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james_desantis 's review for:
Aliens Omnibus Vol. 1
by Mark Verheiden
This is a huge Omnibus that took me a bit to get through, not because it was bad, but because there's so many stories/change in tones, I took my time. What did I get out of it? Some great stuff, some good, and some bad.
I want to stress how much I love looking back on this book and seeing stories created after Alien/Aliens and before Alien 3 onward. So the first few stories decide to focus on Newt and Hicks. Ripley comes in later but the first two major stories are basically a direct sequel to Aliens. And while I appeciate them both, they feel oddly "safe". With Newt replacing Ripley as a badass by the end of the story (kind of) and Hicks doing the same mission again. I did indeed like the fact we got to see both deal with PDST but by the third and final story and Ripley's return it felt a bit weird how the story structure went. And basically the author didn't want to kill anyone important cause they could be used in future alien films. Funny how Alien 3 fucked that up anyway lol.
So that's the "Good" for me. Entertaining stories that felt like direct sequels. But what I actually REALLY enjoyed were two major stories. Hive and Genocide.
These stories are more off the walls and have new characters you never heard of. Even better one features basically waring Aliens killing each other to become dominate. Another story focuses on a drug sciencist and his friendly doggie ALIEN robot. yes. There is a Andriod that is a alien who can pull out a machine gun. Dude, I loved this shit.
There's also some cool black and white stories and a real solid Newt background story that serves as a nice before Aliens and recap of Aliens.
Alien 3 and the mini comics based on toys range from bad to meh at best. Alien 3 is a hot mess and with the exception of some decent parts I don't like the movie. The comic isn't much better. The alien toys storyline is so stupid even if we get some cool alien designs.
So yeah overall it is not a perfect collection but it has some pretty awesome stories in there. I dunno if I'd go full force 4 out of 5, but since I really enjoyed most of it I'll settle on a 3.5 and bump it UP to a 4. Bring on volume 2!
I want to stress how much I love looking back on this book and seeing stories created after Alien/Aliens and before Alien 3 onward. So the first few stories decide to focus on Newt and Hicks. Ripley comes in later but the first two major stories are basically a direct sequel to Aliens. And while I appeciate them both, they feel oddly "safe". With Newt replacing Ripley as a badass by the end of the story (kind of) and Hicks doing the same mission again. I did indeed like the fact we got to see both deal with PDST but by the third and final story and Ripley's return it felt a bit weird how the story structure went. And basically the author didn't want to kill anyone important cause they could be used in future alien films. Funny how Alien 3 fucked that up anyway lol.
So that's the "Good" for me. Entertaining stories that felt like direct sequels. But what I actually REALLY enjoyed were two major stories. Hive and Genocide.
These stories are more off the walls and have new characters you never heard of. Even better one features basically waring Aliens killing each other to become dominate. Another story focuses on a drug sciencist and his friendly doggie ALIEN robot. yes. There is a Andriod that is a alien who can pull out a machine gun. Dude, I loved this shit.
There's also some cool black and white stories and a real solid Newt background story that serves as a nice before Aliens and recap of Aliens.
Alien 3 and the mini comics based on toys range from bad to meh at best. Alien 3 is a hot mess and with the exception of some decent parts I don't like the movie. The comic isn't much better. The alien toys storyline is so stupid even if we get some cool alien designs.
So yeah overall it is not a perfect collection but it has some pretty awesome stories in there. I dunno if I'd go full force 4 out of 5, but since I really enjoyed most of it I'll settle on a 3.5 and bump it UP to a 4. Bring on volume 2!