AUTHOR: BRIAN WOOD | ARTIST: ROBERT CAREY | PUBLISHER: DARK HORSE | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
Fans of Alien: Isolation are still coming to terms with the fact that we may never get a proper sequel to what, for many, was the greatest Alien/Aliens game of all time. An atmospheric, properly terrifying work of survival horror, the 2014 videogame was as underappreciated as it was good (which is to say, very) – and legitimately better than at least two or three actual Alien movies. The fact that fans never got their sequel will go down in history as one of gaming’s greatest losses.
Which isn’t to say that it’s ‘Game Over, Man’ for the Isolation franchise. Given the xenomorph’s popularity as Dark Horse comic book supervillains, it was only a matter of time before the game’s Amanda Ripley made the transition to the page. She’s not alone though, with Aliens: Resistance also serving as a sequel to Brian Wood and Tristan Jones’ Alien: Defiance miniseries. In Resistance, Ripley Jr and Defiance’s Zula Hendricks find themselves caught up in the sinister machinations of the ever-sinister, horribly bureaucratic Weyland-Yutani Corporation.
Writer Brian Wood keeps a great deal of the plot close to his chest for this first issue, with the xenomorphs only scarcely glimpsed in nightmare sequences and fragmented bites of cliffhanger. So too is the gloomy Earth of the future, rarely visited in any Alien comics and even less so in the movies. Issue #1 is, inevitably, all setup and world-building, and spends most of its time (re)introducing readers to its characters and carefully setting up the atmosphere and story. Wood is well partnered with artist Robert Carey who, while bringing a completely different style to the table than his Defiance predecessor, seems perfectly suited to corporate space ships, dingy cityscapes and the nightmarish void.
Quite what Aliens: Resistance is going to be remains unclear, but in Ripley and Hendricks, it has a compelling pair of protagonists and a heritage which all but promises classic Alien action in the near future.
