Seen Alien? You’ve already read Caliban then!
The mining exploration vessel, Caliban, becomes fused with an alien ship while in warp space. The surviving crew begin exploring the alien ship’s dark, empty corridors and discover something on board is picking them off one by one...
From the HR Giger dedication at the start, I was hoping Garth Ennis would only be emulating the tone of Ridley Scott’s sci-fi horror masterpiece, which Giger designed the original Alien creature for, but instead he basically outright copies it.
The sleepers aboard Caliban, the monster stalking the corridors, picking off crew members, even the female hero - it’s all an Alien rip-off. There isn’t much else to say about the comic, it’s that tossed off.
Facundo Percio draws the book like a lesser Steve Dillon. The alien designs, the tech, the interiors, it’s all stuff you’ve seen before if you’re a sci-fi fan. Nothing special or original to see here!
Couple the uninspired story with Ennis’ surprisingly plodding script and Caliban is a very disappointing, overlong and quite boring story that never really grabs you. Though for an Ennis/Avatar comic, it is less gory than you’d expect.
Maybe if you want to read an Alien-esque comic or are a fan of the space horror sub-genre, you’ll enjoy this. For me though, I felt Caliban to be a poor quality, forgettable and derivative book - a lesser effort from one of the best comics writers ever.
Caliban
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