Alien #3

Alien #3

Marvel Comics 2021

Written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson

Illustrated by Salvador Larroca

Coloured by Guru-eFX

Lettered by VC’s Clayton Cowles

DANGER ON ALL SIDES!

Epsilon Station is overrun with danger, not all of it from Xenomorphs! Cruz holds mission information back from his soldiers, but he’s not the only one with secrets. We are not who we say we are.

I am absolutely in love with this book. That Gabe’s son is among those responsible for Epsilon Station being in the state that it is holds the right amount of drama and intrigue to start things off. While Gabe and his companions had such a head start and the staff on Epsilon Station either dead or carrying a new generation inside of them which means that the Xenomorphs food source is quickly dwindling, time is a commodity no one has. We also meet a new character here and she’s the one who got Danny to get them onto the station in the first place and boy is she a piece of work. I love what we’re seeing and how the dynamic of this book keeps changing with each new character and the deaths of others and how this is portrayed by Phillip leaves me gobsmacked.

I adore the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development that we see extraordinary thanks to the dialogue, the character interaction along with they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter. I really impressed with these encounters between the characters and they do add a whole lot of tension and intrigue to the proceedings. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more of the story as well as the twists and turns along the way we feel like we’re in one of the franchise films.

I am very much enjoying how I see this structured and how the layers within the story continue to grow, evolve and strengthen. These layers swirl around the main arc increasing the creepiness and horror factors as the soldiers who have no idea what’s really going on start showing the first cracks in their demeanour. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is perfectly achieved.

The interiors here are bloody gorgeous! The linework is exquisite and how we see the varying weights and techniques we see being utilised to create this level of quality in the detail work is truly astounding. You know you are in for this visually stunning experience just by opening the book to the first page. I would like to see backgrounds utilised more effectively, they are on a space station and the corridors aren’t as wide as we see them so I’d love to see that cramped quarters feeling to really add that claustrophobic feel to what we see as the Xenomorphs rush towards them. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a brilliant eye for storytelling. The colour work is absolutely stunning. How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows such a mastery for colour. The way the red lights cast their glow and alter the shading is brilliantly done. The black is shiny and creepy like weather leather in all the right places. That shot of the Xenomorph coming out of Mitch oh mummy is that a moment.

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This is like being in a film and makes me wish that we’d see this in the franchise coming to life on screen. As it stands it does work with that way thanks to the writing and the visuals. This is spectacularly written and stunningly illustrated and reinvigorates the horror back into the franchise beautifully.