Review by Ian Keogh
Long before the Aliens vs. Predator film Dark Horse set one against the other as envisaged by Randy Stradley and Phill Norwood. It proved a phenomenal success, to the point of generating a 30th Anniversary hardcover reissue.
That it’s special is displayed from the start by Norwood’s art. A storyboard artist by trade, just look at the detail and effort put into the spacecraft on the sample art. It’s preceded by an opening page of another craft, this one battered and covered in graffiti, but crafted with equal care. Wait until you see his first full page illustration of an alien.
Stradley begins by having some humans discussing the idea of manifest destiny, that humans are destined to expand, and anything hindering that expansion does so at their own risk. Considering readers know Aliens and Predators are due to appear, it’s both a clever and amusing start, and terrifying for the captions being overlaid on a scene of an alien tending to eggs. Stradley continues the conversation switching attention to the Predator and their brutal society. The threats having been convincingly introduced, the spotlight switches to a human colony on a ranching planet whose concerns are about to become over-ridden in the most terrifying way imaginable.
Norwood enjoys drawing the technology and the aliens far more than ordinary people, who’re stiff and wonky looking, but if the trade-off is his amazing aliens that’s no drawback. Once past the introduction and the realisation that both species have landed on different areas of the same planet Stradley builds the tension toward the inevitable by focussing on the recently installed overseer of the ranching depot and the problems she’s having. He builds slowly to the inevitable apocalypse, exploiting the suspense of readers knowing what’s coming, while the cast have no idea.
While it’s a shame Norwood doesn’t draw everything, it’s understandable he wasn’t going to turn down the opportunity to storyboard T2 for James Cameron. Chris Warner illustrates the final chapter. The people look better, and while he can’t match Norwood’s expansive vision it’s very good art.
Stradley’s weakness is sometimes using too many words, but on the other hand he comes up with a terrific reason why the Aliens have spread through the universe. Aliens vs. Predator remains the same thrill provided in 1990, sequels and films notwithstanding.
The 30th Anniversary edition also includes the opening chapter of ‘War’, which is really all you need. It’s very nicely drawn by Warner, follows up on a character from the main story, and delivers Aliens vs. Predator action just the way you want it.
This is also gathered into the first Aliens versus Predator Omnibus, while Machiko Noguchi’s entire story arc is collected as Aliens vs. Predator: The Essential Comics Volume 1. However, none of the other material matches the thrills of this story, making the 30th Anniversary hardcover the format of choice.
