The Android Davids have made it their mission to wipe out all life in the universe using the perfect weapon: Xenomorphs. But when they discover alternate universes, their mission changes to wipe out all life in all universes - including the Marvel Universe! Aww yee, it’s time for Aliens Vs. Avengers!
Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribic reunite once more to tell this standalone What If?-style tale of two franchises colliding and, while not an amazing comic, this is still one of the better Aliens Vs. books I’ve read.
Hickman’s story is very ambitious in scope and so pairing up with Ribic to draw it is definitely the right choice. I wasn’t a huge fan of their 2015 Secret Wars event but these two together still produce epic-feeling stories and AVA is no exception.
I like that the story starts pretty much with the Aliens having destroyed the Earth. With a story like Aliens Vs. Avengers you expect the Avengers to be defending the planet from this Alien threat - the stakes being the Earth itself - but instead it’s not that, because Earth is already lost from the beginning. Then where does the story go? And that’s what intrigued me.
Hickman draws on the recent movies, having Michael Fassbender’s David from Prometheus and Covenant acting as the first villain, including a scene from Covenant, and the Engineers are there as well. I know those movies are divisive for fans but I definitely enjoyed them and wish those storylines had been pursued more than where the franchise ended up going with the dismal Romulus movie and even worse Alien: Earth TV show.
That said, I feel like Hickman, as ever, overreaches and doesn’t quite successfully tie together the Davids/Engineers sub-plots into the main story, with the Engineers especially being underwritten. Was their motivation just to stop the Davids or something else on top of that? Not sure. But maybe that’s the essence of the Engineers: permanent mystique. It just felt a tad messy with the overlapping timelines/universes which led to some minor confusion over what was happening.
As for the Marvel characters, they’re all old for some reason! That might be partly thematic - the story has this “end of days” flavour to it and that could extend to the characters’ lives as well. I wonder though if this story was originally intended to be a movie, considering Disney owns both the Marvel and Alien franchises, then for whatever reason it didn’t go anywhere and eventually got repurposed into this comic.
Because if you had older versions of the familiar characters, you wouldn’t have to pay stupid money to Robert Downey Jr, et al. and you could have this set in an alternate universe, separate from the MCU, so you get to have your Marvel cake and eat it too, without it interfering with the main MCU stuff. That’s just my thoughts though, probably nothing to it.
I liked where Hickman took the story, from Earth and then beyond, and the Marvel twist on the new Alien Queen-type big bad the survivors end up fighting in the end. But the narrative arc wasn’t satisfying because that’s the nature of these Vs books - there’s never a real resolution as both sides have to keep going, alternate universe or not, and the story inevitably plateaus as simply being about one fight after another until the pages run out, which is the case here. Just fighting means the payoff is one side (temporarily) winning over the other and feels very superficial and almost childish in its simplicity.
Hickman is also really good at telling these broad-form stories with massive ensembles but can’t create a compelling main character for the audience to follow, which is also what happens here again. As such, we’re not really sure what the story is beyond basic survival - for anyone - which makes for a pretty underwhelming finale as that’s a given for either famous side.
Loved Esad Ribic’s art. He does scale beautifully and the space scenes are amazing. The Xenomorphs and Hulk were especially outstanding, though his old man Stark and Banner looked too alike and, given most of their scenes are together, would’ve been better if their characters designs had looked more dissimilar (couldn’t Tony have kept his ‘tache?).
Aliens Vs. Avengers is fine. It’s not the most enthralling narrative but it’s also more than just the expected characters fighting characters over and over - although there is plenty of that too. The choice to start with the Avengers practically beaten was a clever choice and aging the characters too was intriguing, and where the story ended up was unexpected and interesting. But the story also felt unmemorable, partly due to the nature of the premise and also because of a lack of a strong main character, and a bit muddled with Hickman trying to do too much in four (albeit oversized) issues. Ribic’s art is excellent though and thoroughly delivered the epic atmosphere of Hickman’s storytelling vision.
It’s not essential reading but if you’re a fan of these novelty match-ups, Aliens Vs. Avengers is one of the better crossovers in these never-ending Aliens Vs. books.
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