Jerry Prosser

The Omnibus is made up of three stories - all about the Queen's Jelly and no that isn't a euphemism!

First up is Genocide: A CEO is using Queen Jelly to make people super strong, super fast and in some cases super psycho! He decides he needs a sample and a producer, so gets the Colonial Marines to babysit him and his scientists on a mission - with the idea that his product could make some super soldiers! Of course it all goes belly up as the Aliens don't want to play nicely. The marines take losses, the scientists take losses and the bank balance takes losses. A fast paced action story with recognisable characters.

Next is Harvest: And to be honest this is all a bit weird, again it is about the Queen Jelly, however you have a lone scientist, well with a woman whose relationship is never really explained and a robotic alien(WTF!) off on a mission with some hired crew to get the jelly. The crew is dispensable, I mean they don't even bat and eyelid when the robotic alien takes out a few of them for fun, the relationship are never really delved into, there's an ant who appears to be heavily involved but why, well we never know and the art is all a bit confusing. This is a big pile of WTF!

Finally, and the man reason I bought this, is for Colonial Marines, this is a 10 part series which was mucked about with different writers and cut issues and delayed release and ended up being three parts in one. I was warned about this, that because of all the problems it is disjointed and what could've been a great story is hampered by outside influences.
However, I love the Colonial Marines, so why not. Unfortunately what I got was a Lieutenant, who motivations are changed drastically and never really explained, who doesn't care for his soldiers and whose personality is all over the shop, a bunch of marines who aren't your typical Alien Marines, but a bunch of wasters, who for the most part never come good, well apart from the last couple of pages and it is never really shown if the survivors survive or the explosion gets them.
You also have an android, not Bishop this time but Liston, who really is no help whatsoever for most of the book and it is never explained why. The marines are also interchangeable, with some appearing one issues and never seen again, soldiers dying but you're not sure who and some who are alive for all of it, not being seen at the end. This is one confused mess!… (meer)

When I was a kid my brother managed to pick up a copy of some of the Aliens comics. Those issues involved the story arch from the first volume and had the vivid nightmare sequences that stuck in my head. They touched on aspects of the first two movies (which I saw a long, long time ago) that truly were spooky and added elements of a smothering weird alien "mother" aspect to the feelings of rape/parasitic horror.

Apparently though that particular issue was the highpoint of the collections so far. Volume 2 just struck me as muddled, full of poor artwork, and lots of flaws.

Let's start with some of my issues:

* I must admit to not being an Aliens aficionado or hardcore fan. A glossary would be great, particularly for the last story. (There's a dramatic revelation where the villian is....someone I've never heard of ! Yay!). A glossary or timeline is almost necessary, although I suspect some of the stories don't really fit in any timeline.

*There seems to be some odd editing. Reading some other reviews elsewhere seems to indicate that these omnibuses were edited yet again. I wonder if they were edited for the better.

* By the end of this volume the aliens end up feeling more like something out of "Storm Troopers". Nothing to be afraid of if you've got a big enough gun. Just annoying insects. Worse case scenario? Just light a torch and the Frankenstein monster will run away. Oh, sorry, I mean the bizarre creatures who can survive in absolute vacuum and bleed acid.

There were some interesting developments like possibly mutated aliens (does the lifeform they incubate affect them?) that could have explored more.

The middle story was ok, but almost feels like the Aliens were unnecessary.

The whole evil corporation/government entity that puts an egomanic in charge who thinks he can harness the Aliens feels overdone and poorly executed in several of the stories.

And for crying out loud, after the aliens have overrun Earth once and folks have had countless encounters with them, we're expected to believe (as happened at least once or twice in this volume) trained marines will wander into a structure made of flesh and bone with strange things scurrying around and spend minutes saying things like "What's this weird stuff?" "Is it organic?".

Flipping through the third volume the art looks drastically better, I'll give them one more shot. It certainly looks like the comics range from creators and editors who really liked the series and are able to empathize the horror aspect and issues just cranked out to capitalize on the movies popularity.… (meer)