When Dark Horse initially got the Aliens license, there were only the two movies. Ridley Scott’s claustrophobic horror masterpiece and James Cameron’s action blockbuster. There wasn’t a huge amount of lore, or explanations for lore, built up yet. Just the world of LV-426, a perfect killing organism, a corporate infrastructure that considered human life expendable, a mystery surrounding an alien’s ship, a whole load of dead marines, and a handful of survivors.
The comics originally couldn’t use Ripley, so they centred around the two other survivors from the Aliens movie, Newt and Hicks. Penned by Mark Verheiden, with art on the first series by Mark A. Nelson and the second by Denis Beauvais, the story brought the Xenomorphs to Earth. Less through corporate means than a focus on military experiments on creating new troops, experimenting on humans, and, well, what you’d expect from these sorts of things. Mayhem.
“What she got was a nightmare without end.”
The third part of Dark Horse’s original trilogy was Aliens: Earth War from Verheiden, Sam Kieth, Monika Livingston, Jim Massara, and Pat Brosseau. It features the return of Ripley, for the first time in the comics, in a tale to deal with an Earth infested with Xenomorphs, deal with the transmission that originally brought the Nostromo to LV-426, and find the source planet of the aliens in a deadly plan to destroy them all.
There’s a theme of motherhood and responsibility that runs through this story. Starting first with that feeling of abandonment that Newt has from Ripley being gone, manifesting in her own desire to save another human child that was left on the overrun Earth, and running through Ripley’s desire to find, capture, and kill the ur-Queen of the Xenomorphs. It’s a riff on the story from Aliens that flows through this entire series, including a second set of soldiers, that was picked up later in Alien: Resurrection too.
This is an interesting in between period for Sam Kieth. His linework and layouts look more confident and precise in design that even his beautiful work on The Sandman and have started towards the even more stylized, exaggerated work on The Maxx. Emphasizing detail and beautiful women, while still presenting the dark, terrifying threat of the Xenomorphs. The colours from Monika Livingston are fairly bold, utilizing a limited selection of primary colours against Kieth’s dark inks. The simplicity enhances the overall feel of horror.
The lettering is a contrast of styles. Jim Massara letters the first issue and it’s fairly loose. I don’t quite know how to describe it, but it’s the type of lettering that feels hand-drawn. There are times where it feels tight to the narration boxes and word balloons. That changes for the second through fourth issues when Pat Brosseau takes over. The lettering becomes more uniform, spacing breathes in the boxes and balloons. And it gives it an overall more natural feel.
“Then I remembered something Ripley had said: This wasn’t about Earth anymore. It was for us.”
When Alien 3 came out, changed the rules, and killed off Newt and Hicks, it rendered much of the Dark Horse spin-offs non-canon. Reprints would changed their names to Billie and Wilks to maintain this storyline in the comics canon, trying to be consistent with film continuity, but I always thought of these comics as an alternate timeline. One where things played out differently. Not for the last time either, since even Aliens vs. Predator and Prometheus would change things further.
Still, Aliens: Earth War by Verheiden, Kieth, Livingston, Massara, and Brosseau is an epic conclusion to the original Dark Horse trilogy, bringing back Ripley, and giving a kind of closure to the story that started in Scott’s Alien. Even if you’ve only seen the movies, not seen the movies, and not read the previous two entries in the trilogy, the story remains a fun ride. It captures the horror of the first movie and the action of the second. With a righteous vengeance against the hidden machinations behind the world that threaten to turn us all into meatbags.
Classic Comic Compendium: Aliens – Earth War
Aliens – Earth War
Writer: Mark Verheiden
Artist: Sam Kieth
Colourist: Monika Livingston
Letterers: Jim Massara & Pat Brosseau
Publisher: Marvel Comics (reprint collection) | Dark Horse (original publisher)
Release Date: July 6 2022 (reprint collection) | June – October 1990 (original issues)
Available collected in Aliens: The Original Years Omnibus – Volume 1 & Aliens Epic Collection: The Original Years – Volume 1
Read past entries in the Classic Comic Compendium!
