Marvel’s latest licence acquisition is the iconic sci-fi horror franchise Alien. In this new “original” story, a dull old geezer, who dreams about an Alien version of the Borg Queen for some reason, is retiring from Weyland-Yutani and trying to reconnect with his terrorist hippie son who’s against corporations. Which, to be fair, he’s right to be given that Weyland-Yutani is the most absurdly one-dimensionally evil corporation ever - they’re STILL fucking around with xenomorphs for no good reason even though it always goes wrong!
As exciting as some Alien movies can be, the first issue of this Alien comic is sooooo boring! On the one hand that’s partly because Alien is actually a very limited concept. Only one storyline really works and it’s the Aliens running through vents hissing and eviscerating human victims. Without that, all we’re doing in this issue is waiting for the xenomorphs to appear and start doing just that. I hope I’m wrong, because it’d likely still be repetitive to see for the umpteenth time, but I don’t expect anything new from Marvel either, so that’s probably going to be the case.
And on the other hand is the fact that the non-Alien characters - in most Alien movies, but definitely in this comic - are completely uninteresting. I didn’t care about retirement man and his annoying son ranting at each other over some tedious long-past family drama, while Bishop is as placidly anodyne as ever.
Not really surprising then that the writer of the dismally-derivative fantasy series The Last God, over at DC Black Label, should produce something as unimpressive and forgettable as Alien #1 (I guess comics is another industry where you fail upwards - that or Phillip Kennedy Johnson has dirt on the Marvel top brass?). Maybe with a good writer this title has a better shot at a decent book sometime in the future but for I think for this arc beginning with Alien #1? Game over, man. Game over!
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