We are back with issue #2 of ALIENS: DEAD ORBIT by JAMES STOKOE! The best Aliens book on the market...Also topical as ALIEN: COVENANT is still fresh in theaters and DEAD ORBIT has some parallels to the film...no spoilers though. 

So.....issue #2....we are back onboard the ship Sphacteria orbiting the planet Pylos (Aliens love them some Greek references)....and the crew is trying to figure out what the hell is going on with the derelict ship crew members they almost killed. .....I'm sure you'll be completely surprised to find out that well...some bad shit happened. It doesn't take long to figure out what that bad shit was either....a complicated plot, this is not. Thankfully near the end of the issue we finally get the long awaited chest bursting money shot (in stereo). It's basically Ridley Scott's Free Bird...People ain't going to a Skynard concert to hear Mississippi Kid...they want the hits! Same applies with Aliens...Chest busting, face hugging, and mouths inside mouths (mouthception?)... Well 2 issues in and we've hit 2 out of 3...it'll be interesting to see how the facehuggers are worked in. 

THE GRADES:

ART: A+ (Come on....the art is on another level...whats a better grade than A+? Is there some other grading scale that has something for higher than perfect? Does Japan give out Super Saiyan A+ grades? If so then this A+ is over 9000!!!!)

STORY: B (Pretty straight forward so far...i should give it an A for being such good visual storytelling but the art leeched some of that grade. ...2 issues in and nothing unpredictable has happened yet.)

DIALOGUE: B (There's some tense exchanges, and some good verbal heat thrown back and forth as the tension begins to escalate. Nothing significant as far as character development or world building...but that's fine...this is looking like a very self contained story.)

SIGNIFICANCE: B+ (In the grand scheme of things this story probably won't be very influential to the overall Aliens mythos, but as for the comic book catalogue this series will be a feather in the cap for Dark Horse)

BONUS CREDIT: +10 Points for this dialogue gem: "Two of them haven't got any fucking lips, Captain!" 😂😂

FINAL GRADE: A ...next issue will be at the top of my read pile