The whittling down of humans continues.
Creative Staff:
Story: Paul Tobin
Art: Juan Ferreyra
What They Say:
Casualties rise as the Prometheus’s recovery team find themselves trapped between an unrelenting alien horde, a ruthless Engineer, and a vengeful victim of the mysterious accelerant!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The prometheus arc of Fire and Stone has been one that worked better for me than expected, though a lot of what goes on here is just a push towards the events in space with the nasty creatures up there and the plans from it. But what we get here definitely makes for a lot of fun as it feels more like a traditional Alien/Aliens move in a way as things get dark, dangerous and pretty deadly across the board with what the team here has had to deal with. It’s also lucked out in that Paul Tobin has turned in some pretty solid scripts along the way with workable dialogue and situational setup and that Juan Ferreyra has brought it to life in a really strong way that has elevated it all.
The final installment doesn’t really offer any surprises when you get down to it, but part of the thrill of books and stories like this is watching people trying to survive as long as they can and do what they can. With Angela’s team having made their way into the Helios to get what they needed to survive, it’s turned into an utter disaster with what’s waiting for them there – and that’s before taking into consideration what Elden is at this point. With traditional Xenomorphs there as well, the group that went in is cut down pretty quickly. Help from above that has landed in the area provides a sense of the cavalry arriving, but even that is really short-lived and just adds more fodder for the aliens in the end. You almost hold out hope, but you know it’s going to be a massacre.
What we do see here towards the end is admittedly spoiled to a degree as we know Galgo will make his way offworld with the ship and a very limited crew as he knows his fate is to die if Angela makes it off of there. That story works as we know it does, but I like seeing Angela and her group make their way into the alien ship from Prometheus with the Engineer and try to figure out what’s going on since the Xenomorphs avoid it. It has some great tension as the Xenomorphs are eventually drawn in, but the Engineer is moving around as well in a very, very powerful way that makes him impressive – and utterly dismissive of all other life forms on his ship. The blend of Angela’s survival story and what Galgo, and Elden, are up to makes this a lot of fun to watch but also ends on a note that’s both fully of potential and full of fear with what Angela’s story could be all about from here on out. Hopefully there is more to it.
In Summary:
With the greatest number of unknowns to it as this is the first Prometheus comic series out there, it’s largely become my favorite of the four because it had a lot of fun in exploring how this area of LV-223 has changed in the years since the events of the film and what the Accelerant has done. Part of the fun is spoiled by the release schedule with other books, but this one has been a blast in watching how things unfolded, with what Francis ended up doing, what Elden became and the entire alien environment that grew up around the events there. It’s not over the top in its evolutionary aspects, but we got some neat stuff that made for tense moments and a lot of danger. This is definitely a very solid series overall.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: December 10th, 2014
MSRP: $3.50