ALIENS: EARTH WAR

Aliens: Earth War #2, July 1990. Artwork by John Bolton.

Since 1991, I've had but one copy of Earth War - this one. So I have little to no idea what it's about. One day, I'll probably buy the rest, if only for John Bolton's fantastic covers.

CONCRETE: STRANGE ARMOR

Concrete: Strange Armor #1, December 1997.
Artwork by Paul Chadwick.

"Strange Armor retells Concrete's origin and early struggles as a rocky freak among men. 

Still smarting from a divorce, his dreams fading amid the abrasions of his life as a political speechwriter, Ron Lithgow takes off for a rare camping trip in the mountains. 

Unluckily, he and a friend are kidnapped by aliens and have their brains transplanted in immense, rocky bodies. Only Ron escapes, and the aliens depart. 

With help from Senator Mark Douglas, his boss and father-figure, Ron is secretly taken to the National Science Agency and becomes an object of study.

It turns into a barely-acknowledged captivity. 

After much ambivalence, and manipulation by Security Officer Joe Stamberg, Ron resolves to break out. 

He is aided by Dr. Maureen Vonnegut, one of the biologists assigned to his case. They create a sensation on the streets of Washington D.C., and then on Nightline. Ron is dubbed "Concrete" and assumes a strange celebrity. 

Stamberg's forceful bargaining has led to Ron - Concrete - agreeing to a cover story: he is, supposedly, sole survivor of a government cyborg project. Furthermore, Stamberg is to be his "handler." 

But Stamberg has a secret plan. He meets with a shadowy Latin American and proposes hiring out Concrete's services, surely with a coercive threat in reserve to secure Concrete's cooperation."

Watercolour painting from the back cover of Strange Armor #1
by Paul Chadwick.

"Nausea rises within me as I recall the room they took us to. The thing with the hands was a writhing nightmare."

Concrete: Strange Armor #2, January 1998.
Artwork by Paul Chadwick.

Watercolour painting from the back cover of Strange Armor #2
by Paul Chadwick.

"I jump like a flea. I land like volcano ejecta. In fact, I have an astonishing capacity to hurt people around me."

Concrete: Strange Armor #3, March 1998.
Artwork by Paul Chadwick.

Watercolour painting from the back cover of Strange Armor #3
by Paul Chadwick.

"Imagine having people's immediate, heartfelt reaction to you to be stark terror. What had I become?"

Concrete: Strange Armor #4, April 1998.
Artwork by Paul Chadwick.

Watercolour painting from the back cover of Strange Armor #4
by Paul Chadwick.

"Two words. They made me want to turn around ... and rebury myself."

Concrete: Strange Armor #5, May 1998.
Artwork by Paul Chadwick.

Watercolour painting from the back cover of Strange Armor #5
by Paul Chadwick.

"She looked at me as if I had lost my mind. I had, of course."

ALIENS: LABYRINTH

Aliens: Labyrinth #1 (of 4), September 1993. Cover by Kilian Plunkett.

I jumped into Labyrinth when it came out in 1993, right after the final issue of the previous series Aliens: Rogue. I was still at school and must've been twelve or thirteen (?) - and I think I bought them in the wrong order, starting with #3, then working backwards, though like so many miniseries, I never managed to get a hold of the final issue. 

Labyrinth was written by Jim Woodring and illustrated by Kilian Plunkett, who was only 22 at the time. Here's a few snippets from a Dark Horse Comics project profile that made up the final page of #4 of Rogue:

"As the first Alien film could be likened to a gothic horror story in outer space, Aliens: Labyrinth could be read as a murder thriller. The setting is a remote space station, where a group of scientists study behavioural responses in Aliens. The experiments are very carefully monitored, and ever safety precaution is considered, so the crew is genuinely shocked when a technician is killed by an Alien. A doctor suspects that the death may have not been an accident, and tries to uncover the truth. The murder investigation evolves into a deceiving, sinuous nightmare."

Art: Kilian Plunkett, Colours: Matt Hollingsworth.

Page eleven of #1, wherein we are introduced to Colonel Doctor Anthony Crespi and the seemingly potty Colonel Doctor Church, whose research involves the telepathic link between Aliens and the possible influence mankind may be able to exert over them.

Aliens: Labyrinth #2 (of 4), October 1993. Cover by Kilian Plunkett.

#2 is full of gross stuff but most notably a hilarious scene where Colonel Doctor Church takes Trixie aka Toodles (the Alien) for a walk around the space station in a special harness, there's an interesting necropsy (xenopsy?) of an Alien where Church waxes scientific about a telepathic gland in the Alien's carapace and we get to see the inside of Church's lab, which is just bonkers, to put it lightly.

Art: Kilian Plunkett, Colours: Matt Hollingsworth.

Check out the headless, plugged-in experiments. I don't even want to know what that brown stuff is.

Aliens: Labyrinth #3 (of 4), November 1993. Cover by Kilian Plunkett.

#3 was the first issue I had and probably my favourite, inside we get treated to a young Dr Church's ordeal inside a slightly different Alien Hive, described in vivid, visceral detail; quite possibly the most brilliant and disgusting Aliens story I've ever read. It ended on a cliffhanger and I never found out what happened in issue #4.

(Yes, I could Google it, but that would spoil the surprise).

Art: Kilian Plunkett, Colours: Matt Hollingsworth.

THE TERMINATOR: THE ENEMY WITHIN

The Terminator: The Enemy Within #2, December 1991.
Cover by Simon Bisley.

Yes, another nostalgia trip of comics that I had incomplete series' of.

As with Secondary Objectives, I only ever had two issues of The Enemy Within; #2 and #3. #2 opens with even more future soldiers travelling back in time (more? Yes, more). Astin and Mary are operating on Dudley because his cyborg brain is still picking up Terminator transmissions.

Art: Vince Giarrano, Colours: Steve Buccellato.

Above: a scene from Mary's contemplation of the future war. One of the weirder elements in this series is a thorny (horny?) Terminator. According to Wikipedia, this is a self-repaired C890.L - the Terminator from Secondary Objectives.

The Terminator: The Enemy Within #3, January 1992.
Cover by Simon Bisley.

The problem with only owning an incomplete series is you're on a perpetual cliffhanger. Still, the thorny, horny C890.L is the star of several nifty action sequences, though seems to lose the horns halfway through the comic.

Art: Vince Giarrano, Colours: Steve Buccellato.

THE TERMINATOR: SECONDARY OBJECTIVES

The Terminator: Secondary Objectives #3, September 1991.
Cover art by Paul Gulacy.

Part two of my nostalgia trip! I only ever had two of the Secondary Objectives trade paperbacks, #3 and #4, so my understanding of the story here is a little disjointed. I think I was eleven years old when I had these (and the comic being published in 1991 would corroborate this), I'm not sure if I could understand any of it at the time. Still, twenty years later here's what I've figured out; a group of soldiers (at the point where I jumped in for #3, it's just two - Astin and Mary) have travelled back in time to alter the present. Pursuing them are a modified human cyborg called Dudley (previously known as I825.M) who at some point between issue #1 and #2 defects, of the other Terminators; one named C890.L is captured and reprogrammed to fight a third pursuant Terminator, a female; Z000.M.

Pencils: Paul Gulacy, Inks: Karl Kesel, Colours: Gregory Wright.

What's funny is, no matter how much damage that female Terminator takes, the clothes (what little there is of them) are undamaged. The chap hiding in the bushes with the dog is one of the soldiers from the future, Astin.

The Terminator: Secondary Objectives #4, October 1991.
Cover art by Paul Gulacy.

Part 4 of Secondary Objectives, in which a reprogrammed C890.L fights a confused Z000.M and, when that's over and done with, Dudley, Astin and Mary head off to find Sarah Connor.

Pencils: Paul Gulacy, Inks: Karl Kesel, Colours: Gregory Wright.

Yeah, KRONG.

ALIENS: TRIBES

Front dust-jacket cover, painting and Tribes logo design by David Dorman.

"The Queen is Dead 

An orbiting medical facility infested with an Alien scourge. 

A military clean-up crew dispatched to destroy them. 

A berserk warrior in a lethal exoskeleton with enough fire power to kill them all. 

A race against time. 

Long Live the Queen."

Rear of dust-jacket, painting by David Dorman.

Painting by David Dorman.

"Our Call is of a greater Need; know this: we are the Chosen, and so we do Choose: our only value is to the Queen Mother and her Swarm, to Her and Hers, is as I have Written: 'Protect and Proliferate'".

-The Rev. Dr. Thomas Engstrom, Totem of The Queen Mother

(Banned by Corporate Governor's decree)

Painting by David Dorman.

Painting by David Dorman.

Well...

I was in the attic/loft the other day and found two boxes full of comics and graphic novels that I read from the age of 11 until ... ? In amongst the Marvel and D.C. dross were my old favourites; Dark Horse's Aliens, Terminator, Predator, and Robocop comics, a couple of old Epic magazines (Marvel's answer to Metal Hurlant/Heavy Metal), Concrete and, of course, 2000AD.

Since that lot could collectively fall under the science fiction umbrella I thought I'd post a few scans because; why not?

Starting with Aliens: Tribes, then - this isn't a true graphic novel, per se, Dark Horse published a few and called them graphic story albums, sort of a novella with a nice, full-page illustrations (paintings) every other page or so. The story is excellent for a few reasons - what I liked in particular is that you experience a few fascinating snippets of Alien drones thought processes (or the equivalent of;) in moments when the 'chatter' of the hive dies down; there's a particular passage where a drone is contemplating the (dead, human) host/womb that bore it; referred to as soft ones. There's an odd, complex, almost loving relationship from the Alien's point of view. In terms of expanding the conventions, organization and disposition of the Alien hive, it's definitely on a par with Labyrinth, which I will post later-on.

My copy is hardback, though paperbacks were also published at the same time. The hardbacks have a nifty embossed alien under the dust-jacket. Contemporary (1991) ads in Direct market comics added the following blurb:

"An Alien has been detected on board a space station orbiting Earth, and a crack extermination team sets out to destroy it. The success of their mission may be jeopardized by one man's sinister secret."