Alien #4 // Review
Xenomorphs are swarming all over the rig. They’re not weird mutations or anything. They aren’t some Weyland-Yutani attempt to create some weird hybrid. These are the real deal: concentrated acid for blood and the whole bit. Batya is trying to plan for some sort of escape. She’s trying to save her family. She’s trying to save her co-workers. Maybe she’s even trying to save her job in Alien #4. Writer Declan Shalvey continues the opening of a whole new Alien series with artist Andrea Broccardo and colorist Triona Farrell. The action begins to shoot towards the climax of the opening plot arc in another enjoyable issue.
There’s a swarm of some of the most deadly predators imaginable outside, so naturally, most of the people inside are going to be panicking. There’s an overwhelming sense of tension. Different people handle it in different ways. Batya is overwhelmed after what happened to Dayton. He was a hero doing what he could to save everyone. Heroism doesn’t always mean survival, though. Her daughter is trying to comfort her over the loss of Dayton. It’s been a very rough turn of events recently, but Batya’s daughter might have something that could possibly make her feel a little bit better: a way out.
Shalvey is keeping it simple for the first part of the new series, which feels like a bit of a cross between the first two movies. There aren’t any space marines in sight, but the action DOES take place in a remote, stationary installation that is infested with xenomorphs like the second one, and it’s filled with Weyland-Yutani employees who didn’t expect to have to deal with them...like the first movie. The interpersonal drama plays on family themes that had been vaguely touched on in some of the movies. As central to the story as it is, that family connection proves to be the most endearing factor in the opening plot arc.
The art fusion on the issue is kind of weird and trippy for those familiar with the production design of the original movie. Broccardo and Farrell are drawing pretty heavily on the visual world from that original 1979 movie. The interior design of the rig has lines and contours that are taken directly out of the interior design of the Nostromo from the original movie. THAT interior was designed by Jean Giraud, who was also the comic book artist Moebius. Seeing that design in the context of the comic book feels a lot like Moebius’s work...mixed with the classic H.R. Giger xenomorph design and dramatic emotional renderings of characters that are beautifully distinctive to the work of Broccardo.
It’s kind of difficult to find a new way to pull sci-fi people together against the force of nature that is a xenomorph threat. To a certain degree, it’d be like trying to base an entire contemporary non-sci-fi series around shark attacks or something. It’s not the monsters themselves...it’s the relationships between characters that make things memorable. Shalvey and company are doing an excellent job of that.
