Welcome to Blood/Ink/Staples, a recurring column which will shine a spotlight on creepy comic books new and old. Here, we’ll be taking a peek at forgotten graphic novels and hot-off-the-press floppies, buried indies and newly-released big labels. Some articles will be historical deep dives, others will feature interviews with creators, but all will attempt to steer our readers to the very best fearsome funnybooks to be found out there in the wild.
With its sleek design, imposing height, and striking pharyngeal jaws (to say nothing of the terrifying biological process that brings it into existence), the Alien franchise’s Xenomorph is surely one of cinema’s greatest monsters. First introduced in Ridley Scott’s 1979 horror/sci-fi masterpiece and featured in several sequels, prequels, and crossover films, the iconic creature has also graced other media throughout the decades, including novels and video games. Perhaps the most noteworthy continuation of the Alien saga was carried out in comic book form, starting back in 1988 with Dark Horse Comics’ first line of books based upon the Xenomorphs and the unfortunate folks who continually cross their paths.
For years, Dark Horse printed four-color tales of the creatures, publishing numerous series, one-shots, spinoffs, and graphic adaptations of the films. However, the line eventually came to an end with the recent acquisition of Alien’s parent company 20th Century Fox by Disney, who currently owns Marvel Comics. Inevitably, the Dark Horse line ended, and a new run of Marvel-produced Alien comics was announced in the summer of 2020.
Penned by Eisner-nominated writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson (Marvel Zombies: Resurrection) and featuring stunning art by Salvador Larroca (Star Wars), Marvel’s Alien begins in the year 2200 and focuses on newly-retired Weyland-Yutani company man Gabriel Cruz. The story kicks off with a horrific nightmare spurred on by memories of a past encounter with the Xenomorphs, recounted by Cruz to a character who will be very familiar to fans of the films. Shortly after, Cruz takes an early retirement, stepping down from his position as the security chief of Weyland-Yutani’s Epsilon Station, an orbital research and development installation with outwardly altruistic goals of helping humanity. Back on Earth, Cruz attempts to reconnect with his estranged son Danny, unaware that he’s an agent for a violent anti-Weyland-Yutani group. When Danny steals his father’s security card and leads a team aboard Epsilon, the would-be activists discover the shocking true nature of the station and the terrors it holds on board.
With only two issues available as of this writing, Marvel’s Alien has already proven itself to be an intense, frightening, and commendably character-driven tale. Most surprisingly, the comic manages to feel right at home in the larger franchise without ever seeming like a retread of any prior story. If you’re a fan of the films, or just horror comics in general, consider this series to be essential reading.
Discussing Alien with us today is writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson, who was nice enough to take time out of his busy schedule to chat with Bloody Disgusting about his involvement with the comic, his approach to its story, and what his long-term plans are for everyone’s favorite biomechanical bugs.
Bloody Disgusting: How was it that this project came to be, and how did you come to it? Or how did it come to you?
Phillip Kennedy Johnson: I actually saw the announcement that Marvel had acquired the licenses to Alien and Predator along with everyone else online, and was just off-the-chain excited about it. I love the Dark Horse books too, but seeing what [Marvel] had done with the Star Wars license, and even just the promo images they put up by David Finch of the Xenomorph and the Predator, it got me so excited for what was coming. So much so that I did what I never do: I actually reached out to my editor about it. In that moment, I reached out to Jordan White, my editor on Marvel Zombies: Resurrection, and kind of kicked the door in.
I was like, “Give me this book! You don’t have any idea what a huge fan I am of this franchise. I don’t need to do any research at all, I’m good to go right now.” Now, I was half joking when I said that because I assumed they already had a team lined up for the book… the fact that they already had artwork and everything, I assumed that they had a creative team that they just hadn’t announced yet. But that was not the case. They didn’t have a team yet. And I learned later that somebody behind the scenes at Marvel was already kind of vouching for me to get that gig, which I didn’t know at the time. So when I showed so much enthusiasm, that was enough to get me a call with the editor on that book. I made my case for what I would do for the series, and the directions that we might take.
BD: How much research did you do once you’d gotten the job? Did you rewatch all of the films, or read any of the spinoff novels or comics?
PKJ: I did get back into the source material. I rewatched all of the movies, with the exception of Resurrection. I have to admit, I cannot get through that one. Honestly, I could practically recite all the others already, but I was still excited to watch them again, so I did that. And I went through a lot of [Alien designer] H.R. Giger’s non-Alien artwork, too, just because he had such a massive impact on the franchise, obviously. I wanted to look at more of his non-Alien work, so I just went through a lot of it, kind of bathed in it and let it soak in.
I did go through and reread a lot of the Dark Horse books, too. There were so many Aliens books from Dark Horse over the years that some of the details kind of run together, and I wanted those to be a little clearer in my mind, which ones succeeded creatively and why. So I did refamiliarize myself with a lot of those books. That’s pretty much what I did to prep for this.
BD: The story is steeped in the world of Alien, but it’s telling an entirely new tale set within this world, featuring a setup and character types that we haven’t quite seen before in previous takes on this franchise. How did you come to this particular approach, and was Marvel leaning on you one way or another as to whether or not you should use some of the characters from the previous films?
PKJ: No, they were actually really great about letting me do whatever I wanted to do. They trust how deep and sincere my love is for the franchise. They were great about that. They did say that they would love something kind of in the vein of the second film, and I expected that because that’s what everyone wants. That second movie is so iconic. The imagery of the Space Marine in battle with the Xenomorph, it’s such an iconic image, but I also feel like it’s been overdone a bit. Since this is the first Marvel arc, I felt like there had to be some kind of a nod to it, but I didn’t want to just do yet another “Marine vs. the Xenomorph” thing.
So even though they said they wanted a Cameron-esque take, I pushed back on that a little bit. If there was going to be a film template for the first Marvel take on Alien, I wanted it to be the first film, not the second one, but with elements of the second one in there. So I tried to capture the claustrophobia and horror of the first film, while also incorporating a bit of the military aspects from the Cameron film.
As far as the protagonists, I tried to deliberately distance them from Ripley, because Ripley is such a bad-ass, larger-than-life character. She has to be one of the Top Five horror movie heroes ever. I didn’t want to bring in another blue collar female character that would inevitably be compared to Ripley, and almost certainly would not be as iconic without the weight of the films and Weaver’s amazing portrayal behind her. And the same for the “idealistic scientist” type, because of what a great and memorable character Shaw is from Prometheus. After those two characters, I think anyone similar would inevitably be compared to those two.
Instead, I decided to show the story from the perspective of a company man for a change. We never really see much of the inner workings of Weyland-Yutani, and I thought that would be kind of cool, to get a glimpse of the malevolent bureaucracy that is that company. And to show a guy who’s not strictly a white hat, who’s more shades of gray…someone who’s done questionable things, who was kind of out of the game but is forced to get back in. I think that fits the tone of the story. Everyone knows what the Xenomorph is, everyone knows the lifecycle, everyone knows those stories, but it’s still a new beginning, and we still need a new introduction to that world again. So I thought it fit to see somebody who had a very long, checkered past with the Xenomorphs get back in the saddle. And now we can see the xenomorphs again through his eyes.
BD: You mentioned the Dark Horse comics earlier. Will any of that long-running line be accounted for in the Marvel series, or is this fully a start-from-scratch approach?
PKJ: I’m treating it very much like a start-from-scratch approach, but that doesn’t mean that none of them will come back. Like with the Star Wars license. We’ve seen beloved characters from stories that are technically now retconned, like the Thrawn trilogy … now we’ve got Admiral Thrawn coming back into Star Wars. That’s a classic example of a character who technically doesn’t exist by the Star Wars canon rules, but was so beloved and such a cool character that they worked him back into the story.
I feel like there’s gonna be other stuff like that from Star Wars lore coming in as well, and we can do that kind of thing here, too. I definitely have arcs that I really admire that we can work in somehow. I’m not sure of the nitty-gritty details as far as the rights go, but I’m pretty sure Marvel has the rights to all the old Dark Horse books. There are stories from that era that are definitely not going to be canon, because they blatantly contradict things that have come out in the films since then, things that don’t jive with Prometheus and Covenant, that definitely won’t work now.
For example, back when we thought the Space Jockey was an elephant person or whatever, and we saw guys that looked like that in the books. We’ve seen other things that are not expressly disproven in the films, but that don’t really fit tonally with the films, like the scientists who build android Xenomorphs who speak English and smoke cigars, the “royal jelly” and its attributes, things that just don’t fit in the canon that’s been established in the films.
So right now, I’m treating it like the Dark Horse stuff has been taken off the table, and we’re starting again. But there are definitely some elements from Dark Horse that I admire a lot and would love to bring back, emulate in some way, or at least pay homage to.
BD: Will the series ever deal directly with the events of the films? If so, which continuity will factor in, given that the prequels are at odds with the original sequels and AVP films?
PKJ: With Ridley Scott’s involvement in the prequels … I think those have to be regarded as canon, no question. And of course, Alien and Aliens are both above reproach. Everyone loves those. Those have to be regarded as true. The ones that, for me, are potentially on the canon chopping block are Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection, and of course all the AVP stuff. I’m treating those as not canon, at least not in my own head canon as a fan. Now Alien 3 is super debatable, and I actually like that movie a lot. I think there are a lot of things about that movie that are super kickass. The big problem with it, of course, is that Newt and Hicks are killed offscreen for no reason right out of the gate.
And that sucks. We’ve learned to love those characters by that point, and then we just completely undo all of that. That makes the story revolve around Ripley, as it should, but it does really suck for the fans who learned to love those characters. And because of that perceived betrayal of the fans, you’ve got these other versions of the stories out there. One of those first comic stories show Newt and Hicks later in life, which wipes Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection off the board if you regard that comic as true. And there’s the screenplay that’s come out since then, the other version of Alien 3. So I feel like that’s where the timeline diverges, and you can kind of choose your own adventure at that point.
Honestly, this was one of the reasons why I didn’t want to refer to Alien 3 or Resurrection at all in this first arc, because I think there’s a decent chance that canon could be retconned at some point, and it’s important to me that these Marvel books always remain canon, always. One of the big advantages to the situation now is that 20th Century and Marvel are all part of the same big company. This is a chance for us to tie all the media going forward into one all-encompassing universe. And I really want to do that. I don’t want these books to get ditched down the road, the way the Dark Horse books were undone by the prequels.
The enigmatic nightmare woman from Marvel’s ‘Alien’ #1
BD: There is a great, nightmarish image in the first issue, which features a montage of the Xenomorphs. There is also a figure in the background who looks shockingly like Sil from the Species franchise. Might you be planning a crossover between these two H.R. Giger-designed creatures, or was it more of an easter egg, or am I entirely off-base and that’s not what that was at all?
PKJ: Well, it’s not Sil, but it is certainly inspired by the non-Xenomorph work of Giger. The Xenomorph is the perfect representation of terror on screen, in my opinion, and Giger’s visual sensibilities are a crucial part of the franchise, and I want the series to continue to find ways to incorporate his visual language. I really love the work that Giger did that was specifically devoted to Li Tobler, his late lover who killed herself when she was super young. A lot of those images from the Necronomicon and all that, they’re very iconic, very recognizable. The word ‘Li’ is in the title of some of those works, and they’re clearly based on Li Tobler’s face, but in the context of these huge, monstrous, horribly graphic images. I wanted something inspired by that, to pay homage to that. As far as what she is, what that thing is specifically, that’s a big fat spoiler I can’t get into. I will ask that fans remember: it’s just the character’s dream we’re looking at, not necessarily a memory. People really latched onto it like, “Oh, you’re jumping the shark, it’s all fucked up.” I’ve seen people online saying this is what a new Alien Queen looks like, but nobody has said that. This is literally this character’s fever dream that he’s describing in a therapy session. She’s not meaningless, and we’ll find out more about what she is later on, but readers shouldn’t assume that this is a memory, or that she’s something he saw in front of him. It’s a little more complicated than that.
BD: Can we talk a bit about the art in this comic? Salvador Larroca’s artwork is stunning, and Guru-efx’s color work is just beautiful.
PKJ: I agree, the color work is great and Salva’s work is great. I first saw Salva’s work on Iron Man many years ago, and have seen so much of his stuff since then. He’s been one of Marvel’s go-to guys for many years, and it’s an honor to work with him. He did an awesome job on the Star Wars stuff. He’s a huge Alien fan himself, and actually has a lot of Alien nerd gear, just because he’s a fan. It’s been a real pleasure to work with him. He’s super fast, man. The whole time we’re doing this book, I feel like I’m being chased! Like trying to put out script faster than he can draw it, and honestly, it’s difficult to do that. He’s just so unbelievably fast. He’s very passionate about the book and the source material. It’s an honor to work with him.
BD: What is the long term plan for this book? How long do you plan to be on it? Will there be offshoots, or will it just be this main line?
PKJ: There will be offshoots. I don’t know if there’s gonna be offshoot series or not, and the only reason I can even say that there’s going to be offshoot issues is because they already announced one the other day. They announced that Ben Percy is writing a one-shot, a 35th anniversary of Aliens, the second film. It’s a story about a return to Hadley’s Hope, and that’s coming out later this year. I want to say July, maybe.
The first issues sold very well, so I’m sure they’ll do other Alien properties or other Alien series at some point. I’m sure at some point you can expect some kind of a crossover either between Alien and Predator, or Alien and the Marvel Universe or something. That’s not a spoiler, that’s just my opinion. We haven’t talked about any of that stuff yet.
As far as my involvement with the book … man, I’m such a huge fan of the stuff, I would happily write it forever. I don’t know how long they’re going to have me on here, but I’ve got several arcs in the can already, and hope to script all of them. Even though I know there’s a TV series being made, in my mind I still see Alien as a movie franchise, and conceive of it in terms of Alien-length chapters. That’s how it looks in my mind’s eye. So we’re going to do a series of arcs that feel like standalone films, but that tie together a little more closely than they did at Dark Horse. With Dark Horse, every book that came out was a completely different creative team, all different lengths, all taking place with no connective material to the other stories, necessarily.
In my run, each arc will introduce new characters and all that, but there will also be much more connective tissue than previously, something to tie them all together. There will be subplots that continue from one story to the next, the way the films track the growth and influence of Weyland-Yutani, the development of android tech and culture, which has become a really important part of it. And the prequels, you know, there are these little subplots that pushed the story forward that weren’t even necessarily about the characters as much as the universe.
That tradition will continue in my run. The big thing is that I want these comics to feel like they belong on the shelf alongside the films. Like if you really wanted to take in all the canon stuff, you would watch the first two movies, maybe the first three movies, read my books, and then go on to the next film. I really want them to feel like they belong together. That’s the driving force in the approach I’m bringing, just to make sure they feel like the films I love so much. I don’t want to explore some crazy tangent just because I think it’s cool, unless it also fits in perfectly with the films. It has to feel like those other stories to me.
BD: Backing up for just a moment – there could be a crossover between the Xenomorphs and Marvel superheroes?!
PKJ: I think that’s a distinct possibility. Marvel even kind of told us that with those promo images, when they put up those images with the announcement. There was an image of a Xenomorph in the Guardians of the Galaxy ship, and another one of a Predator holding up Iron Man’s helmet. I think that’s kind of implied that at some point there will be an introduction to those characters or those properties into the Marvel 616 Universe.
But that was just what I took from it. They have not told me any such thing, I’m not giving any spoilers here. That’s just what I think. I think at some point we’ll see some crossovers happening. After we’ve established the universes that we’re playing with now in Alien and Predator, I feel like at some point you’re going to see some events with everything kind coming together. Whether or not they stay in-universe, or if it’s just like a one-off thing, that’s hard to say.
BD – Would that make it at all difficult for you writing your own books, if you had to take into account that these characters are now a part of something that’s maybe not as grounded in its own way as the Alien franchise?
PKJ – The universe that I’m writing now in the Alien series is not one in which superheroes exist. I mean, full stop. There’s just no room in the story that I’m telling right now for the X-Men or the Avengers or the Guardians of the Galaxy or any of that. This is the universe from the films that we’re seeing. If there’s ever a crossover between Alien and the Marvel Universe, that story would take place in the Marvel Universe and would not affect the universe which I’m writing now. Maybe there will be xenomorphs in the Marvel Universe permanently at some point, who knows? But that world is not the world in which I’m writing this story or the arcs to come.
BD: What do you want Alien fans, comic fans, and horror fans who have maybe never picked up a comic book before to know about this comic?
PKJ: I want them to know that this is being made by the biggest fans of the film franchise. We are absolutely loyal to that vision of what Alien is, and what Aliens is. Even though it’s a mainstream Marvel Comics story, we’re pushing the envelope as far as gore, terror, language – all the things that make it feel more like the original source material.
Fans are going to get another story that feels like it’s right off the screen, that will hopefully make them enjoy those films even more.
Special Thanks to Mr. Johnson for his time.
Make certain to pick up Alien issues 1 and 2, on stands now at your local comic book shop.
