By Sam King
I have read a LOT of Aliens comics and have regular access to the Dark Horse omnibus collections that have come out. The last Alien comic series I read disappointed me in art and story quality (Dead Orbit). Aliens: Dust to Dust #1 actually does things a little differently and feels fresh. Let me rephrase that: this comic is as fresh as a franchise can possibly be when the main plot line is always humans discover bad things in space and killer aliens run rampant.
Aliens Dust to Dust #1 is the start of a new 4-issue miniseries. While the story generally has been done before (aliens get loose in some setting, and humans need to survive), several times, this one seems promising to me so far. It opens with a young boy and his mom on a colony we haven't seen before. We see classic symbols of foreshadowing what will come (facehugger, logo of Weyland-Yutani), but it is all done very quickly. The Weyland-Yutani logo is shown with on a wall in a smaller panel with an alarm warning, so it is not the main focus within a page or over several pages. It is not glossed over, but it isn’t in your face. Nobody is directly talking about the company, and the logo is not spread everywhere. The facehugger sequence is at the very beginning, and it goes by relatively quick. It starts things off in a fast way and fans will recognize the trouble it will cause, but the characters seem largely unaware. This is not because they are dumb or making bad mistakes, but because they just don’t know what these things are. There are no religious zealots and no irritating company members; what we have are seemingly average people in a bad position…at this point anyway, we will see if this continues through the rest of the series.
We see the xenomorphs a few times, but they are well placed and not overly used or presented. The main focus is on the mother and her son trying to get to safety. The cliffhanger was also done pretty well since it shows enough to where you know what is going to happen next, but you also wonder just how bad things are going to get. Having left where they needed to, the next step is relatively unknown. I am not fully certain where this story is going. I know someone is going to die, I know at least one more xenomorph will cause havoc, and that it will probably be in a shuttle in space, but where will they end up? Will they just be floating in space now? Will they reach a destination that they will end up ruining? Are the characters on the shuttle the only ones we will have over the next three issues? I have a lot of questions because there is actually quite a bit of potential for where the story might go. Most likely everyone will end up dead, or maybe one character won’t. At this point, I think I have my money on the kid, but if he ends up alone, he probably will not last long.
The fun of Alien stories for me is not just having similar stories replayed out over and over again. For me, it is about wondering what happens next, guessing who might survive, guessing how bad things will be, and seeing how long someone can go against a xenomorph killing machine. I like to see repercussions. So far, we don’t know too many people, so there doesn’t appear to be a lot of what I refer to as “fodder.” These would be characters who are just around to eventually die, and they are often easy to pick out of a bunch in an Aliens movie. This comic isn’t that obvious, which excites me.
Another thing that excites me is the art. The art style has a lot of shadows, but the balance of colors is really nice. None are too bright or too dull, and it isn’t too monochromatic or bland. This one actually feels like a smoother drawn version of an older storyline. What I mean is that the Alien comics from the 80s and 90s had certain tones, and the art was nice, but it was also reminiscent of that period of comics. This art style mirrors that, in a modern way in terms of precision and blend. I really liked the art. There weren’t any panels I would necessarily hang on my wall, but it fit the story and the tone in an enjoyable way.
Overall, I would say that Aliens fans need to check this one out. Issue #1 is off to a solid start, and I am looking forward to finishing this one out. I just hope that the next issues keep the things that I liked going and don’t drop off on quality in terms of the story or choose one color scheme and wreck it like the previous miniseries. This one is just in time for Alien day tomorrow! Happy Alien Day everyone!
Score: 4/5
Aliens: Dust to Dust #1
Dark Horse Comics