AvP Three World War - New Series, 2009

[Nostromo]

Just finished reading AVP Third World War:

Pretty cool comic for the AVP line. But again I realize that Preds are not my cup of tea. For an Alien fan this one was ehhh.. Still, a much better read than the previous turd. I noticed our friend Sekeda was in it although barely any continuity from the More Than Human TPB besides a mention or too.

There was good continuity for Ellis and Machido from the previous AVP comics though. As for the poor bug aliens...life sucks in the AVP world, business as usual, just the regular running around crap with a Queen showing up in the end. Yipeee! They even come with the Zach mandibles. Not to mention they are radio controlled by the Preds now...woohooo another crappy idea.. At least the Alien drawings weren't as bad as the Predators...now that was nasty lol.

Story 7/10, Locations 8, Art 6, Alien design 5.5, Colors 8, Covers 9. Pretty Good for an AVP comic.

[Thomas H.]

Ok, got this is two days ago, finished it just now. Read it in between things.

The Good.
When it comes to action, this comic has it. Plenty of it. There some funny, silly jokes in between. Dialogue-wise, it's not to shabby. And the actual plot itself, as flimsy as it is, isn't half bad. What I really loved, is the concept that Predator/Yautja culture isn't that simply. I mean, in scifi, we always asume that any alien culture is homogenous. And that's just silly. Look at the diverse cultures we have on our single planet. So, for the Predators to have several cultures with their own unique way of looking at the hunting and/or killing, is something I love. To me, for example, the 'Super-Predators' from the movie Predator are not some uberform of life, but simply a different culture, with some differences in appereance. This new offshot of Predator culture was pretty cool to see.

The Bad.
The art is definatly not as good as it could have been. Loved the color work, and as Corporal Hicks has stated, the art works very well during action. But it's simply lacking in detail. Quite a shame. The story felt less about Machiko and more about marines shooting stuff. Perhaps reading the novelisations of the previous comics will give me more insight into Machiko's inner workings, but I feel that (from the first comic featuring her to this) there isn't really much background to here being a potent fighter that is quite skilled. She seemed to already now what she was doing in the first AvP, and I would have loved some more background and was sort of hoping I was going to get in now. Oh well....

The Ugly.....
*sigh* Xenomorphs on a leash...... Ok. Also, suddenly, a Queen!! Not the one on the Predator ship, the one on Ryushi. Really. A Queen? Just like that? When the plot could really use something to have the Marines and Predators bond over? Sure....

So, all in all..... Definatly entertaining. Fun read, with so/so art. I'm glad I have this trilogy complete, but I found the ending not as satisfying as it could have been.

[Mr. Domino]

This one? Pretty sure this one was done by Chris Warner.

According to mycomicshop.com "Variant Cover by Rick Leonardi." The original number one issue had cover art by Raymond Swanland.

That's interesting because Rick Leonardi did the art for the entire series but not the covers. He only did the cover work for number 1 variant.

You are indeed, correct. My apologies.

No worries man.

Interesting side-story - met Rick at a con a few years back (super nice guy). Talked about this series, and how unhappy he was with it, because the way they colored it just wasn'the right for his art at all - in particular, the #1 variant, which he hates the finished product on.

I was always real harsh on this book, but after talking to him about it and then going back, I can definitely see where a more flat, retro color palette (think like the original Norwood AVP series) would have really serbed the book a lot better than the shiny CG work we got, with all its gradations and fancy effects.

[The Comic Collector J]

This one? Pretty sure this one was done by Chris Warner.

According to mycomicshop.com "Variant Cover by Rick Leonardi." The original number one issue had cover art by Raymond Swanland.

That's interesting because Rick Leonardi did the art for the entire series but not the covers. He only did the cover work for number 1 variant.

You are indeed, correct. My apologies.

No worries man.

Interesting side-story - met Rick at a con a few years back (super nice guy). Talked about this series, and how unhappy he was with it, because the way they colored it just wasn'the right for his art at all - in particular, the #1 variant, which he hates the finished product on.

I was always real harsh on this book, but after talking to him about it and then going back, I can definitely see where a more flat, retro color palette (think like the original Norwood AVP series) would have really serbed the book a lot better than the shiny CG work we got, with all its gradations and fancy effects.

That's interesting. You don't always hear honest opinions from people who work on comics especially around the time of said comics release.

The variant for issue one would have fit more with what you are explaining, a throwback 90's style look. Never really thought about that. The variant cover for issue one seemed like a 'we need a variant to sell, lets put one together.' Even if they did a retro styled variant for the first issue I think that would have looked much better and probably would have grabbed not only Alien and Predator fans attentions but also Dark Horse fans in general. They see that and think about the original series.

[Kaltes]

I actually really enjoyed reading this story, I thought it was a satisfying conclusion to Machiko's arc. Though I wish there had been more of the Killers and some of the art was a tad off now and then.