Not everyone was happy when Alien 3 was released to an eager science-fiction, horror-loving, audience in 1992.
No, not those who, within minutes of the films opening saw their favourite characters from the hugely successful previous film in the franchise killed off. What? Corporal Hicks and Newt, dead? Huh?!? The demise of the film’s lead character, Ellen Ripley, so gloriously at the end of the movie?
Can’t be happy with that.
No, not the studio, who saw the movie underperform at the box office.
And no, not even the film’s director, David Fincher in his big screen debut, who cited massive studio interference for a lackluster product.
I, for one, really enjoyed the art film. Sure, it’s flawed, but it has wonderful performances from Sigourney Weaver, Charles Dance, Charles S. Dutton and Lance Henrikson. Notably, it also gives us a deeper understanding of the machinations behind the Weyland-Yutani Corporation and the emergence of an alien that takes characteristics of its host body, in this case, a dog.
I’d argue that those two attributes set the stage for all subsequent films in the Alien franchise.
Still, there have been plenty of attempts to negate, rewrite and just plain forget Alien 3, both by Fox Studios and in the comic books that have kept the Alien torch burning month after month.
In the early 1990’s Dark Horse Comics was the first publisher to give us new, licensed, Alien-centric stories and absolutely did away with Alien 3 from the hop, bringing back Hicks and a grown-up Newt in a search for the alien home world. It was an auspicious start and gave rise to over three decades of great comic book stories.
Fox was bought up by Disney a few years ago and the Alien franchise settled with Marvel Comics, who, just earlier this year, published their first comic book series based on the space monster. We covered that excitement, of course, here at Biff Bam Pop!
This year marks the 35th anniversary of one of the most influential science fiction films of all time. To celebrate, today sees the publication of Marvel’s revision of Alien 3 in a story that take place directly after the fan-favourite Aliens film (directed by James Cameron in 1986) with the release of their comic book one-shot, Aliens: Aftermath #1
Written by Benjamin Percy and frighteningly illustrated by David Wachter, Aliens: Aftermath takes readers back to Hadley’s Hope, the doomed colony of shake-n-bake LV-426 that was nuked from orbit at the end of Aliens since it was “the only was to be sure”.
Weyland-Yutani has tried to erase all records, but a group of investigative journalists head towards the remnants of the wasted colony in order to discover the true story of what happened there.
What they’ll find is nothing less than he terrifying future of Hadley’s Hope.
Discover what happens next – and maybe get a hint at what terrifying roads Marvel Comics is taking the Alien franchise.
Scream with glee and make the run to your local comic book shop today and pick up Aliens: Aftermath #1.
