Aliens/Vampirella #6 Review

Always from orbit.

Creative Staff:
Story: Corinna Bechko
Art: Javier Garcia-Miranda

What They Say:
Vampirella must convince the resurrected Nosferatu to unite with humanity against a common foe! Can even Vampirella survive an encounter with a Xenomorph Queen/Vampire hybrid? The fate of every person left on Mars, both living and undead, hangs in the balance!

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Aliens/Vampirella series comes to a close with this chapter and it’s pretty much the kind of closure that you expect with it. The franchise in general can often only truly end in one way, though this one plays to its other strength in the strong female character that survives as well. While I would have been curious to see Vampirella take on a new form through it, a hybrid of some sort with a new kind of hunger, I’m not surprised by how it all unfolds. Like many of the Alien stories that we get, it’s the chaotic and death filled journey that really makes the ride what it is and this one is no exception. It just happens to have a few additional fun trappings about it with the vampires.

With the way everything closes in on itself here, the final mad dash to survive is what the focus is all about. That’s complicated by the couple of human survivors who still believe it’s Vampirella’s fault and the addition of an ancient vampire who views them as food doesn’t help. It’s the right kind of tension on top of an already tense situation that drives it well. And as soon as we get the arrival of the true villain on the scene, it turns into crazy chaos in a wonderful way as Garcia-Miranda gets to have the xenomorphs just digging in and the fun of a whole bunch of facehuggers climbing through the cracks and attaching themselves where they can. It’s the whittle down phase that kicks into high gear and it really comes down to just enjoying seeing who will survive and how the others get picked off along the way.

The along the way part is to where there’s a ship that will get them airborne for a bit to connect with Sarah, who is bringing a small craft down to low orbit to blow up the facility both as a way to deal with the problem and revenge. It’s all well executed and there’s some good tension there as the final members are cut away, but I was a little less than pleased by the vampire taking the easy way out. I also really didn’t care for how it all ends so quickly as it’s the kind of story that really requires a few pages of epilogue. Or just a little more room to breathe at the very end here considering how almost abruptly it ends. It’s not out of the ordinary, admittedly, but I wanted something more considering what we learned overall.

In Summary:
Sequel, please?

Aliens/Vampirella worked pretty well overall and it’s about what I expected going into it. There are things you for better or worse have to do with an Aliens story and Bechko hits them on the head here. What she gets to do is change up the narrative a bit with Vampirella in the mix, the vampires from the past angle, and working some drama in because of the human/vampire dynamic. The story is straightforward and you find yourself not really connecting with anyone outside of Vampirella, though I think the Martian vampire comes a close a second. Her script was really brought to life in a great way with Javier Garcia-Miranda’s artwork as he got to have fun with the alien designs, work some great old school vampire material, and got to play with spaceships and more. The pairing worked well and I’d definitely be up for another round of this concept.