Dark Horse Fire and Stone (Prometheus/Aliens/AvP/Predator/Omega): All Reviews

[happypred]

I got Prometheus #1 in digital format

The art is solid, very good...but not incredible as some reviewers have been claiming. I do like the style though and I don't think it's that different from Roger Robinson's style (Civilised Beasts)

The story takes place over 120 years after the events of the movie. It's mentioned that most people believe that Weyland died on Earth. This isn't elaborated any further.

This begs the questions...
Was the rest of the Company ignorant of Weyland's mission?
Did Weyland fake his own death before even undertaking the mission? This would make sense if he didn't want people to know of his participation in the mission.
Has LV-223 had no contact with the Company since the end of Weyland's mission? Has the Company been completely in the dark all this time? Perhaps the Company has been doing things on LV-223?

120+ years is a long time and I want this issue to be addressed.

What are the relative positions of LV-223 and LV-426? Are they orbiting the same planet or do they orbit different planets orbiting the same star?

As has been mentioned in previous reviews, the first issue is mainly dedicated to introducing the characters. Clara, Angela, Galgo, Francis, Elden, and blonde guy with glasses form the core cast. A few other names are thrown around but I don't think the other crew members will have major roles to play. No action in this issue but it ends with a massive cliffhanger...which I think alien fans should like.

Spoilers and my theories:

Spoiler

- There's been a jungle on LV-223 for quite a while.
- There are aliens on LV-223. They've apparently made their lair in an escape vessel from Hadley's Hope (connected to Aliens Fire and Stone)
- However, I'm fairly certain they haven't been trapped in the ship (i.e. they've been roaming about, reproducing).
- Captain Angela Foster is trying to open a door into the grounded vessel. The aliens lurk on the other side. I believe the aliens have other ways of ingress and egress. Thus, I don't believe she'd be "releasing" the aliens even if she manages to open the door. She'd only be immediately exposing herself and her crew to them.
- I believe the Hadley vessel crashed a number of years before Angela and her crew arrive
- Perhaps the predators have been visiting LV-223 during this 120+ year period
- Numerous large quadrupedal alien beasts are found butchered. Most likely the aliens' work...but perhaps the work of deacons or predators?

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[SM]

All the character intros are fairly painful throughout the first half, but it gets interesting once they land.

The design style is too much of a throwback to Prometheus though, and doesn't make much sense what with it being set 40 years after Aliens/ Alien3.

[happypred]

I wasn't too fond of the documentary frame but it served as a straightforward way to introduce the major characters

I'm looking forward to further development of Angela, Clara, and Galgo. Neither Francis nor Elden pique my interest. Elden doesn't have sh*t on David. He has a very bland, boring face IMO and less personality. Fassbender is a great actor.

Blonde guy with glasses annoys me for some reason. He's like the dorky guy in War/TWW [Ellis?]. Can't wait to see him die horribly 

Spoiler

Oh and apparently there's an active engineer on LV-223 in 2090

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[Corporal Hicks]

Leaving work early today xD Hoping to go pick them up if they're in the shop. 

[Xenomorphine]

* Art is great. Aliens look beautiful and atmospheric.

* Character introductions are... Yeah... What SM said. Everyone keeps smiling/joking too f**king much. It's sort of making me dislike the entire cast. The first of the AVP films at least managed to strike that venturing-into-here-be-dragons-territory atmosphere more or less right, by harking back to the Nostromo crew's sense of foreboding wonder. This should've been the same.

* Rather bizarre missed opportunity for how the story commences. Would have been more interesting if it was a case of a something like a ship wanting to detour and take a chance on an old rumour about the Prometheus' last location or a salvage craft Weyland-Yutani sent to investigate purely out of curiosity. Instead, there's one character who's running the expedition, keeping everyone in the dark (for no apparent reason) and who comes across with this very Mary Sue explanation of I've-figured-out-everything-and-am-verging-on-Alex-Jones-territory-but-am-totally-trusted-to-run-a-starship. The art is keeping me interested, but this motivation makes it difficult for me to take the cast seriously. How did this individual gain funding and recruitment if it's also being made clear the mission's operating under company jurisdiction?

* Interesting twist in the tail, but they'd better have a damned good explanation for such a striking coincidence. It's the kind of thing I'd have expected to read as a revelation in a poorly thought-through fan script.

* Spacesuits not having advanced in all those years... Heh. Yeah, not very believable... Again, the art sells it, but a part of your mind is going, "Whaaaaat...?" Could have done with a panel with some Parker-like bitching about having to make do with old out-dated shit.

* Needing permission to take samples of potential lethal pathogens through quarantine is laughed off as a joke? Poking around black ooze without any real safety precautions? Not taking any samples from the dead ET wildlife? Not being able to detect a huge jungle from orbit while scanning right next to its location for somewhere to land? OK, this crew is getting dangerously close to being as inept as the Prometheus personnel were.

Over all, I'm intrigued, but not wowed. The art is the real selling point, not, so far, the characters or story they are featuring in.

[RidgeTop]

Read this the other day. The story seems intriguing enough and the art is impressive, however, like Prometheus there are some logical fallacies. As other have pointed out, why are the using the same suits and tech as a ship that's 100 years old? Also, if the engineer was awake shortly before the Prometheus mission and smashed the recon probe, why did he not travel to earth or leave the planet then? 

[predxeno]

I'm REALLY digging the story, the ending leaves me wanting more; it's nice that the writers are actually collaborating together to publish a smooth storyline, and it shows.

[Corporal Hicks]

So I read this yesterday and loved it - not without some faults, but:

*Gorgeous artwork. It's a shame we usually lack this so much that it was one of the first things to really make me smile.

* In regards to the suits - yeah, it's a shame we're some hundred years into the future and they're still using Prometheus-style suits. I think it's more for style to suit the Prometheus story but yeah...I get the issue.

*I liked the documentary thing - but then I'm a sucker for terrible found-footage stuff.  Characters are too friendly with each other but I think that's too off-set how they seem to be due to turn on each other soon.

*I think the ending is going to be red-haring. It'll be to segway into the Aliens series starting next week. I think our attention should be on the Engineer in the opening. I could be compeltely wrong, of course, but just a feeling.

[Ultramorph]

My copy finally came in the mail today, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It got me so much in the Space Jockey/ancient aliens mood that I even re-read Apocalypse-The Destroying Angels and Predator: Homeworld afterwards! It's not really relevant, but I found myself enjoying Apocalypse much more than when I first read it back before Prometheus hits theaters, and Homeworld will always be one of my favorite Predator stories. My more spoiler-y thoughts on Prometheus #1 are below.

Spoiler

It has been quite a long time coming since Dark Horse announced this whole event last October, and after being underwhelmed by Sea of Sorrows in July, I was ready to be disappointed by Fire and Stone, as well.

Happily, I found this issue to be a very strong opening. Most reviews I've seen have said that the character introductions are clunky or take too long, but the documentary framing device made it seem natural, and I think it introduced everyone much more effectively and organically than things like Aliens: Xenogenesis #1. I also like most of the characters so far, and I'm definitely getting the sense that Galgo's "I would never turn a gun on a friend" spiel is going to be proven wrong in a big way soon enough.

I'm also intrigued by Elden, and hope they delve into what separates synthetics from "constructs." It will definitely be interesting to watch Francis go down the Dr. Frankenstein route, too.

As far as the art, it's sort of hard to pin it down, but the art looks immensely better in person than it does online. The color palette works well for the setting, and it is so refreshing to see two-page spreads done well. Ferreyra is also doing a great job on creature duty, and I'm looking forward to seeing more, especially of the "monkeys." His xenos looked awesome, as well.

As far as the story, I'm looking forward to how the opening set in 2090 plays into all this, and to how they plan on explaining the 125-year gap before anyone goes looking for Weyland. I also have my fingers crossed that we'll see what became of the Deacon. I agree with Corporal Hicks that the ending was mostly a teaser for Aliens #1.

Overall, Fire and Stone is off to a good start, and is already, in my subjective opinion, showing more promise than the '09/'10 series did.

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[SM]

Some more potential continuity issues - Weyland sent a probe to LV-223 in 2090 - the year following the submission from Shaw and Holloway, yet the planet is over 2 years travel from Earth at that time (maybe it was sent from somewhere closer).  And speaking of 2 years travel - Zeta 2 Reticuli is 3 weeks from Earth in 2179.  In 2219 they've been asleep 2 years to get there?

The whole tone of the piece owes more to Prometheus where space travel seems to be novel, than the greater story where space travel is commonplace.

[predxeno]

*I think the ending is going to be red-haring. It'll be to segway into the Aliens series starting next week. I think our attention should be on the Engineer in the opening. I could be compeltely wrong, of course, but just a feeling.

My biggest fear is that

Spoiler

the captain's code will end up not opening the door at all at which point the character says "Damn my code's not working, time to forget we ever found the ship from LV-426 in the first place."  I get why the writers may not want Aliens in a Prometheus comic, but if you're going to have an entire plot element, let alone a cliffhanger, in the story then it better not be a cheap marketing scheme that will inevitably have a disappointing plot ending.  Normally I'd say no writer is that self-centered to do something like this but considering what we've gotten in recent years, this has actually become a frighteningly nightmarish possibility for me.

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[Quarax]

Spoiler

Can anyone with a physical copy tell me what page the panel with the Aliens is on?

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[SM]

Spoiler

The last one.  Well and the second last one too.  Panel is over two pages.

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[TheBATMAN]

Some more potential continuity issues - Weyland sent a probe to LV-223 in 2090 - the year following the submission from Shaw and Holloway, yet the planet is over 2 years travel from Earth at that time (maybe it was sent from somewhere closer).  And speaking of 2 years travel - Zeta 2 Reticuli is 3 weeks from Earth in 2179.  In 2219 they've been asleep 2 years to get there?

The whole tone of the piece owes more to Prometheus where space travel seems to be novel, than the greater story where space travel is commonplace.

Such shoddy errors really when you think how many hundreds of hours they must have spent in research and planning this out in the writing room. Even with the Fox mandate to start over, things like this should have been rectified.

[Quarax]

Spoiler

The last one.  Well and the second last one too.  Panel is over two pages.

[close]

Spoiler

Sorry, I meant the number of the page.

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