A most terrible birthing.
Creative Staff:
Story: Brian Wood
Art: Stephen Thompson
Colors: Dan Jackson
Lettering: Nate Piekos of Blambot
What They Say:
In the aftermath of the intense battle against the Colonial Marines, Zula Hendricks and Davis have gone from being merely AWOL to full-blown traitors. As they drift into a quiet part of space to recover and regroup, new crew member Dr. Hollis discovers something in the medical bay that changes everything. Sometimes evil comes from within.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With this series running for twelve issues, Brian Wood is able to space things out well enough so that it’s not so packed and crazy that it becomes too much. But it also doesn’t feel too decompressed as each of the individual chapters works through some significant material of different types in order to weave the whole together. With this chapter, he’s joined by artist Stephen Thompson and he does a great job of stepping into some very talented shoes for the past issues. While his take on Zula feels off compared to what we had before, I like what we get when it comes to Davis and Hollis but especially the overall tone and atmosphere of the ship, the outfits, and the xenomorph.
With the revelation the last time around by Hollis that she’s a host for one of the eggs, well, let’s just say that she doesn’t exactly handle it like Zula thinks she would. She’s in total professional mode and with a good helping of anti anxiety meds she’s ready to move to the next stage. While Zula and Davis’ mission is to stop Weyland-Yutani from acquiring the specimen, Hollis wants to expand on it by keeping the creature alive inside of her in order to study it so they can figure out how to kill it better. It’s not a bad idea overall because the more information about the enemy the better, but it’s something that really pushes Zula to her limits of what she can handle while for Davis it’s another expansion of how his programming is working to be able to deal with it as well.
This is a pretty tense sequence that takes up a decent bit of time as Hollis directs Davis on the surgery while Zula is prepared to ice her and the xenomorph if it goes badly. The containment side they came up with feels like it works, if only because of Davis, but it’s fraught with trouble enough to really make him wary and fearful. The whole thing just works really well and you can imagine it being a very short piece in a film yet filled with tension. The book continues to work these characters together well so that it’s an ensemble piece yet also ensures that the individual is given more than enough space to shine. This is particularly true of Hollis here and all the more impressive considering she’s a recent arrival overall.
In Summary:
I continue to dig this series a whole lot and with its erratic publication schedule I really hope it gets a really nicely done full hardcover collection when all is said and done. It’s a property that really feels like it’s going to read well in that full form but it also has a lot to offer in individual chapters so you can drill down into the characters, their motivations, and just the tension of it all. Wood handles this chapter really well with the mix of dialogue and narration and Thompson is a solid addition to the artistic side as he brings this futuristic world to life really well and avoids making the surgery side super icky for me, for which I’m very grateful.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: December 7th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
