Predator #1 - Marvel Comics

PREDATOR No. 1, October 2022

Having survived a year-long delay owing to a copyright lawsuit involving “the screenwriters behind the original 1987 movie and Disney's 20th Century Studios”, Ed Brisson’s script for Issue One of “Predator” probably made the vast majority of its audience believe that the twelve-month wait was worth it. Admittedly, the thirty-page plot might have surprised many a bibliophile by initially being set on the planet X14432-8 in the year 2056 A.D., as opposed to being concerned with a modern-day Earth setting as the science-fiction franchise’s films have predominantly done. But the comic’s well-penned story concerning Theta Nedra Berwick’s unsuccessful vengeance upon a facially disfigured Yautja immediately holds the attention, especially when the young woman’s entire scientific community are cold-bloodedly butchered by her elusive prize in a fascinating flashback sequence from fifteen years earlier.

Furthermore, the Joe Shuster Award-nominee’s inclusion of the friendly artificial intelligence called Sandy, who acts as the central protagonist’s synthetic parent, cleverly provides the sole-survivor with plenty of opportunities to both demonstrate her vulnerability and imbue the yarn with some much-needed humour. Indeed, despite the fact that the computer system is only depicted as a bodiless voice, its wise words of comfort to a clearly hurting ward should lead to a genuine sense of loss in the majority of this comic’s readers when the Astar Industries spacecraft crashes “one hundred miles south of the Port Medway post” and its computer abruptly goes deathly silent; “Sandy, I don’t know where I’m supposed to go from here. I need you. Sandy?”

Adding plenty of swashbuckling savagery to this periodical’s opening, and subsequently following it up with some well-paced layouts as the titular killer methodically slaughters every person an adolescent Theta has ever known, is Kev Walker. The former “Judge Dredd” illustrator is particularly good at pencilling the emotions visible upon each character’s face as they terrifyingly realise that whatever is attacking them from within the dense vegetation is not going to be stopped by a technician wielding an unfamiliar laser gun. Furthermore, the British artist does a top job imbuing Berwick with a world-weary weight which belies her youth, sketching the woman as a grim-faced, battle-scarred warrior who is exhausted by a relentless lifestyle, yet absolutely resolute in locating the “ugly b*stard” who massacred her hapless people.

Writer: Ed Brisson, Artist: Kev Walker, and Colorist: Frank D'Armata