A whole different scale of a problem surfaces.
Creative Staff:
Story: Dan Abnett
Art: Moritat
Colors: Rain Beredo
Letterer: Michael Heisler
What They Say:
Having returned to LV-223 to save one of their own, Captain Paget and her Colonial Marines find themselves once again stranded—and facing an army of xenomorphs!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Aliens angle of the Life & Death cycle has definitely been one of my favorites of an already strong cycle, particularly compared to Fire & Stone. The character dynamics of the various groupings that exist and the way it’s come together on this particular world at this particular time is something that you could imagine being done over a few films to good effect, essentially giving us a clusterfuck of a movie where so many things are happening that you’re freaking out right alongside the characters. And woven into all of that is the tidbits with Lorimer and the bigger plans of Weyland-Yutani, which is still pretty much superficial but with its own special kind of developmental horror about it.
This chapter has a pretty strong human face about it as we get Paget and her crew looking to extract Chris from where the xenomorphs have taken her, a splash endpage the last time around that was just chilling to see for Chris. This does work well here to some degree as Chris does her best to get them to turn back – specifically by ignoring Jill – as she knows she’s a host now and is essentially dead. There’s some strong material from her and the marine she deals with as it has the right air of professional realism and reality about it, but there’s also enough of a nod to how Chris could survive thanks to Lorimer that Paget and the others are intent on following through with it. It’s a complicated piece because you know there’s a sense of hope about it but you also feel like it’s so dim and minimal that you don’t want to believe it.
This book also introduces something a bit more when it comes to the Engineers in two different ways. One is that we discover through Chris that the black ooze is causing defects among their new births and that’s causing a dwindling population with some real problems. That makes Chris all the more important because she knows she’s carrying a viable one – as does the queen! The Engineer’s also comes into focus through the action side of things as we see Galgo and the Predator looking to grab the Marine ship to get offworld only to have the Engineer arrive and blow it up. And that’s just one stage of the chaos he’s going to be putting out there now that he’s completely suited up. The Engineers are still walking a fine line since we don’t know much about them and the Prometheus film really only offered more questions than answers, so I suspect Abnett is playing it minimal and mysterious with what he can get away with. It works but it also leaves you wanting a whole lot more.
In Summary:
I’ll easily admit to thoroughly enjoying this arc and this cycle as a whole and I really hope it gets a strong all-encompassing hardcover at some point. Though it’s just past the halfway mark overall there’s so much going on and it’s coming together so well that I really just want to be able to burn through the whole run in one sitting without any real breaks or gaps in it. This installment puts some minor but expected twists into events and it focuses well on the action along with a new revelation or two that’s intriguing. Abnett knows what it’s doing but damn do I love the way Moritat is bringing this to life. I really wasn’t sure about him being on this property since he’s a distinctive and excellent artist but it’s working fantastically well and I hope he returns in some other form to tell more stories in this universe.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: November 16th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
