The “Aliens†series is still going strong today mainly in comic book form. In fact, there are many ongoing stories that take place in the “Aliens†universe. One of the newer ones is “Aliens: Life and Death†by Dan Abnett with art by Moriat. The first issue isn’t anything that exciting.
After being attacked by the Engineers and swarmed by Xenomorphs, the surviving humans of LV-223 are wounded and are trying to regroup.
This entire issue is just one big battle with almost no story. The only thing that happens is a bunch of people dies and somebody gets lost. You’ll breeze right through the comic since most of the dialogue is just the characters yelling and asking where everybody is. It’s something people who are already familiar with these characters would enjoy, but new readers will be put off.
Since this is one big action, the actual action scenes need to at least be interesting. As with the rest of the comic, they are underwhelming. If you’ve ever seen not just any “Aliens†movie, but any action movie you’ve seen these scenes They are generic, uninteresting and boring. On top of that, you really don’t care enough about what happens.
Moritat’s art leaves much to be desired. It comes across as generic action comics art where the characters look generic and just plain boring. The only real positive aspect of the art is the Xenomorphs. Moriat got the look down perfectly; they look both cool and terrifying at the same time.
“Aliens: Life and Death†starts off Ok but will confuse newer readers. Don’t expect much plot in this first, nor expect decent art because you won’t get any. There are plenty of interesting “Aliens†spinoffs, it’s just that this one so far isn’t one of them.
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