Twenty-four pages of knockdown, drag-out fighting amongst the orneriest of critter--that’s issue four of Fire and Stone. An Engineer accelerated Elden fights against a Predator. An accelerated Predator fights an accelerated Francis. Ariel Olivetti’s artwork brings new imaginings of shock and horror as images of mutated men and Predators will leave readers with nightmare inducing graphics. Take particular note of the mutated mouth on the back of Francis’ head as it bites the tendrils off the Predator’s face. Also, the details on Elden’s accelerated form have quite the gross-yet-intriguing features if one looks closely.

After all the fighting, the two accelerated humans come to a bittersweet end. As Elden reconciles with the heavy losses, he must realize that he is essentially an immortal character. Although a bit too superhuman, Elden does have some interesting points that will make for great possible storylines.

As a whole, the series provided some great reversals of power. The characters thought to be unrivaled met with greater forces. As the powers shifted, readers saw a theme similar to that in Percy Bysshe Shelly’s poem “Ozymandias”: time will ravage all.

As this arc of the overall Fire and Stone plotline concludes as one of the strongest of all the offerings, the potential exists to develop bigger storylines. Thanks to Ridley Scott, the Prometheus influence suffused new life into the Aliens and Predators licenses.

I hope Dark Horse continues this idea and moves forward with additional storylines as string as these.

Score: 4/5

Writer: Christopher Sebela Artist: Ariel Olivetti Publisher: Dark Horse Comics Price: $3.50 Release Date: 1/14/15 Format: Mini-Series (4 of 4); Print/Digital