Billions of people are facing certain doom, with their only salvation being on the other side of a planet completely infested by xenomorphs.  Your Major Spoiler review of Alien #1, awaits!

ALIEN #1

Writer: Phillip Kennedy Johnson
Artist: Julius Ohta
Colorist: Yen Nitro
Letterer: VC’s Clayton Cowles
Editor: Sarah Brunstad
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: September 7th, 2022

Previously in Alien: A small colony of synths have settled in secret on a backwater moon. When a company of United System soldiers come to them for help retrieving biotechnology on a hostile planet that could be the key to saving humanity,

PEACE DISTURBED

Alien #1 opens with scenes from the planet Tobler-9,  a research planet set up by Weyland-Yutani.  It doesn’t take long to show that things are not going well there, especially when the xenomorphs arrive. Things then shift to the planet Europa-5, where a group of synthetics are living.  They are suddenly made aware of a group of humans who have arrived on the planet, with the intent to capture them.  After dispatching a majority of the human team, the synthetics confront the commander, George March, who the synths seem to have a familiarity with.  He offers the group a deal: do a mission for him and they’ll be granted full citizenship as humans.  The mission involves retrieving a serum that will allow humans to fix a highly irradiated area on a planet that provides a majority of the food in the system.  The problem is the serum is on Tobler-9

INTERESTING INFLUENCE, BUT NOT A LOT HAPPENING

It’s a bit reductive to constantly divide anything in the Alien franchise into being like the movie Alien or like the movie Aliens.  But, it’s fair to say that Alien #1, is definitely taking its cues from the latter.  With a strong military focus and more action than suspense, this is a fairly exciting comic.  Also, for those who are familiar with the video game Bioshock, the similarities between Rapture and Tobler-9 are easily seen.  Unfortunately, even with these influences, the plot of this issue is thin.  It can basically be divided into three sections: A flashback, an extended fight scene, and an info dump.  There is far more effort into setting up the miniseries in this issue than there is in making it compelling.  The dialog also doesn’t do much in establishing a unique voice for any of the characters.  All of the synths have the same sarcastic glee towards taking out their attackers, who have next to nothing in terms of personality.  But the idea of a group of androids versus xenomorphs in technological paradise is a strong hook.

A UNIQUE SETTING FOR AN ALIEN COMIC

It’s almost assumed at this point that anything involving the Alien franchise will have its fair share of dark corridors, Geiger influenced body horror, and plenty of analog technology.  But, in this we get a lot of bright, colorful, and nearly cheerful settings.  It’s a nice play on expectations that contrasts well with the gruesome acts committed.  The character work though, like the writing, is uninteresting and bland.  All the synths are basically supermodels, the humans once again aren’t given much character at all, and the xenomorphs lack any sort of threat in them, the little they show up they are basically motionless.

BOTTOM LINE:  A FINE SET-UP BUT TOO SLOW

Alien #1 absolutely succeeds in setting up the premise of this miniseries, which is intriguing.  It also is a nice departure from the art that most people expect to see in an Alien comic.  It then goes on to fail in most other categories.  The characters are flat and not a lot happens in this issue which means it just doesn’t stand up on its own.  2 out of 5 stars

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Alien #1

43%

43%

Maybe wait for the trade?

Alien #1 is the classic case of spending all of its page space to set up future issues, but doesn’t do nearly enough to be interesting on its own. The art is hit and miss with some nice color work but poor character art.

• Writing

  3
• Art

  4
• Coloring

  6
• User Ratings (2 Votes)
  7.9