Alien Annual #1 - Marvel Comics

ALIEN ANNUAL No. 1, September 2022

Steeped in just the sort of Machiavellian machinations fans of the science-fiction horror franchise would expect of Weyland-Yutani Corporation, Phillip Kennedy Johnson’s script for this “double-sized one-shot comic book” certainly shouldn’t have disappointed most of its audience. But whilst “Alien Annual” undeniably contains plenty of deadly, Xenomorph-based action, courtesy of its narrative following the impregnation of a hapless marine through to the extra-terrestrial’s mass slaughtering of the rest of his military unit, the premise of its author trying to tie this title into the plot of both the films and “one of my favourite [video] games in recent memory” does arguably cause some disagreeable inconsistencies.

For starters, having previously established the character of Gabriel Cruz as a caring, devoted family man haunted by his long working relationship with “The Company”, the Eisner-nominated writer disconcertingly portrays the defence agent’s younger incarnation as a merciless, cold-blooded killer who seemingly has no qualms supervising the fertilisation of a fully-conscious political prisoner, nor the release of this ghastly murder’s subsequent offspring upon the unsuspecting dissidents who have taken control of Nishimura Station. True, the Second Hand Movement are terrorists, and this “Alien outbreak perpetrated by Weyland-Yutani” could be just one of the missions the future Security Chief regrets. But there doesn’t appear to be a moment’s hesitation or doubt as to this experiment’s morality in the soldier whilst everything is going to plan.

In addition, the reason things do go off the rails is because the “large British - Japanese multinational conglomerate” don’t supposedly know that one of their own space station’s actually has an offensive launch capability in the guise of anti-aircraft rocket launchers..? This oversight is debatably bizarre, and although it quickly leads to some seriously devious manipulation of fireteam’s survivors by a homicidal synthetic, the manufactured nature of the predicament repeatedly comes back to haunt the overall narrative, especially when Weyland-Yutani suddenly nuke Nishimura Station after it was initially explained one of their main aims was to recover the orbiting facility intact; “What is it? Intel would have known if these guys were packing rockets!”

Plot-holes aside however, Johnson’s tale does contain some excellent moments of classic "Alien" terror, most notably in the treacherous behaviour of Charlie, who obediently sacrifices his crewmates one by one whenever his programming permits. Salvador Larroca’s prodigious pencilling also does a first-rate job of depicting both the gruesome action, as well as the evident horror on the faces of this comic’s cast as they realise the ghastly fate about to befall them.

The regular cover art to "ALIEN ANNUAL" #1 by Salvador Larroca & Guru-eFX