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Aliens

post #1 of 19
7/14/08 at 6:49am
Thread Starter 
I've always had a curiosity about the Dark Horse Aliens series. It garnered a lot of praise back in the day. So I did something odd, and bought my first Dark Horse comic-compilation-thing of Outbreak/Nightmare Asylum/Female War.

It started off as being pretty shoddy fanfic, but picked up nicely by the start of Nightmare Asylum. The art also improved greatly here - still got half way to go through reading them though. Hard life.

Anyone else read these?
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post #2 of 19
7/14/08 at 7:01am
I never read the comics, but I read the novelizations of them, which I suppose makes me some kind of nerd pinnacle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens_%28novel%29

I read Earth War and Nightmare Asylum and wasn't really impressed with either.

I've always wanted to read the comics but I've had a hard time finding them. I have yet to stake out the comics section at the new Barnes and Noble in town, perhaps I should.
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post #3 of 19
7/14/08 at 7:11am
Thread Starter 
Yeah, i'm pretty sure the whole point of these is that every idea has been done to death Aliens-wise and that you get them for some hilarious imagery and occasionally brilliant art. eBay seems loaded with the original comics, but I bought this in a "graphic novel" format with the 3 loaded together as one story.
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post #4 of 19
7/14/08 at 7:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jakespeare View Post
I never read the comics, but I read the novelizations of them, which I suppose makes me some kind of nerd pinnacle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens_%28novel%29

I read Earth War and Nightmare Asylum and wasn't really impressed with either.
I actually liked Nightmare Asylum more than Earth War. The Female War by Steve Perry was the best of the lot. It really would have been a great sequel to Aliens.

Did you read the Alien Vs Predator novel series as well?
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post #5 of 19
7/14/08 at 7:41am
I read the first one. I dug it much more than the Aliens novels that I read.
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post #6 of 19
7/14/08 at 7:44am
Steve Perry practically pioneered the word Yuatja. Whenever I think of Predators I always think them as the Yuatja race.

By the way, you might like to check this new Predator Novel.



Title: Predator: South China Sea
By: Jeff VanderMeer
Publication Date: Aug 27, 2008
Description: On a remote South China Sea island, a deadly hunt is underway . . . but not the kind of expedition the participants expected. In this remote jungle-covered island somewhere between Thailand and Indonesia some of the most exotic animals in the world have been gathered as the prizes in a challenge of human against nature. The hunters come from all walks of life: a South African arms dealer, a Romanian ex-wrestler, two former KGB agents, a wildlife TV host, a Thai pirate, and John Gustat, a billionaire with a mysterious past. Each has come to the island for personal reasons, some secret, some deadly. But when the encampment's owner, ex-Khmer Rouge Colonel Rath Preap, finds the fences cut and his security men missing, it's clear that the game has turned. And as the hunters battle for survival, they discover there is another creature out for blood--a Predator with an unstoppable lust for conquest.
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post #7 of 19
7/14/08 at 8:00am
'Labyrinth' is definitely my favourite of the Dark Horse comics I read...both for story and artwork.
I kinda cringe at DH's other Aliens spin-offs...fanfic-cubed.

I loved it at the time, though.

(Oh, ...and 'TRIBES' was fucking wonderful as well!)
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post #8 of 19
7/14/08 at 8:01am
Thread Starter 
I've read an AvP one - the one i'm assuming was partly inspiration for whatserface marking herself up in the first AvP movie. It was pretty good - but had the same funky artwork from Outbreak.

I'm onto Female War now and after the whole thing with Billie and Wilks being basically Newt and Hicks word for word - right down to the "and with one female civilian survivor" story from Outbreak - they're now acknowledging that the events in Aliens happened too now. So Vasquez and Drake died both on The Rim and Hadley's Hope.

Fuck, these things were an expensive mess. I wanted the Watchmen graphic novel but they'd sold out. These were something i'd wanted for a long time. You say Female War is the best - let's hope so, cos i'm pretty pissed with the start of this.
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post #9 of 19
7/14/08 at 8:30am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bees?! View Post
I'm onto Female War now and after the whole thing with Billie and Wilks being basically Newt and Hicks word for word - right down to the "and with one female civilian survivor" story from Outbreak - they're now acknowledging that the events in Aliens happened too now. So Vasquez and Drake died both on The Rim and Hadley's Hope.
That's because the series was written before Alien 3 came out and killed off Newt and Hicks. After Alien 3 they changed all the character names in subsequent printings and the novelizations.
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post #10 of 19
7/14/08 at 8:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bees?! View Post
I've always had a curiosity about the Dark Horse Aliens series. It garnered a lot of praise back in the day. So I did something odd, and bought my first Dark Horse comic-compilation-thing of Outbreak/Nightmare Asylum/Female War.

It started off as being pretty shoddy fanfic, but picked up nicely by the start of Nightmare Asylum. The art also improved greatly here - still got half way to go through reading them though. Hard life.

Anyone else read these?
The artwork for 'Nightmare Asylum' was fucking brilliant.
Except it wasn't called 'Nightmare Asylum'.
Lovely air-brushed shit.
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post #11 of 19
7/14/08 at 8:34am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Graham View Post
'Labyrinth' is definitely my favourite of the Dark Horse comics I read...both for story and artwork.
Agree 100 %. Labyrinth is great. Such a twisted little story.

Pity most of the Alien comics don't really hold up as well as that one.
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post #12 of 19
7/14/08 at 8:36am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by sexymollusk View Post
That's because the series was written before Alien 3 came out and killed off Newt and Hicks. After Alien 3 they changed all the character names in subsequent printings and the novelizations.
You can see where i'm coming from though, right? 2 of the stories have characters based on Hicks and Newt. Then in the third story, they introduce Hicks and Newt (through flashbacks) killing off characters who were with Billie and Wilks.

For the sake of consistancy surely just ignoring the existance of Hicks and Newt would have been easier? Admittedly it'd have made bringing Ripley back a bit of a chore.

Ahh who am I kidding. It's fanfic, isn't it.
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post #13 of 19
7/14/08 at 8:38am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Graham View Post
The artwork for 'Nightmare Asylum' was fucking brilliant.
Except it wasn't called 'Nightmare Asylum'.
Lovely air-brushed shit.
Was it called something different globally or something? It's most definitely called that here... or am I missing an easy joke?
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post #14 of 19
7/15/08 at 12:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by sexymollusk View Post
Agree 100 %. Labyrinth is great. Such a twisted little story.
Labyrinth was written by Jim Woodring, which is amazing in itself.

I can't remember anything about the story, but I thought the artwork for Salvation was really good--Mignola with Al Williamson inking. I believe it came out right before Mignola started up Hellboy.
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post #15 of 19
7/15/08 at 4:11am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bees?! View Post
Was it called something different globally or something? It's most definitely called that here... or am I missing an easy joke?
I think Nightmare Asylum was originally called 'Book Two' or somesuch. I could go spelunking through my old comic boxes and find out for certain...but I'm fairly terrified of re-reading these as an adult. The art was great for the first two series then went to shit for the third book (Earth War? or whatever has Ripley in it).

I remember the first AvP series as decent, as well...probably best not revisit that either.

Seriously, I enjoyed the fuck out of a lot of these when I was 15.
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post #16 of 19
7/16/08 at 3:02pm
Thread Starter 
The AvP first series reads very well as an adult, I was surprised. It's not great, but it's entertaining.

Earth War - is that the one renamed Female War? Cos Ripley turned up and it all went a bit wank.
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post #17 of 19
7/16/08 at 3:28pm
Earth War is fucking awful.
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post #18 of 19
8/4/08 at 10:01pm
Used to love this stuff. The first non-Marvel/DC comics I read about ten years ago. In retrospect they're not the most well written, but I'm genuinely amazed that these even exist. How many well known movie properties are continued in comic book format with the creators allowed total freedom? Unfortunately that resulted in Alien 3 negating everything that had come before.

Anyone surprised at how similar Aliens v. 2 (or Nightmare Asylum, in novelization form) is to William Gibson's rejected Alien 3 script? Wonder if, of all those writers that took a crack at Alien 3, any of them glimpsed at the Dark Horse comics of the time.

I understand that retroactively the names Hicks and Newt are changed to Wilks and Billie, but how does that work in Earth War? The novelization, Female War, explained that Ripley was actually an android, but how could the comic explain that, considering I doubt they redrew or added scenes? I need to pick up the Aliens omnibuses to see.

Labyrinth and Tribes were great. Some good ideas in the whole bunch, like the Royal Queen jelly turned into drugs, and the cults that worshipped the xenomorphs. Unfortunately the supposed xeno home planet was completely uninspired, not even remotely Geiger-esque.
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post #19 of 19
8/8/08 at 2:30pm
dark horse have recently released alien omnibus volumes 1-4 which have all of the stories going back to Alien Outbreak,Nightmare Asylum and Female War. They are reasonable priced ($16) for 400 pages worth reading. available at amazon-
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