The final two shorter pieces haven’t previously seen book publication, and are the transition between Verheiden’s scripting and that of John Arcudi, who’ll progress to writing Genocide, available in the second Omnibus collection. Outbreak is the strongest material, with the remainder sometimes drifting too far away from the core plot, and incorporating elements of seeming significance that just evaporate. He’s never predictable, and his twists aren’t ever telegraphed. The underpinning of his plots is strong throughout, with several good ideas incorporated. Verheiden sows his seeds early in Outbreak, and when that’s concluded he’s totally shifted the scenery. It’s not immediately apparent, but these three stories form a trilogy with a grand scope. His pages drip with suspense, but he’s illustrating the weakest segment, prioritising introspection until an exciting finale. Den Beauvais’ work is brighter, and painted, diminishing the usual tension associated with the feature, while Sam Kieth’s ornate storytelling is the best here. On the first Mark Nelson’s layouts are very traditional, but extremely accomplished, and he improves as the story continues. These are characterised by three vastly differing artistic approaches. For convenience, the titles, originally numerical, are now Outbreak, Nightmare Asylum and Female War. The release of Alien 3 several years after Verheiden’s stories took them in a different direction, so these stories are now about a scarred marine named Wilks and a disturbed young woman named Billie who number among the few to have actually confronted the aliens. There’s been some changes to the content as originally published, as these stories focussed on Hicks and Newt, picking up their continuity from Aliens. Fans of the artists might be disappointed at the slightly smaller than standard page size, but it’s a value for money product. This collection offers over 350 pages of story content, reprinting their first three Aliens stories, all written by later Battlestar Galactica and Heroes producer Mark Verheiden, along with a couple of shorts. While not everything they produced was pure gold, at the very least they set the baseline quality threshold far higher, and this began with the Aliens franchise. Offerings from the established comics companies provided neither quality nor originality when it came to material featuring characters adapted from other artistic forms, and Dark Horse spotted a gap in the market. In the 1980s the worth of comics featuring licensed properties had rather fallen into disrepute.
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