Dark Horse is at it again with more Aliens comics!  Aliens: Dead Orbit is Dark Horse’s latest Aliens comic, written, drawn, lettered, and inked by James Stokoe.  So, does Dark Horse hit, or miss the mark with their latest issue in their latest Aliens comic?  It’s time to find out!  NOTE:  There WILL be spoilers (obviously), so if it is a series you REALLY want to read, and you don’t want issue 3 spoiled, this is your stop, time to get off this safety train.  Next stop:  Spoilerville, Aliens Station!  You have been warned.

Story

Aliens: Dead Orbit follows a ship (you don’t really care which) as they find a shuttle filled with burned alive corpses (or soon to be corpses) and they bring them onto the ship, only to find they have baby xenomorphs in them and as you’d expect, the crew is then axed off one by one in classic Alien style.  The story is very run-of-the-mill, and it’s exactly what works.  It is Alien.  Ridley Scott, take notes, before you release Alien 5, bring in Sigourney Weaver, and make it between Aliens and Alien 3, despite it 25 YEARS since Alien 3 (by the way, no, I didn’t make that up.  That’s actually a thing, and it’s been called Alien 5 since before Prometheus 2 got rebranded as Alien: Covenant to remove confusion.  I’m sure THAT won’t end horribly).  In issue 3, things are still vague, and it appears most, if not all, of the crew is dead.  However, the issue ends on a cliffhanger, so we will have to wait for August 9th when issue 4 comes out to see how it ends.  The main problem with the story is that it has much more of an Alien feel, even with multiple xenomorphs aboard the ship.  There’s a certain…helpless feel…that is simply lacking in the more action-oriented Aliens series.  However, this is, at best, a minor complaint, and certainly not a fault on the series as a whole.

Art

When it comes to the look and feel of Alien, James Stokoe knocks the ball right out of the park.  Aliens: Dead Orbit keeps the dark but deep look of Alien and Aliens and continues to uphold that standard, with dark corridors that practically seem to sink within the page, as if you could reach into it, and deep purples and blues that simply accentuate the entire deep feel of the series.  Nothing looks rushed, and it honestly tops most other companies today, with Marvel having bland, lifeless obviously computer generated artwork that almost seems like a paint-by-color program, and DC’s obsession with sensory overload, with far too many colors and far too much going on per page.

Conclusion

Overall, it seems as though Dark Horse has once again gone above and beyond the requirements for an Alien comic series, with another hit.  After reading the issue I have, I can wholeheartedly recommend reading this series.  I know I have personally added it to my pull list, and recommend you do as well, as it easily keeps up with, if not surpasses, the work of the big two.