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

[Ultramorph]

It's definitely a fun story, but I agree that it's a lot like Prometheus in that it's not completely satisfying. The behind the scenes stuff is great!

How does the AVP mini hold up?

Looking forward to readin Life and Death in trade.

[Xiggz456]

Nice! I'm currently doing the same (finally splurged on the complete hardback). The art in Prometheus is up there with Den Beauvais. I love the panel where the aliens are dropping from the trees while the geryon crew is riding those rovers! I'm in the AVP section now and it slows the story down quite a bit.

[The Old One]

I can't say I have much praise for this beyond the art.

Spoiler

Pathogen effecting an android, Pathogen gluing Aliens together like melting two NECA Aliens together, Pathogen making extra limbs, mandibles whatever.
No design consistency whatsoever.

It truly goes off the rails, in the two prequels- when the Pathogen infects a creature it, as David says either kills them outright or uses them as an incubator when deployed directly. Regardless of being correctly deployed or not, it always results in a creature with elongated limbs, translucent skin and extreme aggression.

It's magic with no rules in the comic, and that's just no fun.

There's also a ship directly going from LV-426 to LV-223, c'mon how lazy can you be. This kind of A to B storytelling is present throughout the whole thing.

The Deacon became a mountain, instead of encountering a number of more suitable and believable fates. There's inferred time travel.
There's not a single notworthy character.

[close]

Nope, not for me- wasted potential.

[SM]

Spoiler

Elden wasn't completely synthetic.  He had biological components more like a cyborg.

Fire and Stone was written and produced years before Covenant so they didn't know about "it kills them outright or uses them as an incubator".  The goo didn't seem to kill Fifield outright.

Why is there a problem with the ship going from 426 to 223?  They were both orbiting the same planet.

And there's no time travel in Fire & Stone.

[close]

[The Old One]

Spoiler

True actually, I'll give that a pass- would have felt more tolerable if I actually believed that he was a strong character.

As I said, regardless of that statement in Covenant. In Prometheus everything that came into contact with the Pathogen (Even incorrectly deployed, as it was with Fifield) had a similar design language and characteristics.

The time frame of the two expeditions is too coincidental for my liking.

I can't remember where but it's definitely inferred that the Engineers have some form of time travel.

[close]

[SM]

Spoiler

Fifield mutated in Prometheus, and it look like Holloway was head down the same road, just slower. The worms turned into hammerpedes. And the Engineers head blew up.  I don't really see a huge departure from that sort of thing in the comics.   I liked how that when Francis actually got the 'filtered' accelerant, it effectively accelerated his cancer.

Not sure what you mean about the time frames.

Life & Death hinted at time travel.  But it's just speculation from Singer.

[close]

[Ultramorph]

Spoiler

Elden makes an offhand mention of the Engineers "moving through time," but he doesn't have any knowledge that would indicate that that is true.

Life and Death makes a similar conjecture, but again nothing is definitely stated.

[close]

[SM]

Spoiler

I read "moving through time" as "long lived".

[close]

[The Old One]

Spoiler

A whole ecosystem, more mandibles, limbs, creatures fused together, mountainous creatures.

None of that is implied or fits in with the design language that Prometheus shows or tells.

[close]

As I originally stated, it's narrative shorthand with no identity in Fire and Stone, Prometheus 2012- did that to an extent narratively but had a consistent set of rules for  the nature of the virus. This goes off the rails completely.

[OpenMaw]

I would not call what Prometheus showed us as consistent. At all.

Direct exposure either causes organisms to break down, or freakishly mutate, and the way with which it is deployed does not matter. Directly ingested, dipped in. It's all chaos.

[SM]

Yeah, the worm that turned into the hammerpede seemed like a pretty big leap and that was swimming in it.

[The Old One]

Regardless, it didn't even come close to the things it can do in Fire and Stone.

That's the problem.

It breaks things down or turns them (eventually) into a pale, gaunt, monster with long limbs that carries the Alien's very basic core design language.

Fire and Stone doesn't adhere to that in the slightest, especially visually, check my previous spoiler tag for examples.

[SM]

What was the "core design language" in the hammerpede?

[The Old One]

It's pale, skinny, it has been enlogated and has a form of hidden appendages around it's head, similarly the Trilobite has hidden tentacle appendages also for holding its' prey. Neomorphs (In which I include the Deacon) have a similar hidden form of attack in their pharyngeal jaw.

[SM]

Doesn't look very Alien, but.