Aliens Volume 6: Rogue

Aliens / Predator / Prometheus Universe

by Ian Edginton, William Simpson

Or, more importantly, what kind of man could torture an Alien? Professor Ernst Kleist has genetically engineered powerful, obedient Aliens. The horror of nature is dwarfed by the terror of a man who would toy with it.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Aliens, Science Fiction, Horror, Comic Book

112 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1995

About the author

Edginton sees part of the key to his success coming from good relationships with artists, especially D'Israeli and Steve Yeowell as well as Steve Pugh and Mike Collins. He is best known for his steampunk/alternative history work (often with the artist D'Israeli) and is the co-creator of Scarlet Traces, a sequel to their adaptation of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. With 2000 AD we has written Leviathan, Stickleback and, with art by Steve Yeowell, The Red Seas as well as one-off serials such as American Gothic (2005).

His stories often have a torturous gestation. Scarlet Traces was an idea he had when first reading The War of the Worlds, its first few instalments appeared on Cool Beans website, before being serialised in the Judge Dredd Megazine. Also The Red Seas was initially going to be drawn by Phil Winslade and be the final release by Epic but Winslade was still tied up with Goddess and when ideas for replacement artists were rejected Epic was finally wound up - the series only re-emerging when Edginton was pitching ideas to Matt Smith at the start of his 2000 AD career.

With D'Israeli he has created a number of new series including Stickleback, a tale of a strange villain in an alternative Victorian London, and Gothic, which he describes as "Mary Shelley's Doc Savage". With Simon Davis he recently worked on a survival horror series, Stone Island, and he has also produced a comic version of the computer game Hellgate: London with Steve Pugh.

He is currently working on a dinosaurs and cowboys story called Sixgun Logic. Also as part of Top Cow's Pilot Season he has written an Angelus one-shot.

http://comicbookdb.com/creator.php?ID...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Edgi...

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mad scientists uses both humans and xenomorphs in his experiments. Besides that it's your standard Aliens fare. Humans do stupid, selfish things. Aliens break loose and kill everyone.

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice story and art in this installment of Dark Horse's Alien universe. Recommended

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

As with the other Aliens comics I've reviewed, I read these as individual issues. This series was originally published back in 1993 and this is one of the better comics I've run into from Dark Horse so far. Finally a lot of the pieces of a solid Aliens comic are coming together. Sure, it's a bit of a rehashed story from earlier works, but I felt this one was written far better than some of the others. Earlier comics teased some of these ideas, but some of their conclusions or general writing got sidetracked in some way, in my opinion.

This is also one of the first series published post Alien 3. It largely abandons the overall narrative that Dark Horse was building in a sort of alternate Aliens universe. So, maybe they felt it worthwhile to refine some of the ideas of the earlier lore, but without the baggage of a different timeline. This also puts things in a position where they no longer have to retcon the series after the fact. Dark Horse also tries to stay away from writing stories based on the films around this time as well, and instead make up entirely new adventures so there won't be any issues going forward. For me, this was the greatest idea, because, while I do like the Aliens franchise and movies, having entirely new adventures within the universe with different characters has a freer form to the experience.

"Rogue" is a bit cliche at this point with regards to the setup. We are, once again, brought to a secret research facility with a mad scientist trying to exploit the alien organism. He will stop at nothing to achieve his aims, even if that means sacrificing a large portion of the Colinial Marines stationed there as his own research guinnea pigs. It's a fairly standard fair story setup for Science Fiction and nothing new is brought to the table in that regard.... and at this point, I'm not expecting anything revolutionary from this franchise, what I do want is a good story with good characters and a good adventure. "Rogue" delivers on that part and it's written well enough that I tore through all for issues again after not having read them since the 90's.

Dr. Kleist, who everyone calls Professor, despite not being associated with a university and teaching classes as far as I can tell... runs a small research facility on a remote and converted penal colony. He is looking for a way to make a more tame Alien. This sort of idea showed up in earlier issues, especially the whole Earth War sequence, but in this case Kleist is trying to achieve these goals through genetic manipulation. Needless to say this winds up being a recipe for disaster and in his desperation for subjects he starts looking at the Colonial Marines stationed there for security. This, naturally, creates a huge issue with the marines and an obvious security risk should anything go wrong.

The time in question where these comics take place is different though. Enter Captain Joyce Palmer there to deliver another doctor to review Kleist's research. Palmer is an ex-marine herself and has ulterior motives for taking the long haul job to fly this guy out the facility. She's looking for the truth behind what is happening with the marines on station. Her cargo... he might not exactly be who he claims as well. Together they will find themselves in a tense situation as the horrors of Kleists research become unleashed on the facility, because of course they were, this is an Aliens comic after all!

While the setup and story are one told time and again, I did enjoy this series. Ian Edginton did a great job crafting it within the Aliens universe and I found it to be an enjoyable adventure. Will Simpson did an excellent job bringing it to life. While Simpsons' Aliens were a bit different compared some other artists, I think his art fit the feel of the story quite well. This entire story is so much better than the Colonial Marines comic series Dark Horse is simultaneously publishing at this time. So, if you're looking for a solid tale of mad scientists doing anything to realize their vision in the Aliens universe, then this one is quite well done.

[Grantcorp · Rating 4 out of 5]

It seems most Dark Horse stories involving the Aliens take place on a secluded space station where something awfully wrong is going on, and this is no exception. A mysterious envoy is sent to an off world station to be briefed on the proceedings of an ongoing xenomorph research project. The station's crew lives in constant fear and the different factions have problems getting along. The story is handled quite well, it starts out tremendously dystopic but kicks into hero overdrive at the end. As ususal with the subject matter, there's quite a lot of graphic scenes to stomach. The artwork is quite good and the dialogue just alright. Overall, a good entry in the series.

[James DeSantis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was actually pretty fun.

One crazy psycho is trying to control aliens. But this time he has made the ultimate weapon. A KING alien. In this of course humans are the real monsters as they hurt, betray. And kill each other. The human story is okay. The alien story is great. The queen vs the king? I wanna see this on screen one day.

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 1 out of 5]

Has absolutely nothing new or interesting to say about the world of Aliens.

[Pedro Plasencia Martínez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Parte de un escenario muy conocido y de un villano muy estereotipado, el científico loco que la lía. Pues a pesar de todo funciona muy bien, te interesas por los soldados, te interesas por la piloto, te interesas por el supervisor misterioso y hasta te interesas por el Alien Rey que se sacan de la manga. Tampoco se queda corto en el gore, en las traiciones, en las venganzas y en los momentos angustiosos. Es un cóctel familiar que ya hemos probado los fans varias veces, pero sigue dejando buen sabor de boca.

ENGLISH
It starts from a very well-known scenario and a very stereotyped villain, the mad scientist who plays at being god. Well, despite everything, it works very well, you are interested in the soldiers, you are interested in the pilot, you are interested in the mysterious supervisor and you are even interested in the Alien King that the guionist pulls out of his sleeve. It is also not short on gore, betrayals, revenge and anguishing moments. It is a familiar cocktail that we fans have already tried several times, but it still leaves a good taste in our mouths.

[Malcolm Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

My main issue with this one is that it had very similar themes to those in Nightmare Asylum and The Labyrinth. There was a lot of, "I've seen this exact thing before". My other issue was that the many characters introduced were mostly in combat armour and so were difficult to identify. When they started getting bumped off, I had no idea who had just died or been sacrificed. This coupled with the poor quality artwork made for an unsatisfactory read, even though there were some interesting ideas in here, particularly involving the Rogue itself as a concept.

[Hodgey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rogue is one of the classic Dark Horse Aliens comics. It's got corporate espionage, a mad scientist, a cool alien/human hybrid created to fight the xenomorphs. It's a simple plot but it's really just a reason to see some cool scenes with amazing artwork. The aliens in this comic look terrifying. The way people are taken out is pretty visceral. The Rogue is a cool design. It's brutish and intimidating. The covers for the individual issues are some of the best of the era. The John Bolton covers for the later editions and the novel are also fantastic! Rogue had amazing artists attached to it.

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this as part of the "Aliens Omnibus" Volume 3, which reprints works originally published by Dark Horse as separate graphic novels. This Omnibus volume is smaller than the typical 8x10-or-so graphic novel size, which makes the artwork harder to read. And the artwork, by Will Simpson, is not that great to begin with. The xenomorphs still look pretty cool, but the action is hard to follow, and Simpson can't draw human faces well at all.

[Todd · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars. I read the novel years ago first and it's much better. It does a superior job of fleshing out the characters and building up tension. The comic book is a much more straightforward and generic story with flat characters and the art while not terrible isn't amazing either.

[Jen Sylvia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the story but hated the art style. The latter part is visual preference but it averted my desire to give a 4-star review. That being said, great cast, and a fun, deadly story.

[Andrew Johnson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pretty incoherent and dull. The characters are incredibly flat, and the panels often don’t flow well together. The novelization is much, much better.

[NerdyReader · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the better Alien tpb's out there. Simple story, good art, fast paced. And most of all: fun.

[Jean-Francois Boivin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the 2nd edition of the ALIENS: ROGUE Graphic novel from 1994, and volume 6 on the "Aliens Library" edition series. It includes a new introduction by the authors of the 1995 novelization Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch where they recount how they got the job of writing an ALIENS book for Dark Horse.

The story is very good and suspensful, the setting is creepy, you care about the characters and hate the evil Dr. Klein and his goon Larson. Very effective story, although not very original (i.e. evil scientists wants to splice alien genes to create different breeds, and it all goes to shit) so maybe not everyone would like it, but it's great for ALIENS fans.

[Kaisersoze · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid outing in the Aliens universe as envisioned by Dark Horse. Nothing really to write home about - as this reads hits most of the regular plot beats present in an Aliens comic - aside from a nice little twist that occurs reasonably early on. Some of the artwork was also quite nice, elevating this one about a sub-standard 2 star rating.

3 Scientific Experiments Gone Awry for Aliens: Rogue Remastered.

[ryan long · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good

A great fight between a genetically engineered king alien and a normal queen happens at the end then it shows a explosion and two people escape on a shuttle and as far as I know alien rogue is the first Alien comic to feature a new weapon its like a shock net but comes with a price to much repeated use over so long or not letting go of trigger when charged not like the one person has a choice as he was charging the gun a alien took his arm off

[Jaime · Rating 4 out of 5]

The characters are inconsequential here but the action keeps you interested. The seventh novel in the series focuses on the creation of the Rogue, a creature that is able to battle the queen alien. The battle of these titans is worth the thrilling and bloody ride. Man's tampering will lead to his destruction for the beast can never truly be managed.

[Johnny Andrews · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a graphic novel it's very unnerving the lengths science will go to with these predatory killers.
If you're an ALIEN fan...get this!!!

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aliens: Rogue

It has aliens, colonial marines, a freighter captain, a corporate spy, and a mad scientist. A mad scientist who genetically engineers an alien king. Good story for anyone who doesn't mind non cannon alien stories.