Aliens: The Sequel that Jumped the Gun

I can't imagine anyone not being enthralled by the James Cameron vision of the Alien universe where Colonial Marines battle it out with hordes of aliens in colonies turned hive (unless of course they're squeamish and don't like that sort of 'horror-sci-fi' genre). The film would inspire a spin off of comics from Dark Horse that carried on the story of Cpl. Hicks (Michael Biehn's character) and a late teenage 'Newt' (the little blonde girl Ripley rescues in the film). Oddly enough something has happened to Ripley and that's even alluded to in this quasi-sequel (rendered obsolete by the Alien 3 film which starts us off with Hicks and Newt dead in the escape pod). Where she is is anyone's best guess at this point.

This story has Hicks being recruited by the government to lead a team back to LV-426 (Acheron, the colonized planet we saw in 'Aliens' the second movie). Their mission is to capture specimens for the bio-war division back on earth. Hicks' personal mission is strictly vendetta-by-nuke.

Newt of course has been unable to function properly after witnessing the horrors of everyone she'd ever known be torn apart or used as human-bassinets for facehuggers, and finds herself in a psychiatric ward.

Similarly Hicks is filled with regrets for losing his whole team of marines, To make matters worse he's ostracized by his compatriots in the marines for fears that "he's infectious after coming in contact with the aliens." This to me really seemed like a forced plot-device to isolate him so he'd be left with zero choice but to participate in the suicide-mission. They could have brought him to a place of hopelessness without resorting to something so silly because I find it hard to believe any fellow soldier would think a guy could infect them from being in contact with aliens after so many years without any perceived symptoms. But hey, maybe society and military culture are radically different in this sci-fi universe???

One interesting angle was the sheer fascination the science researchers have with the aliens to the point of seeing all else as inconsequential to the development of them in the labs, even human life. Along with that is a sociopathic mercenary a private military contractor hires to beat the earth-government to the acquiring of the alien life forms (don't get me wrong, he's disturbing to the nth degree and very unlikable, but it was quite a writing-decision...).

On that note, the story gets very confusing because the black and white art although quite good leaves frames where differing characters are hard to distinguish. Compounding that is (I THINK) they used an interrogation scene to fill in backstory... along with occasional flashbacks (again, I THINK).... meaning the timeline becomes quite confused and you don't know what's going except that you're getting more information about how that same private military contractor's R&D group gets an alien well before they even send out a mercenary-team to hijack whatever the marines find. This was unfortunate because it's problems like this that take away the enjoyment of reading a comic. I found myself just reading to get through some parts figuring it'd make sense in a few more frames or even pages....  which it only sort of did.

Another writing decision that was somewhat interesting but also unsettling was the choice to develop a cult that worshiped the alien. Worse was the approach to use the model of a stereotypical televangelist. Even worse than that was to constantly refer to the alien as 'God' or the 'Messiah'. Very creepy from a spiritual standpoint. This was absolutely unnecessary as a means to attain the desired end - an alien infestation - although I admit it was definitely more colourful than aliens simply escaping the labs or other. But it felt more like the writer had an axe to grind with televangelists (not that I can agree with 90% of them who are no more than charlatans from the 'synagogue of satan' referred to in Scripture, 'tickling the ears' of their viewers who have ZERO discernment.

However, the reality is WE ARE ALREADY looking to the stars for a saviour as our culture has shifted from belief in the Bible to a wrongful understanding that 'science' is where truth comes from, and an advanced alien race would help us discover the solution to all our problems (Tom Horne's book Exo-Vaticana divulges that even the Roman Catholic 'church' is covering all its bases to have a slice of THAT heretical pie just in case aliens DO land when aliens are revealed to the public at large). What a tragedy that people are being duped this way when Christ has made it plain and clear: this earth will not get better nor will our sinful humanity; it will have to be purged by Him at His return... but those who have received His free gift of eternal life given in love will be united to Him at that time.... while all others who hardened their hearts and rejected Him will pay the just penalty for their sins. Truth most certainly comes from God's Word regardless of whether skeptics scoff at some of the accounts within it (that obviously involve the supernatural). When we abandon God we have an emptiness inside that we want to fill with something else. We're made to worship. This is inescapable.

Another choice I didn't like was that the aliens were not only telepathic (which would explain their ability to communicate from Queen to drones in the hive), but intelligent enough to implant dreams into the minds of people that greatly influenced their behaviour (this is how the cult grows so large so quickly). You get the impression that the aliens are clever in the films, but not this advanced, not at all so this was a great liberty taken by the writers that I thought was an unjustified leap.

I will hand it to them though; it being 1987 or whenever this was written and having the foresight to write about humanity having thousands of channels with far too much stimulation, to the point where private people now create their own programs for the public to view to satiate the appetite of a society seeking more entertainment came decades before Twitch and YouTube with its thousands of channels all tailoring to niche audiences. Their prediction that it would be mostly televangelist programming was far off though (but fair because hucksters who just want money will stoop low). This again suggested the 'axe to grind' like maybe mommy spent their allowance on the grifter on the telly as they grew up and they resented this?

Another on spot prediction was that advertisements were now 2-5 seconds long in the future, and this is exactly what we're seeing not just on YouTube but apparently on TV now (I don't know, I rarely watch television and abandoned the cable bill over a decade ago). We certainly have very little attention span anymore (are you still reading? lol).

In the end I still liked this story to a point and the artwork was fairly decent. I do recall in the next series which continues the story the artwork was fantastic and I really look forward to that.

If you'd like to listen and view it, here it is on my stream: https://youtu.be/Q2NJC4EmEk4

I'd give this series of 6 episodes 3.5/5 stars, still not quite worth buying to read but if you want to a 1-book volume of the series can be found here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1506700780/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_gzdqEbCGWDN3W

Thanks all for stopping by. Feel free to follow me on Twitch.tv to see more geeky goodness!

Past VODs are all at the YouTube channel I linked to above.

And I also hope your conscience towards God has been stirred. You can ask Him questions at a website I'm still constructing - www.HeHasAnswers.com - and even read what I've written thus far regarding the irrefutable evidence of His existence.

God bless you and good night!

ps: some terrible person actually accessed my domain hosting account to make my online ministry website crash, probably to keep women from finding out what they're really worth. That's so pathetic and terrible... AND eerie because they used my password to get in meaning they have spyware on my old laptop. I suspect it's wicked people from my past who misunderstood me, can't forgive me, hate me, and hate every good thing I may try to do for the glory of God, so they want to sabotage that. I certainly forgive them and the site is up again, but I sure pray they repent or they will be severely punished in hell for their evil actions of stopping the Gospel of Christ. Wow, opposing God... not a good idea.