Alien Verses Captain America #2 - Marvel Comics

ALIEN VERSES CAPTAIN AMERICA No. 2, February 2026

For those Marvelites expecting to get knee-deep in Xenomorphs with Sergeant Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos, Frank Tieri’s script for Issue Two of “Alien Verses Captain America” probably landed somewhat flatly. True, the American author does pen the elite special unit entering an alien-infested Hydra Stronghold in Occupied France. But by the time this twenty-page periodical is just halfway finished, only the World War Two squad’s veteran leader is still alive; “Bullets have no effect, Sarge! And it’s whipping that tail around again --”

Instead, the Eisner Award-winner moves away from writing a gritty, down-to-earth battle between some of the Allies’ finest soldiers and “the destructive might” of the Red Skull’s latest acquisitions, and ramps up this mini-series’ science-fiction flavour with the sudden appearance of Captain Mar-Vell. So swift a move, courtesy of a Kree Sentry robot crashing feet-first amongst the deadly extra-terrestrials just in the nick of time, must genuinely have taken many within this comic’s audience by complete surprise, and certainly ends any notion some bibliophiles might have had that this “Twentieth Century Studios” tie-in was going to at least be somewhat grounded using contemporary weaponry.

Up until this moment however, this publication proves remarkably similar in plot to the events of James Cameron’s 1986 feature film “Aliens”, with Captain American and Bucky Barnes desperately searching an underground complex-turned-Xenomorph nest for a lost comrade-in-arms. Whether such parallels are a good thing or not is rather debatable, but the fact that the Sentinel of Liberty’s shield is the only item standing between the war heroes and an acid blood bath definitely makes for some exciting, adrenalin-fuelled action – especially once its established that even the likes of "Dum Dum" Dugan are not safe from suffering a truly, gratuitously graphic demise.

Also helping to add to this comic’s ‘old school’ feel is arguably the layouts of Stefano Raffaele, who provides some wonderfully claustrophobic for the Howling Commandos as they’re voraciously devoured by the aliens one-by-one. In addition, Color Artist Neeraj Menon provides the panels with some very atmospheric muted greys, blues and browns, which resultantly really helps make the combatants’ blood and guts genuinely pop off the printed page.

Writer: Frank Tieri, Artist: Stefano Raffaele, and Color Artist: Neeraj Menon