Aliens Omnibus Vol. 1

This wonderful collection reprints the first 3 Aliens series and 2 short stories and is the backbone to the Aliens comic books. Following the events from the Aliens movie, these comics came out originally before the events of the Alien 3 movie, in which Hicks & Newt have died (sorry if this is a spoiler). When the omnibus was released, their names were changed to Wilks & Billie. Not sure what Dark Horse’s intentions were, maybe for continuity reasons, who knows? It’s kind of annoying, but you go with it anyway. Somehow, Ripley’s name remains the same, I guess because everybody knows who Ripley is.

Outbreak: Fast forward a few years after the events of the Aliens movie and Wilks (Hicks) & Billie (Newt) are reunited for more xenomorph terror. Lots of character development as the Aliens slowly start their earth infestation. Interesting story and some nice illustrations as this series really kick starts the whole earth war storyline. You can tell this story could’ve been the inspiration for the religious fanatics for the Dead Space video games.

Nightmare Asylum: After barely escaping earth in a stolen ship, Wilks & Billie encounter a crazy military man named General Powell. Powell has an outrageous plan to try and domesticate & train an army of Alien “soldiers” to try and take back the earth from the other Aliens. Like all Alien stories, nothing ever goes according to plan and the next thing you know everybody is up to their ears in Alien scum. It’s gonna be an (acid) bloodbath! This is truly the heart of the omnibus with an abundance of action, violence, gun play, acid burns & the return of the original ass-kicking Alien heroine.. Ripley! Some straight forward writing, but Den Beauvais’ illustrations are absolutely breath-taking.

Female War: Ripley is reunited with Wilks & Billie and has a plan to exterminate all remaining Aliens on earth. With a skeleton crew suited with “power loaders” (from the Aliens movie) and armed to the teeth with the latest tech in weaponry, they will attempt to abduct the Alien queen & drop her on earth. The idea is that she’ll summon her “children” and then Ripley will drop a warhead & instantly vaporize the whole brood once and for all. A fitting climax to this exciting trilogy. I think this is some of Sam Kieth’s earlier works, his illustrations are beautiful, eerie & horrifying. He went on to have a successful career working for Marvel, DC & Image.

Theory of Alien propagation: An informative short comic on the theory of the Aliens home world and their  ant-like breeding patterns.

The Alien: A short comic involving the alien “space jockey” from the very first Alien movie and It’s encounter with human officials on some sort of diplomatic mission of peace that goes awry.

I really enjoyed revisiting this series and I only have a few quibbles, like changing the names of the characters and having a complete cover gallery would’ve been a nice touch. All in all, at 24.99$ this is a great deal & a collector’s item you can really sink your teeth into (to pun intended). I look forward to reading the next 5 volumes. Written by Mark Verheiden & John Arcudi. Illustrated by Mark. A Nelson, Den Beauvais, Sam Kieth & Tony Akins. Reprinted & published by Dark Horse Comics.