Marvel obtain rights to Aliens and Predator comics off Dark Horse

[karlos]

https://www.cbr.com/marvel-comics-alien-series-early-2021/

And so it begins.

Larocca on art - gotta be worth a look.

[Colin YNWA]

Funnily enough I'm going to be reading a load of the Dark Horse stuff I got on sale digitall, later on this month. I'm really looking forward to seeing what that's like. As I recall the early stuff was a bit hit and miss and I have cherry picked what I bought based on creators involved.

So it will be interesting to see how I think the Aliens world works in comics and that may well determine whether I decide to give this a go as I'm not really familar with either creators work.

[karlos]

Cherry picking is most certainly the way to go, Colin - Dark Horse put out a lot of Aliens comics.

Personally,  I always loved the first two runs and the first AvP mini, but there's plenty more out there that is well worth a read.

[Colin YNWA]

Any recommendations? I've picked up

First four (I think it is) stories - up to Female War (which used to be called Earth War?)
Stuff by Wagner, Milligan, Gibbons and Mignola, Edginton, something call Apocolayse (not sure why I went for that one specifically?) - Mark Schulz probably, Stronghold - again not sure why exactly. Some stuff with Kelley Jones art (which I think I might of had back in the day), Some Dabnett stuff with art by Moritat (very much looking forward to that).

Finally I have the Brian Wood stuff but I'm not reading that this time out - that's somewhere down the line.

Anything to be recommended apart from that?

[karlos]

Your list looks spot on to me  Colin!

The only additions off the top of my head would be the Colonial Marines 12 parter, even though it's a bit wobbly in parts, and the 2 Mondo stories, which are just daft fun.

[repoman]

There was an interesting compilation of Aliens stories that had a weird one in there where Ripley goes back to Earth and it turns out the space jockey pilot people are trying to terraform it.

I was a big fan of the Dark Horse stuff but after a while it got very samey.  Mad professor/general/whatever thinks he can use the aliens for science/war/whatever.  Anything that shined new light on how the aliens behave was interesting though.

Newt's Tale was a fantastic retelling of Aliens from her perspective.

[karlos]

I never read Newt's Tale as I was super pissed off with Alien 3!

That's true about the whole "mad doctor/scientist/whatever wanting to control aliens" thing  - used a lot during the DH run - [spoiler]even as early as book 2[/spoiler].

As for Predator  - I re-read the first mini DH did and it's still very solid stuff...and wow, Predator 2 REALLY did rip it off!

[Colin YNWA]

I've just picked up some extras in a new Dark Horse Aliens sale - Got the Colonial Marines series you mentioned for 79p! Was listed as a single issue in error. Sam Keith book I must have missed first time and a Gabriel Hardmann book. Alien Predator Omnibus 1 (for first series I remember liking) A couple of screenplay books (Dan O'Bannon original and Aliens 3 William Gibson).

Whole lot for £25 - so happy with that.

[Colin YNWA]

Started reading these and to be honest I didn't enjoy the first trilogy as much as I remember (so that's Outbreak, Nightmare Asylum and Female War) and had to slog my way through them.

Apocoloypse by Mark Schultz was okay and looked great. Frenzy by our own John W was pretty good, though would really of benefited from a better artist.

So far this has all made for some choppy reading. Still some big name creators to come so remain optimistic...

[karlos]

Exactly, Colin - like the Predator and (to a lesser extent, Terminator) stories - there were so many of them the quality really does vary wildly.