Review

"Where's your sense of sport? Make it through the Labyrinth and I might even let you live" - Colonel Doctor Church

Volume 3 of the Dark Horse Aliens anthology series brings together seven stories to entertain Alien fans everywhere. The stories range in size from a few pages to pretty much graphic novel length, oh hell yeah, I was high fiving various action figures I have on my desk. Each separate story brings together differing approaches in terms of script and art, so there should be something for most people to rock down with. A lot to get through let's see what's hiding in this leathery egg thing.

The Omnibus opens with the almost graphical novel length Rogue, which dials into the by now done to death mad scientist thinking to exploit the aliens regardless of the cost. While the script by Ian Edginton is showing its age, I still managed to maintain some sort of interest in where the plot was heading. I guess this one would have been more impactful if the "company" hadn't proved themselves to be worse than the Xenomorphs since Aliens. The artwork, while not breaking new ground, was enough to get the concepts across and hey you have to say it was pretty colourful. Is that a ringing endorsement? - nope, the first story is an interesting read without breaking new ground or turn new ground in the mythology.

More interesting, for me at least - and that's all that counts, was Sacrifice, script by Peter Milligan, art by Paul Johnson. While the script once again isn't breaking new ground it does take a fairly unique approach to Ripley's universe. Without giving too much away, this one is a drama with something of a message to mull over after reading the story. I was also pretty much blown away by Johnson's artwork as well. It's intense, gothic, and worth the price of admission alone. If you are toying with grabbing the third anthology, then trust me, it's worth dialling into for this superb entry in the Alien cosmos. Without giving too much away I got a real Joan of Arc vibe from this story, sorry to historians currently spluttering in their coffee.

The second graphic length story we get in Volume 3 is Labyrinth, Jim Woodring and Kilian Plunket. We're back to the mad scientist thinking to tame the alien scourge situation again, and I have to say while Woodring tries to mix it up a bit the story comes off as convoluted and somewhat confusing in terms of intent. I'm kind of all over the mad Scientist, clearly descended from Dr Frankenstein, ruling the isolated semi-military outpost with whatever shady Company hovering in the background. This story line has been done to death regardless of what spin is thrown it's way, lazy writing comes to mind that verges on plagiarism or at least ripping off the reader with same old bollocks. On the bright side at least we get a fairly entertaining flashback, Woodring should have made that the story and jettison the rest.

Returning to the themes of Sacrifice, Gibbons and Mignola throw Salvation in our direction. Ever since Alien 3, check out the Director's cut, there has been a hint of the religious overtone to this franchise which sort of flys in the face of the Elder Gods environment the first couple of movies was summoning up. Dave Gibbon's script returns to the whole religious thing that Ripley went through in A3, with an entirely different approach. I was more than interested by this one, and have to say Mike Mignola's Japanese influence art had me rocking on.

Advent/Terminal was sort of interesting in a well written and drawn fashion without the story really blowing me away. Anina Bennett and Paul Guinan return to the concepts of greed, a recurrent theme through the entire franchise, but at least they take things away from the corporation manipulations that we are used to. I was really digging Paul Guinan's artwork in this once, classic North American comic illustration for mine.

The strangest story for mine in Volume 3, and hence the most interesting, is Reapers, a short that dispenses with human characters altogether. There's a twist to John Arcudi's script that I'm not going to give away here and I have to say I was grooving to Simon Bisley's organic artwork. You could say this one is a shaggy face hugger story as an alien race encounters a Xenomorph nest in an apparent disaster waiting to happen.

Closing out an interesting mixture was the Sarah Byam scripted Horror Show, a story that is pretty much the most unique Alien story I've read in a while. This time round the alien infestation of earth, if Xenomorph challenged - it's around the time of books two and three of the Dark Horse series of novels, is a backdrop to the story being told which was a welcome surprise for me at least. David Roach provides some solid artwork to make a memorable entry in the omnibus that dripped acid.

Okay so the book comes at you with a whopping 370 pages of full colour Alien mayhem, so that's a heavy enough investment in time for even the most demanding fan. I've pretty much summed up what you get, though I should point out I've only read the Volume twice and it is already falling to pieces on me. I guess I got enough entertainment value out of the book to recommend it, though naturally that's only going to be Alien franchise fans. Scope it out if you're a fanboy like me, or feel free to give it a miss, no skin off my nose.

Okay I grabbed a copy off www.amazon.com for the pretty reasonable price of $16.47 (USD). So that's pretty much value for money, knock yourself out there.