Writer and artist Gabriel Hardman drops us smack dab into a situation no one would want to find themselves in. An unwitting son runs into his mother’s room in the middle of the night to find something wrapped around his mother’s face. He doesn’t know what it is. We do: a facehugger. This is a nightmare. This is terror. In these first few panels, Hardman has reinvigorated the horror of the Alien universe, and the comic doesn’t let up. An evac has been called, and mother and son must traverse the city. It’s go, go, go from page one. It’s adrenaline. No mystery, no science fiction tropes – this is survival. This is Ripley running around on a spaceship in her undergarments, all alone with god knows what on board with her. It should be no surprise that the colony, LV-871, is under the supervision of Weyland-Yutani.

What else can be said about this? The mother-son dynamic gives us something emotional to immediately grab onto. We know what’s going to happen, we just don’t know when. It’s literally the worst ticking time bomb imaginable. From that ticking springs chaos. This comic has captured the epic feel of Aliens and the personal feel of Alien all in one go.

Hardman’s artwork is wonderfully textured, and Rain Beredo’s monochromatic color palette is almost suffocating in the right way. We don’t want the freedom of something brilliant and beautiful. Instead, we feel trapped, we feel chased, we feel like something is on our heels. The cityscape is filled with dust and smoke and fire; every corner of every panel something has been destroyed or killed. They’ve created the feeling of impending doom…the feeling you can’t escape.

This is a really good Alien comic… and there are three more to go.

Creative team: Gabriel Hardman (Script and Art), Michael Heisler (Lettering), Rain Beredo (Colors), Mike Richardson (Publisher), Randy Stradley (Editor), Lin Huang (Designer), Matt Fryer (Digital Art Technician)
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Click here to purchase.