Creative Staff:
Story: Brian Wood
Art: Tony Brescini
Colors: Dan Jackson
Lettering: Nate Piekos of Blambot
What They Say:
A fledgling alien, kept alive in a deep freeze for the purpose of learning its weaknesses, wages a psychological war on Zula, Davis, and Hollis. They try to keep it together, but an attack on the Europa by space pirates forces the trio to weaponize what they seek to destroy.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With just three issues to go after this one, Aliens: Defiance is definitely going to end in a potentially big way and one that should be engaging to watch. Brian Wood has given us a number of pretty solidly personal stories for our characters so far and thrown us into some intense situations, which this time around are illustrated by Tony Brescini. Brescini did the previous issue as well and that worked out in a very good way as I like his take on Davis and he really gets to stretch a bit here in working with the Xenomorph queen that’s in the ship. There’s a good sense of tight quarters in a lot of these scenes but also some of the more spacious areas as well which adds its own kind of terror, particularly with how Dan Jackson unifies it all.
With all that’s gone on to survive recently, what’s one more problematic event? That comes in the form of a small ship of pirates that are looking to take advantage of the Europa and whatever it may hold. Since the Europa herself is stolen, Hendricks and the others don’t know what it may have but they do know it’s in rough shape after everything that’s gone down. We see how the defensive elements are offline and that they can’t just vent the section where the pirates come through because it could just crater the entire ship. That forces things to a more personal level with Hendricks plugging away with her rifle through the pain while Davis makes his moves through a number of the pirates with the weapons he gets, including a shotgun that “chooms!” the enemy in a pretty intense way. It’s a rough sequence overall watching it unfold as the bodies drop fast and furious.
What’s unclear is just how many pirates there are and that has Hendricks with Hollis opting to go in a bad direction to stay alive, which means unleashing the Xenomorph that’s grown into a good sized queen. Davis isn’t exactly on board with this, nor does he get a choice, and it’s brutal watching the thing plow through the pirates and tearing them apart. But what’s more distressing is that even as Hendricks deals with the bigger problems of the pirates she still opts for the easy way out of all of this by sending the ship hurtling toward Earth, giving up on trying to keep the Xenomorph out of their hands. The pain has overwhelmed her at this point and she’s just done, though Davis once again is not on board with this and hasn’t even reacted to it properly yet. There’s plenty of problems to come, if they make it to Earth at all, but this is a brutal installment.
In Summary:
Aliens: Defiance continues to be one of my favorite books from the franchise in the past ten years and has the potential to be the best of them depending on how the final chapters play out. Brian Wood is clearly enjoying working with the small cast of characters here and the crazy situations that they’re getting into in trying to survive. It makes for some tense reading with great visuals by the art team that simply takes it up several notches. It has a great look and totally drives the narrative in the right way with the details and corrosion that Brescini brings to it. I love reading each chapter but can’t wait to just read it as a whole all while imagining it on the big screen.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: January 25th, 2017
MSRP: $3.99