy Lanning's 2008-2010 Guardians of the Galaxy. TAKE MY MONEY!

[happypred]

...so "solicitation" means this is actually going to happen, right?

[Ultramorph]

March 2, 2016 is the release date, so it's happening even sooner than the first issue of Defiance.

Oh man, I hope they let Abnett get really cosmic with this, especially now that the Prometheus sequel is in production.

[happypred]

March 2, 2016 is the release date, so it's happening even sooner than the first issue of Defiance.

Cool...thought "solicitation" meant "proposed story"

Also, ow

[Ultramorph]

That certainly looks painful!  The variant cover is cool, too.

Spoiler

[close]

Here's hoping that they have a wee bit more freedom to feature the Engineers this time around. The fact that they've announced this only three months before release gives me some hope that studio interference wasn't as bad as it was with FaS.

[RakaiThwei]

I am going to assume this is the Fire and Stone sequel they've been meaning to do.

I just hope they don't say or even speculate "Engineers created Predators"... I REALLY hope they don't.

[Corporal Hicks]

Abnett overseeing this series gives me a lot of hope! And I can easily see Amazing Spider-Man in that interior artwork. It looks great so far.

I hope these stories don't feel as restricted by Prometheus and Alien: Covenant as Fire and Stone did.

[tyrannosaurusjones]

...so "solicitation" means this is actually going to happen, right?

When a book is solicited it means it's advertised and open for preorders through Diamond (global comics distro company -- Weyland-Yutani for comics logistics), which means you guys go to your nearest comic shops and preorder those suckers so Dark Horse know how many need to be printed. The higher the preorder numbers, the healthier the book and the more likely it is you'll see more books along those lines. Preorders are kind of the lifeline of a comic. Just going in and buying a comic off the shelf each time you want it doesn't actually help the comic.

[LordCassusSnow]

Engineers had to have created yautja. Since fire and stone weve learned that humanoid beings from other planets were also created by engineers. The chances of us finding an actual humanoid would be very peculiar and would raise so many new questions in both science and religion. Are people actually saying when this engineer race starts seeding worlds with their own d.n.a. and creating engineer-like species that another engineer-like species just happens to evolve and shares similarities to every other engineered intelligence across the galaxy? It just doesnt add up. As much as people dont like it, for whatever reason, i'm all for engineers having a hand in the preds evolution. It doesnt affect anything and it has the potential to contribute to the ever expanding yautja lore. Which imjust fine with

[RakaiThwei]

Engineers had to have created yautja. Since fire and stone weve learned that humanoid beings from other planets were also created by engineers. The chances of us finding an actual humanoid would be very peculiar and would raise so many new questions in both science and religion.

Here is the thing. I find that the idea of the Engineers creating the Predators... kind of devalues them. That they aren't unique and it further places the Engineers on a pedestal which... I think over-rates them. I most certainly don't want them to be these... galactic overlords and I'm just afraid we're going to be getting that. Fire and Stone showed only a few races who were either created by the Engineers, or interacted with them.

But here is the thing... the universe is so big that perhaps not even the Engineers have covered the entire universe. I mean if the Yautja were created by the them, then how come they weren't made aware of them? More so... Incursion suggested that the Predators in the new EU have documented their history, even cherished it to where it's heavily archived. One would think they would've documented about the Engineers and their relation to them. If they were created by the Engineers, there would've been archives on their planet and the Yautja would've known about them.

Fire and Stone indicated that they didn't. And Incursion's suggestion of the Yautja keeping their history down suggests no real interaction between the species.

Also.. Elden had suggested that even he didn't know where the Yautja came from when he was undergoing his transformation and perhaps.. off-panel viewed some history. He even said to one of the Predators: "I don't know what you are or where you came from."

It doesnt affect anything and it has the potential to contribute to the ever expanding yautja lore. Which imjust fine with

We do know that the Yautja are a polytheistic race with their own deities. Similarly to our own but we also know that they are an ancient race-- and the old EU suggests that their origins were even lost to them, though the new EU suggests they have their history heavily archived. I just think that the Predators need to be their own thing, and kept as something unique. I mean why not? Isn't it enough that the Engineers are pretty much well.. the Masters of the Universe (No, not He-Man) now? I say let some races be engineered, and some be naturally occurring.

As a Predator fan, it would just further devalue the concept of the character for me.

[Xenomorphine]

Actually, evolutionary principles dictate the land-dwelling humanoid body design would be the most likely form of life, in terms of species which naturally discover star travel. It's all to do with efficiency of energy and the psychology of invention. Mere tool-use, on its own, isn't enough.

Life might be very exotic, out there, but humanoid life is generally going to be what we communicate with.

Exceptons to that would be if something has, say, telekinesis or has been given technology by another civilisation (or is artificially created). That's when 'leap-frogging' factors could potentially arise.

[happypred]

When a book is solicited it means it's advertised and open for preorders through Diamond (global comics distro company -- Weyland-Yutani for comics logistics), which means you guys go to your nearest comic shops and preorder those suckers so Dark Horse know how many need to be printed. The higher the preorder numbers, the healthier the book and the more likely it is you'll see more books along those lines. Preorders are kind of the lifeline of a comic. Just going in and buying a comic off the shelf each time you want it doesn't actually help the comic.

Thanks for this info

Engineers had to have created yautja.

It's strange that the Yautja seem to be one of the races lacking knowledge about the Engineers. Ahab seems to have stumbled upon their existence in that cave on the planet with the four-armed warrior aliens.

Hope Ahab is in this

[RakaiThwei]

It's strange that the Yautja seem to be one of the races lacking knowledge about the Engineers. Ahab seems to have stumbled upon their existence in that cave on the planet with the four-armed warrior aliens.

The universe is a very big place. Not counting the AVP films and the old EU, Fire and Stone may have been their first encounter.

Inversely, the same could be said about the Engineers not knowing about the Yautja.

[LordCassusSnow]

The predators archived their history? On their homeworld? I thought it was passed on by elders of their race? In incursion its stated that the yautja history was being lost by the war consuming yautja space and with it many elders who are keepers of that knowledge. Also im pretty sure its also stated that perhaps even the yautja may no know where their beginnings are. If thats the case then we might never know what kinds of interactions with engineers were worthy of note in pred history as they are now lost forever thanks to the rage.

[happypred]

In incursion its stated that the yautja history was being lost by the war consuming yautja space and with it many elders who are keepers of that knowledge.

Don't remember Incursion saying that...