Set Description:
Dark Horse Comics: Jun 1990 - Oct 1990
Immediately after the conclusion of Aliens volume 2 Dark Horse released the final chapter in their three part story arc of Aliens titled “Earth War”. At that time Dark Horse was notorious for delays. Sometimes months would go by until the next issue was published. I was extremely happy when I saw issue #1 for this mini series on the shelf. I thought cover art was pretty good but to be honest I didn’t care what it looked like. Ripley made a cameo appearance on the last page of the prior series and I needed to find out how the reunion with her, Hicks and Newt would play out. Ripley had disappeared after Newt and Hicks were put into cryosleep post LV-426, no one knew what happened to her.
Earth War did not falter at any point in my opinion. Everything was thoroughly explained and no loose ends were left to question. There was so much to like about this series. Ripley’s account of what happened to her after LV-426 played really well into showing how persistent Wayland Yutani is. The events on Xenomorph prime were fantastic. Those Aliens that came out of the large pods was insane. The attempt to capture the queen and take her back to earth was very, very cool. The twist with the Space Jockey was so good. Such a great set up for Dark Horse Presents issue #56 story “The Alien”. It was the perfect wrap up of the story. I just wish that we go to see more of Ripley, Hicks and Newt in future issues but that never came to be (Newts Tale excluded). It’s kind of a bummer but at least they were the focus at one point.
Now comes the negativity train, “choo-choo”. Let’s talk about certain aspects of the artwork; why do artist keep drawing weapons wrong? I mean some of the portrayal’s of the pulse rifles and other weapons are just awful. For instance, in issue #1, page 3 Newt is having a flashback to when the Marines rescued her and went into the hive looking for surviving colonists. Look at the “pulse rifle” that character is holding! LOOK AT IT! What the hell is that?! Don’t get me started on the helmets. They look like little beanie caps with studs on them. Whats the “frilly” crap hanging out of the back? I guess that’s the neck guard we see in the movie. What blows me away is on page 16 when one of the Marines falls through the floor of the derelict ship his pulse rifle is drawn immaculately well. Why can’t there be a level of consistency throughout?
Just when you thought the train was stopping at the station, NOPE! The Marine characters are just plain stupid. One of them literally looks like a caricature of Hulk Hogan. The female is basically a horribly drawn Vasquez with a perm. The rest of the team looks like a bunch of dopey clowns with dad bods and double chins. What is it about when they’re firing their pulse rifles its one or two handed, out stretched, spraying wildly? God bless America, how hard is it? Who in editing looked at this and said, “Wow that’s just perfect! Print it!”? I would have been all over the artist like flies on poo-poo.
Now that I have gotten that off my chest I do have some positive statements about the interior art. For the most part the books are well drawn, especially the splash pages. The artist does a fantastic job with land scapes and space craft. A lot of his Xenomorph’s renditions are dynamic and seem to jump out at you from the page. So despite my above rant the story combined with a good portion of the artwork makes for an enjoyable read. I highly recommend this mini series. On to acquisition…
When I decided to go for Aliens 1988 and volume 2 in 9.8 I knew this set had to be acquired as well. You can’t have part 1 and 2 in 9.8 and not have part 3, my OCD won’t allow that. Fortunately I was able to put together the first prints rather quickly, roughly three weeks. For quite sometime (5 years) I had been on the hunt for the second print of issue #1. I had scoured the internet for possible 9.8’s to no avail. On Christmas Eve of 2023 I received a message from ramrod44 showing me his recent purchase, a 9.8 copy the second print. As I was wrapping presents this book came and went within minutes. As happy as I was for a fellow collector to find a book it unfortunately was one I was looking for as well and I was rather disappointed. After my congratulations to ramrod I decided to email the eBay seller and ask if he by chance had any more copies. According to the seller he had a stack of them and didn’t realize they were second prints, he didn’t even know that second prints of this book existed. He told me he didn’t have anymore graded copies but he will submit one on my behalf if I was interested. After I few weeks I got an email from the seller informing me that the second copy just came back from CGC as a 9.8 and it was up for sale. As you can see I did purchase the book and managed to complete another Aliens set in 9.8.
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