Mystery fifth writer confirmed as Kelley Sue DeConnick:
http://comicsalliance.com/kelly-sue-deconnick-dark-horse-comics-prometheus-interview/QuoteThe company's been teasing a "fifth writer" on the franchise, and she's actually holding down the position you might call head writer: Kelly Sue DeConnick. DeConnick will be writing a double-sized "wrap-up" issue to close out the initial run of books, and she oversaw a lot of the goings-on in the writers' room as the series were being put together.
She hints at what seem like big shake ups in the production, perhaps explaining why we've been getting different lines from DH about stuff like canon over last few months. This is probably why the Deacons on the AvP cover were magically Photoshopped into standard xenomorphs, and why the newest Roberson interview had a new, Deacon-free Palumbo cover. Whole issues were
done and illustrated. Very disheartening stuff:
QuoteStuff got scrapped, entirely scrapped. We kind of went back to the drawing board literally after books were written and drawn. It kind of ended up being this incredibly cool thing, I think all of the books are better for it. But yeah, having the whole thing blown up after we were already in it was fascinating.
QuoteIt was a thing, everything had been approved. Everything was all the way it was supposed to be and they came back and said, "Oh well, we're not going to be able to do this one part of it after all and we need you to change this." We were into the process at that point, but it's their property.
She then drops a hint that perhaps there
will indeed be an Alien: Isolation connection:
QuoteThere is stuff being developed everywhere. There's also a video game too, that somehow fits into the chronology to all of this. At least one video game, there's one in development right now. We are firmly in that universe.
David? Or is she talking about the Deacon?
QuoteWe don't literally use any of the characters from the film, but we are following the plot in its logical progression. I suppose there is a character from the film in it but its not like Charlize Theron turns out to have been an android after all, and when the giant spaceship rolled over her, she just got buried in the dirt.
Randy Stradley was in the room as a sort of canon expert:
QuoteWe also have Randy [Stradley] in the room. Randy has been editing the Star Wars and Alien universes at Dark Horse for I think 100 years. So he is our expert. He is our guy that we're like, wait so, can they do this? He'll say, "oh yeah, because in issue blah blah." He has that encyclopedic knowledge of that kind of stuff. We also have a bible that they gave us, which is pretty cool.
This interview has me more disheartened than anything else. No wonder the comics got pushed back until September 10th. I really hope we don't get some watered down, studio-interference-addled cash grab.
Hopefully that panel tomorrow has a more positive tone.