The mission never ends.
Creative Staff:
Story: Brian Wood
Art: Eduardo Francisco
Colors: Dan Jackson
Lettering: Nate Piekos of Blambot
What They Say:
After her return to Earth, Zula Hendricks fully expects to answer for her defiance. But instead of military tribunals, what she experiences is a chilling look into the future of warfare, courtesy of Weyland-Yutani’s R&D labs. Her mission may not be over just yet.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Aliens: Defiance series comes to a close with this installment though it’s one, like many, that certainly feels open for more to be told. Brian Wood had some strong issues early on and some of the middle installments did a lot of good things. Once it shifted into the ending with the return to Earth it felt like the mission itself turned unclear and became kind of muddled because of that. This installment gives us more time with Eduardo Francisco and that works well in this environment with the brighter colors that Dan Jackson gets to work with and the range of characters involved. But all of it just made me miss the time in space, the smaller cast of characters, and a distinctive lack of xenomorphs.
This chapter is all about the human epilogue to events and it’s a disheartening one in a lot of ways. Dr. Hollis figures into things at the start with the nightmares she’s having but they’re nothing compared to her reality. She’s essentially become Weyland-Yutani property now and they’re dissecting her in order to see what biomaterials may remain from when the alien was inside of her. Zula doesn’t learn about this for some time and it makes for a very lonely experience for Hollis as she knows things aren’t going to go well. Just trying to put yourself in that mindset and what’s going on is hard to do because the overwhelming fear it would create mixed with her body being put in stasis but aware of it all takes it up a few notches. I’ve liked Hollis a lot since she got involved in the story and this is an unfortunate but not unexpected sad ending for her.
With Zula, her arc is moving in a different direction. We see her getting more surgery, more physical therapy, more mental therapy, and a pretty grim but by the numbers interrogation to figure out what happened over the course of her journey since things went south so bad. She handles it professionally, intent on showing them that they haven’t broken her, but she has some small snapping points. The time with her mental health therapist is the best in a way as they both play the game knowing they’re being watched but she also helps Zula at the end when she’s discharged but being monitored, giving her a clue on how to escape. Zula’s narration for this is engaging but it’s those final pages that make it stronger for me and give me hope of some sort of continuation as she brings Davies back into the picture and really makes it clear what an impact he had on her.
In Summary:
Though it’s a quieter kind of epilogue than I might have care for in some ways, and the lack of the xenomorph as an active participant in what’s going on rather than a nightmare sequen doesn’t help, it’s a solid end to the run that went in unexpected directions. It does somewhat feel like this isn’t where the book intended to go from the start but got shifted this way along the way but that kind of unnatural path has its own appeal as well. Brian Wood put together some great chapters in this run and serves up a solid epilogue for it all here and he was well paired with Eduardo Francisco here on the artwork. With this being a more human issue with lots of people of different stripes involved that comes across very well and made for a good read. The earlier part of the run will stand out for me more than the final third of it, however.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: June 21st, 2017
MSRP: $3.99
