This new Aliens series from Dark Horse sets out with the concept to tie the story line of Prometheus into the bigger shared universe. This is alluded to in the preamble to the series, part of which mentions another new series from Dark Horse which focuses on Prometheus (which I have not read). In trying to tie together different elements from the series, this is partially successful, though at times it seems to be paying almost too much homage to other series.

The crowded halls of the movie Aliens is evident here as are a few other major staples of the series (minor spoiler to follow) such as every escape craft ever used having an alien tag along on it, and that is no different here. The end state of this story is a bit of a further stretch as well, as it is almost as if it is alluding to the forest planet from the movie Predators, at least in atmosphere and setting if not in actual plot.

As such this first issue is not so much of anything new, more like a pastiche of every other Aliens films with even a bit of Predator thrown in. This is a bit problematic as well when also adding Prometheus to the mix, as the level of interconnectedness is a bit much to take with all of the continuity glitches that such a merge would make. At its base though, this issue succeeds, if one forgets about all which doesn’t make sense from a continuity standpoint and focuses on the story alone here. It may not be groundbreaking, but fans can’t really get enough of the xenomorphs, who show up too infrequently in pop culture, and this story at least offers something a little new to go along with a lot of the old.

 Story: Chris Roberson  Art: Patric Reynolds
Story: 7.0 Art: 7.0 Overall: 7.0 Recommendation: Read