A few days late but yeah, most of my own feelings have been summed up pretty well by many others here already.
It was something we all knew was coming yet still felt like a bit of a surprise just because it seemed like Disney had been leaving Dark Horse well enough alone for this past year since the takeover (unlike say the AVP: The Hunt Begins miniatures game that they pretty much shut down immediately). And given that their recent output of Alien and Predator comics has been really good, and with those awesome-looking original screenplays on the horizon, the timing of this news does sting that bit more as a result. I really do hope they're able to publish everything they had planned for the year, as the disappearance of Predator: The Original Screenplay from Dark Horse's own site and others is concerning.
And yeah overall it's very bittersweet. Dark Horse has been the home of these franchises in the comics medium since the beginning. Not everything they've put out over that entire 35 year period has been good, but it's hard not to feel sad at the prospect of such a lengthy era coming to an end.
Looking at the more positive side though, a big, fresh beginning like this is also somewhat exciting. I've not read any of the Star Wars or Conan books Marvel have put out so I've got no idea how any of those have been handled other than hearing the odd "Vader is great!" comments from people who have, but I'm just hoping that ultimately we get a bunch of good stories from big-name writers and artists some of whom may not have worked with these characters before (and of course some who already have under Dark Horse).
I'm totally cool with the idea of Aliens and Predators going up again Iron Man, the Punisher, Captain America etc., just as they've gone up against Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Judge Dredd and others before. In fact I'm looking forward to it! And there's no reason we can't have those sort of one-offs ("Predator Kills the Marvel Universe", or the Marvel Zombies-style Alien invasion idea someone mentioned earlier would be awesome) and also have the "main" line of comics be their own thing, off in their own little Alien and Predator corner of the universe. They haven't tried to make Star Wars part of the 616, though there's potentially more likelihood of a Conan-type situation where they do bring them at least in
part into their main continuity, if only for the odd series here and there. But otherwise I'd still imagine they'll be kept separate for the most part.
And yeah no worries here about the level of violence they'll be allowed to get away with. Plenty of people have pointed out that Marvel often doesn't shy away from some pretty extreme and graphic scenes in their books, and even though the gore has never been one of the reasons I've enjoyed Alien or Predator, I'm not concerned about them being in any way "neutered" by this.
But yeah I guess we'll just have to wait and see what we see. Those promo pieces certainly look really nice. David Finch did a great job with both of them. But it's definitely going to be weird reading Alien and Predator comics in the future without that little Dark Horse logo at the top of their covers, that's for sure.
Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Jul 05, 2020, 06:10:51 PMBTW I have a question.
There is no Predator superhero yet? I being serious, as I am not an expert in EU.
Probably one of the closest things to that was the Sinestro Corps Predator that showed up as a brief cameo in Green Lantern a while back, and NECA made a figure out of: