As expected, “Aliens: Fire and Stone” #1, details the events of the Hadley’s Hope, a colony on LV-426, and the events that led to the discovery of the ship on LV-223 in the first issue of “Prometheus: Fire and Stone”. This type of segmented storytelling gives the entire event an enormous scope and weight. Because of the alternating release schedule of the books, each issue will almost certainly deliver a deeper understanding of both books (if not all four) and finally put these franchises in the cohesive universe they ought to be in. It is unlike any event I’ve read before, and I’m loving every second of it.
WRITTEN BY: Chris Roberson
ART BY: Patric Reynolds
PUBLISHER: Dark Horse
PRICE: $3.50
RELEASE: September 24, 2014
Reviewed By Eric Switzer
When “Prometheus: FIre and Stone” #1 was released, I praised it for being tonally consistent with the film and reading almost like a sequel. “Alien: Fire and Stone”, however, isn’t afforded the same quality because the “Alien” franchise has so much more to draw from and compare to than the singular “Prometheus” film, this is an inherently different book. Instead what “Alien: Fire and Stone” has going for it is a carnage-tastic opening scene and a pace that will have you holding your breath from beginning to end, not to mention some of the coolest panel compositions I’ve seen this year.
This issue doesn’t do exactly what I expected, and I like that. “Prometheus” #1 sets us up to follow the story of the fall of Hadley’s Hope, a tragedy that ends with the escape ship reaching LV-223. Instead we see Hadley’s Hope fall in the first few pages and the escape ship reach LV-223 by midpoint in the book. By keeping the events in both “Aliens” and “Prometheus” in the same setting I think we are going to see a lot of really cool interconnection between the books, more so than I expected.
Where this book falls short of “Prometheus” #1 is in the execution. Unlike “Prometheus”, this book starts amidst a crisis and characters are introduced haphazardly and without the kind of development we saw in “Prometheus”. Secondly, I hate to say it because so much of the art in this book is so damn cool, but I found myself having to flip back more than once and reexamine a previous pages to figure out what was going on. It is unfortunately distracting and the book loses a little bit of momentum when the action is muddled and I have to really study the panels to follow it.
Neither of these complaints are enough to turn me away from such an exciting event and I can encourage you enough to pick up both “Aliens” and “Prometheus” right now. Up next is Joshua Williamson with “Predator” #1. He has been killing it on BOOM!’s “Robocop” and I can’t wait to see his take on Predator.
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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.
