Predator [2023] #5 - Marvel Comics

PREDATOR No. 5, September 2023

Packed with a series of disconcertingly satisfying deaths and a cluster of soul-shattering murders, Ed Brisson’s narrative for Issue Five of “Predator” certainly should have firmly placed anyone perusing this comic on a rollercoaster of emotion. Sure, the entirety of this twenty-page periodical’s plot is confined to just a couple of corridors set inside the belly of the Sandpiper. But this claustrophobic backdrop simply adds to the sense of the survivors’ desperation, as well as the Yautja’s deadliness, when there’s no room for poor Allen to even swing the razor-sharp axe he enthusiastically selected from Sandy’s armoury at the fast-moving extra-terrestrial trying to gut him.

Quite possibly this book’s chief success is the way the writer pens the well-deserved demises of his considerable cast’s least likeable members. Of particular note is the whiney Isla, who despite being confronted with the plain truth that she caused all the mass mutilation on board Theta Berwick’s spacecraft, still attempts to defend her treachery by suddenly employing the old “we have a daughter” ploy, before the Other Worldly Lifeforms Program (O.W.L.F.) trooper’s head is shockingly blown asunder. This killing genuinely smacks of poetic justice, and is only overshadowed by the subsequent sorrowful slaying of this tale’s roguish bouncer a split second later.

Indeed, many a bibliophile will probably put down this “final showdown” afterwards with a truly heavy heart, as poor Omar and Allen are cut to pieces by the Predator. These characters demonstrated such significant loyalty to the woman who scooped them off the Yautja’s game preserve planet, that it seems such a shame neither were able to reach the temporary safety of the control deck and “stick with you and Paolo” for some future adventures; “Sure. We could always use another set of hands around here.”

Pencilling some incredible pulse-pounding panels is Netho Diaz, who manages to convey both the stark terror permeating the vessel’s population and the savage suddenness of their grisly downfalls. In fact the staggeringly good splash page of the psyched-up alien leaping upon Berwick’s band with its wrist-blades ready for a fatal slash looks as if the creature has quite literally stepped from a celluloid film frame straight into the comic book.

Writer: Ed Brisson, Pencilier: Netho Diaz, Inker: Belardino Brabo, Colorist: Erick Arciniega