“Prometheus: Fire and Stone” #1 kicks off a crossover event that will bring together Aliens, Predators, and the most mysterious Engineers across four miniseries.  It begins a century or so after the events of Prometheus, as the crews of three mythically named ships awake from cryo just before arriving on LV-223.

The crew believes they are there to salvage valuable parts and artifacts from the Prometheus mission; only the captain, Angela, knows that Weyland was on the mission and died on LV-223.  Angela plans on discovering what he was after and why Prometheus never returned to Earth.  It appears this may be nearly impossible though, because after 130 years, LV-223 is a terrifyingly different place.

WRITTEN BY: Paul Tobin
ART BY: Juan Ferreyra
PUBLISHER: Dark Horse
PRICE: $3.50

RELEASE: September 10, 2014

Reviewed By Epic Switzer

I must admit that I have unrealistically high expectations for this event.  When it was first announced I thought to myself “Hooray!  This story is going to bring together these franchises and chronologically detail how everything is connected, while retconning just enough to clean up the inconsistencies between the films and fill in the plot holes left behind by “Prometheus”.  I can finally relax and sleep soundly because I’ll have all the answers!”  Naive, yes, and while a small part of me still has hope that everything is going to finally make sense, I don’t really think that is what we have here.

What we evidently have here is Paul Tobin telling a tightly scripted story in the AVP universe that is tonally consistent with the film and quickly introduces a host of interesting characters before flowing quickly into the hellish landscape of fucked up creatures and more questions about things that happened long before our protagonists arrived.  Yes, it is more of what we love about these franchises, more of what keeps us coming back for more.  The more I think about it, it would be foolish to answer any of our questions about the franchise,  the mystery is a big part of the fun.

Speaking of formulas that work, it is impossible to ignore how much the setup of this book parallels the film:  A group of people spend two years in cryo while an android takes them to a distant planet on a mission, one of the characters has ulterior motives that will eventually get everyone killed.  Don’t let that deter you, though, because where this book already overcomes the film is in the treatment of the characters.  Tobin uses a documentary narrative convention to introduce the characters and delivers some delightfully Whedonesque interaction between them quickly and effectively.  Already they don’t just feel like fodder, and that is something that the good AVP movies have done extremely well.

Soon enough though, the crew arrives at LV-223 and are surprised, like us, to find it densely terraformed and overrun with all manner of hostile creatures.  They find a ship quick enough, but not the one they were looking for.  There is so much intrigue and awesomeness packed into the first issue that I am sincerely out-of-my-mind nerdgasming for more.  There are some suggestions as to where the other series will come in, and I can only hope it is all as well planned and executed as this first issue.  It is too soon to tell a lot, but not too soon to get excited.  This is going to be one hell of a ride.

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Epic Switzer AKA Eric is an aspiring filmmaker and screenplay writer living in Los Angeles.  His work tends to focus on the lighter side of entropy, dystopic futures, and man’s innate struggle with his own mortality.  He can be found on twitter @epicswitzer or reached via email at ericswitzerfilm@gmail.com.