Aliens: Outbreak

Aliens (comics)

by Mark Verheiden, Mark A. Nelson

Wilks was a space marine with a near-fatal he had a heart. Billie was a child, the only survivor of a far-flung colony outpost. Thrown together in the last hellish night of an Alien invasion, Billie and Wilks helped each other get out alive. Thirteen years later, Wilks is in prison and Billie lives in a mental institution, the nightmare memories of the massacre at Rim seared into her mind. Now the pair get a chance to be reunited. To go back to that outpost where it all happened, to finally end the business between themselves . . . and the Aliens. This is the very first of the remastered Aliens trade paperbacks! Dark Horse is going back through each of its past Aliens graphic novels and revising images and text to bring the entire story into a single line of continuity with the motion pictures and the wildly popular Bantam novels. Once a black-and-white collection, this remastered edition boasts full-color art, an updated script, a new John Bolton cover, and a gallery of never-before-seen Mark A. Nelson art! Get ready for the remastered line!

Genres: Comics, Horror, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction, Aliens, Graphic Novels Comics, Action

176 pages, Paperback

First published August 13, 1996

About the author

Mark Verheiden is an American television, movie, and comic book writer. He was a co-executive producer for the television series Falling Skies for DreamWorks Television and the TNT Network.

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

For all that eventually happens in this, it's really boring. The first 2/3rds is just monotonous prologue about how evil corporations are. James Cameron already covered that in Aliens.
There are some bold moves at the end but instead of focusing on that, it's mostly off-page which is disappointing. Due to Alien 3 coming out after this was published, Hicks and Newt's names were changed to Wilks and Billie in later printings.

[Nate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alien 3 was a good film in its own right but not the sequel most of us were hoping for. This comic from 1988 has newt and hicks as the main characters and in my opinion was closer to what I hoped the film would be. This wasn’t a 100% flawless story either, but if you are a fan of the movies and aren’t averse to reading a comic book, you will enjoy this.

[Himanshu Karmacharya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aliens: Outbreak is the continuation of the story of Aliens movie franchise after the second movie. However, following the release of the third Aliens movie, the names of the characters in the book were changed from Newt and Hicks to Billie and Wilks, respectively.

The book explores themes of corruption, capitalism, humanity and love. It has a lot of potential, unfortunately the convoluted storytelling and unnecessary verbose narration and dialogues take away the fun out of it. The artwork is decent, but can be distracting at times with poorly drawn faces and characters in actions.

Overall, Aliens:Outbreak is a relatively worthier successor to the Aliens than the atrocious third movie, but still has its fair share of problems in the storytelling and dialogue department.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the joys of these first three Aliens series, back in the day, is that they continued the story of the Aliens (1986) movie. To be specific, they were the story of Newt and Hicks and what happened next, and they're rather marvelous for the tragic arc that they imagined for these heroes. Unfortunately, more Aliens movies were produced. Even more unfortunately, they invalidated these stories. But just read this as if Aliens^3 and Aliens Resurrection and the rest didn't occur. Billie is Newt. Wilks is Hicks. Enjoy.

Outbreak (Aliens 1). As you'd expect, this story has some fun military action, as Hicks goes after the Aliens with a vengeance. It's a well-told military story. However what makes this story truly great is what's going on back on Earth. Verheiden balances corporate evil with xenomorphic evil, producing something deeper than the on-screen alien stories. Even better, Verheiden isn't afraid to make really big plot moves. My only complaint is that at times the multi-threaded story gets just a bit muddy. Still, this is fundamentally the start of a great storyline that was never matched by the later big-screen replacements, and that's why Dark Horse's Aliens were so popular for a time [5/5].

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is apparently the first Aliens comic book story that Dark Horse released. It was originally printed in black and white, and is still available in that format...I'll have to get that one! I think it looks better in black and white, but color is good too. It's a lengthy read, 117 pages.

It's a continuation of the Alien movie franchise. In answer to the events in Alien 3, Newt's name is changed to Billie and Hicks' name is changed to Wilks. Not sure how that changes anything. It's more about the humans being corrupt, but not involving the Weyland-Yutani Corporation from the movies. I don't understand why that would have been a good nod to the films. There are some cool action scenes, but I wanted to see more of that.

There is a volume two of this and I'd love to read that. I will also get the black and white version of this and read that too. If you like the Alien movies, this book is for you.

[Christopher · Rating 1 out of 5]

Blah! Don't bother. As with so many other mythos out there this one is as screwed up and convoluted as any of them (star trek). Is it soooo hard to attempt a little continuity?

[Joshua · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've only plumed the surface of the Alien Universe, and I've read Fire & Stone but it's been about a year so this was a great return to the Alien Universe. Using a sort of sequel concept to the movie ALIENS, Verheiden is able to follow Hicks and Newt, as well as various members of the Company to tell a wonderful story about the origins of Xenomorphs, the greed which can lead so many to destruction, and the implied horror found in the very concept of creation itself.

This was a great read, with wonderful art, and I can't wait to read more.

[Jean-Francois Boivin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a colored and "re-mastered" edition of Aliens: Book One that incorporates changes in the wake of Alien³. The editor mentions they had author Steve Perry "correct" some of the dialogue to reflect the changes he made in his earlier novelization Aliens: Earth Hive, but not always successfully. Sadly, this remastered book still contains some elements that could have been fixed easily such as:

-some of the marines in Wilks' old squad from the Rim mission were renamed, but he still mentions Drake, Vasquez, Frost, and Sgt. Apone. In the novelization all the marines were re-named.
-those flashbacks on Rim also still mention the survivors were Wilks, Billie and civilian woman, which was intended to be Ellen Ripley. That part had been fixed in the novelization.
-There is also one panel where Billie says "My name is Newt."
-Billie is also mentioned as being a minor in the story, and in the flashbacks to the events on Rim she was 8 years old, whereas in Steve Perry's book she was at least 20 and she had left Rim when she was 10.
-Maybe the title should have been the same as the novel, now some people might not know that "Earth Hive" and "Outbreak" are the same story.

There are also a couple of typos and using wrong colors in spots that could have been fixed with a good editorial overview.

The story is a classic in itself, and the intent to remaster it to fit with the movie continuity was very noble. But it lacks in the execution. It's better to read the original graphic novel with black & white art by Mark A. Nelson. Because of this, it makes this book kind of redundant. Dark Horse later continued the "Aliens Library" series with other remasterings of their earlier graphic novels, which i will review soon.

[Patrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Can't say I liked this one as much as some of the more recent ones. And this is odd to admit because A LOT happens...and yet...nothing I tended to care about.

As a fan of the ALIENS franchise, reading the first Dark Horse ALIENS comic is kind of a rite of passage and I'm glad I did it.

I can't say I'll do it a second time.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I usually don't bother buying the actual copies of the graphic novels of comics series I own and I didn't bother with "Outbreak" for a very long time until recently. This was, until I found out that "Outbreak" was not merely a re-print of the first Aliens series originally published in 1988: Aliens, Book 1: Graphic Novel. Instead what "Outbreak" tries to do is bring the elements from the first story published in the comics and update it to match it closer to the novelization Aliens: Earth Hive. If you recall, the novelization was where the series attempted to bring the original Aliens story written by Verheiden in line with the movies and account for Alien 3.

In reading the foreword to "Outbreak" I had pretty high hopes for this comic. I thought they went in and drastically changed some sections of the book to match it closer to Steve Perry's story, making this more of a blend of Verheiden's originally work and Perry's attempt to account for Alien 3. In the intro they even talked about how the artist Mark A. Nelson stepped in and even added more art or adjusted things. I was pretty excited to read this, expecting some pretty serious overhauling of the story and art in certain areas, but that's not entirely what we got.

For the most part the story stays fairly true to the original format published in 1988. However, they do go through and change all the "Hicks" to "Wilks" and all the "Newt's" to "Billie". They did a good job of changing this up consistently. However, they left a lot of the original story in there that wound up having details that didn't mesh anymore, especially if their intent was to line-up with Alien 3. There are panels where Wilks laments the loss of his friends "Drake and Vasquez" on the planet Rim. This makes no sense, it just seems weird to me that they couldn't bother make up new names for Wilks' old squad mates. I don't know if this continuity was just missed or what. I was really happy to see some added detail in some panels to include the character Blake into the mix of the new marines. All the prior characters were male and Perry's creation of the character Blake was really cool, so I was glad to see them make the effort to include her in this series.

While the inclusion of Blake was great, I was sort of wondering if they would overhaul entire pages to line-up with what Perry wrote. So, he changed a lot of what happened during Newt's original escape and modified it for Billie. But they made no effort to change this up to match the novel, so it's really just the same thing from the original comic. It's kind of disappointing because Billie is supposed to be older, which makes her relationship with Bueller make a bit more sense. I was also disappointed to see the ending stay the same when Wilks is back on Earth. I thought Perry's ending was a bit more shocking and intense at certain parts, so I thought they'd make the adjustment. Oh well.

The most major difference between this rendition and the original is that "Outbreak" is actually in color! I'm sure the middle schooler in me would have been thrilled, because he thought Black & White was lame back then, but I think Nelson's original treatment was a bit better. Adding color makes it feel like a relatively normal comic, something you'd expect. Whereas the black & white of the original felt grittier and just better for some reason.

Hopefully, this series of reviews helps to clear up the general confusion that probably exists amidst all of these releases. I don't even know which variants wound up in those large Omnibus editions Dark Horse was publishing for a while years ago. Either way, if you're an Aliens fan and you always wondered what the original series would look like with color, this will, at least, answer that question. As far as turning "Earth Hive" into a graphic novel, it only sort of made that work. The general story is pretty good though... it must be if I was able to read the same thing three times in a row for the sole purpose of putting these reviews together!

[Letande D'Argon · Rating 1 out of 5]

First thing first, I loved the colors. As much as I enjoy reading manga, I totally prefer my comics in color. Part of the charm in my opinion. It's not like I can't stand black and white, it's just... when it's about comics, color makes it better. So... yeah, color's good. Especially since it's nicely done here. Unfortunately, that's the only good thing about this.

Long story short, Outbreak is an old Aliens comic by Dark Horse. Now heavily butchered. The reason for that was that funny little thing called ALIEN³. You know, the direct sequel to Aliens that killed Newt and Hicks in a laughably stupid way just to give all the spotlight to Ripley. Obviously, the movie had its own story. The problem was - Dark Horse already told totally different one in their comics and still wanted to sell those. So, how can they keep selling their Aliens comics and still keep them connected to the main canon? Easily! Let's just change all the names. Because why not, huh?

I'll tell you why not. Because it ruins the whole meaning! That's why. The entire thing worked because of Newt and Hicks. It worked because it was them. Not just random Billie and Wilks. I mean... who the heck are Billie and Wilks? How are they connected? Why should we care about them? What's the meaning behind their behavior? It's a freakin' mess! Especially since you can't change the fact that they look like Newt and Hicks. Seriously, Dark Horse, what the heck? The original comic was so charming because there was a magic between Newt, Hicks and Bueller (new character). Replace Newt and Hicks with some random guys and bang! The comic sucks. Instantly. It's like taking an Indiana Jones comic and claiming that it wasn't actually and old man Indy there, but a totally different professor - Alabama Williams. And it just happened that he also has a whip and a hat. A pure coincidence. But hey! It's still connected to that big new Indiana Jones movie! Yay! Yay! Screw all that.

[NerdyReader · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought this was pretty abysmal.

[Hodgey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aliens: Book One, or Outbreak, or just Aliens depending on what version you read is the original line that started off the entire expanded universe. This story was even the original Alien 3 if you want to think of it that way. The story is set 10 years after the events of the Aliens film so we meet Hicks and Newt as PTSD riddled survivors. Ripley is nowhere to be found as I believe Fox did not want the character used to keep Ripley’s options open for another film. One might think that her absence would be missed in an Aliens story. Especially one that is a direct sequel to Aliens but the story does a good enough job that you never question where she is. The plot itself is a fascinating look at what would become tropes of almost all Aliens stories to follow. You have the exploration of survivors' guilt with Hicks and Newt, questions on how close can synthetic life mirror our own, corporate espionage between Bio-National and the U.S. Government, and an alien worshiping cult! Each one of those plot threads is intriguing on its own but Aliens: Book One handles each one excellently!
Is it one of the best Aliens stories ever though? I would have to say no, not because the story is bad. In fact I think the story is great! I just believe that there have been better stories told in the expanded universe. However, none of them would exist without Dark Horse doing Book One so the line deserves its accolades. I think the most interesting aspect of the plot is the appearance of the Space-Jockey race before Ridley was thinking of Engineers. Boy did Verheiden get that wrong. Instead of an albino humanoid giant you have a squid-faced, akimbo laser pistol wielding, telepathically floating humanoid giant. While it is cool, I’m glad that’s never where the Space-Jockeys went.
Last thing to talk about is the artwork by Mark A. Nelson. I think the artwork is solid. It is definitely of its era in comics though and I would not blame people for thinking some parts look ugly. Like the story though none of the artwork is bad, it just shows its age with grace. I think the best artwork is on all six of the issue covers and the first splash page of the warrior alien curled up on the drone is amazing. If you want to get into the old school Aliens EU this is the book for you!

[Ovidiu Dobran · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think the writers got a little too excited with all the ideas they wanted to include. In just six issues, they tried to mix in everything: continuing the arcs of Newt and Hicks, a mission to the Alien homeworld, the appearance of a living Space Jockey, the homeworld being nuked, and Earth being overrun. On top of that, there’s a cult worshipping the Xenomorphs, preaching submission to becoming hosts for chestbursters — all part of the Alien Queen’s grand plan, which manipulates both human fear and their longing for motherly love. Ultimately, the Aliens spread everywhere, civilisation collapses, and when Newt and Hicks finally return to Earth, it’s already too late — all that’s left to do is flee.

I found all of these ideas to be quite good, but there are so many, that the comic ends up collapsing under their weight. The first issue has a decent pace, but the later ones feel rushed, as if the writers suddenly realised they were running out of space. Whole chunks of story are crammed into fewer and fewer panels, leaving the action underdeveloped and poorly explained. The characters suffer the most from this. Aside from Newt and Hicks, most of them are so underwritten you barely remember their names — and the art doesn’t help. Faces are messy and inconsistent, often changing from panel to panel. With the Marines all dressed the same, it was nearly impossible to tell who was who. Apart from Hicks (only recognisable because of his scar) and maybe two or three others, everyone blurred together.

And even though Newt and Hicks are the focus, their development is frustratingly shallow. Both get plenty of inner monologues, but nearly all of them circle back to Acheron. Yes, it’s believable they’re traumatised, but it becomes repetitive to the point of parody. I wished they had something else to say. There’s an attempt to expand Newt’s arc with a romance subplot, but it’s so rushed it feels absurd: after a single conversation, she’s suddenly “involved” with a Marine whose only memorable trait is that he later turns out to be an android. Beyond that twist, there’s almost nothing unique about him — or most of the other characters.

Another disappointment is Ripley’s absence. She’s only mentioned twice, with no explanation of her fate. I expected Newt and Hicks to at least talk about her, but they barely interact with each other at all.

Three years after Outbreak, Alien 3 came out and effectively retconned this whole storyline. Honestly, I’m glad they didn’t adapt it for the film. The comic isn’t childish in theme, but the way the story is told feels far less mature than the movies. I understand why fans were upset that Newt and Hicks were killed off-screen in Alien 3, but in this comic, they didn’t feel alive either — more like shadows of their film selves.

I’ll probably give Nightmare Asylum a try, but with low expectations.

EDIT: After having read Nightmare Asylum, I must say that Outbreak is worth reading. I don't think it's better now, but Nightmare Asylum is really good, and you probably need to have read Outbreak to better understand the context.

[Marcin Janik · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terrbile story and even worse artwork. The story, which acts as a direct sequel to the Aliens is a confusing mess. The Xenomorphs are not mysterious creatures anymore, we even know where their homeworld is. The artwork is so bad, so rushed and it lacks any details - you can barely recognize who is who and some of the drawings looks like drawn by a teenager. The marines equipment doesn't look like those from the film, everything looks really bad and cliche. The Space Jockey is laughable, it looks so funny you just can't take this story seriously. Newt humps a man who turns out to be an android, the Xenos uses telepathy now, there is another alien species that looks like a green dragon pterodactylus - just no, noooo. I must admit that the artwork looks much better in original black and white, than the coloured version I've read. The colours spoils the effect even more. My god, I'm so glad the Hollywood was clever enough and did not adapt this garbage into a film sequel. Alien 3 is not perfect but comparing to this laughable 'classic' it is a masterpiece.

[Malcolm Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having read the novelisation by Steve Perry first, this was a lot thinner in content. In these stories, Hicks and Newt have been renamed as Wilks and Billie (Alien3 was coming out and defined the canon) but I feel that these further adventures have a much better storyline than what the films did (not difficult to do). As with all well-written monster stories the focus is more on mankind's treatment of mankind and what could they do over what should they do as well as the depths of stupidity that religious fervour can elicit.
The characters of 'Wilks' and 'Billie' are very damaged after their ordeal and I like how they become themselves again once they are reunited and face off against the xenomorphs once again.
The artwork is a little sub-par, with some of the characters looking very different from panel to panel making it difficult to know who is depicted from time to time.
I prefer the novel, but this was fun.

[Chloe Natasha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sooooo, this was kind of awful. I have nothing new to add that other reviewers have not already touched upon, but man did Alien 3 scuff things. Changing the names of characters that are very clearly Newt and Hicks just totally took me out of the story from the start, and combined with the slog the first 75% of this…. gah, it was boring.

The final act gets crazy, and suddenly a lot happens, which was exactly as nihilistic as this franchise is known to be, but man it still wasn’t worth sitting through the first half.

I added a star for the nihilism and a star for how beautiful the xenomorphs are in this art style. I wish I could say the same for the humans lmao!

[Jimmy Fingers · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very confusing story full of bad ideas with multiple storylines,art at times is truly great but then weirdly inconsistent and hard to distinguish who is who. Also congrats to whoever did lettering,its an real achievement to make even printed letters hard to read! Icing on cake is ridiculous last act on planet with engineers that look just horrible.... A treat to all who keep still dumping on Prometheus even through it give us proper origin of them and awesome design. This is a very bad and boring continuation of the first 2 films hope next one is way better.

[Jerrad · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like this story had potential, but the time line way very convoluted and hard to follow. I can't imagine trying to follow this in trade paperback form. Essentially the story is marines go to find the Alien home planet and while they are gone, Weyland Corporation starts breeding Aliens on Earth. See title. Chaos ensues.

[BIGnick BIGnick · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s fine. It’s just confusing because the main characters are clearly from the movies and all the did was change the names for the sake of continuity. But they still look the same, they were around other characters and events from the aliens movies. Dark, nihilistic, just what you’d expect from the franchise.

[Andrew Johnson · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. There are some decent ideas here, but unfortunately, it’s too much for a comic of this length. Major events and character threads are glossed over in order to move on to the next plot point, and at times I found myself confused about what exactly was going on.

[Steen Ledet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent continuation of Cameron’s movie, although a little scattered in storytelling style.

[Mich Delgado · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is kinda weird the ne changing for Newt and Hicks characters but is nice to know how the story develops to the point it does and gets even better in the next one.

[ALJT · Rating 2 out of 5]

This comics adaptation as lack of the atmosphere that the original movie has. The graphics are OK and the story OK, but everything seemed schematic. Not impressed overall.

[Manu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slow beginning, but really ratchets up the tension as it goes along. Good even for long-time Alien afficianados

[Z. · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up. The continued narrative from Aliens the movie was fun and had a very satisfying ending.

[John Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great horror filled adventure in the Aliens verse, if your a fans of James Camerons Aliens then this book is for you, set some 10 years after the film. this tale sees Wilkes and Billy (Hicks and Newt I assume there was some copyright issues) Join a new team off Colonial Marines in search off the Aliens home world, while government conspiracy's,big business corruption and religious fundamentalist collide leading to the outbreak.

if theres one thing wrong with the book its Just a bit too colorful and bright, when ever you imagine an Alien story I always picture it as being washed out, dirty and downtrodden just like the Ridley Scott Classic or full off bleak rain filled panels like the James Cameron sequel.

[Grantcorp · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Outbreak", first in a trilogy is the granddaddy of the Dark Horse Aliens publications and sets the scene that most of their other publications expanded upon. It follows the events of the survivors from the ill-fated LV-426 encounter depicted in the 1986 movie, a canon which was ruptured when 20th Century Fox decided to take the storyline elsewhere in the third installment, thereby destroying central components of the plot for "Outbreak". As a result, Dark Horse remastered their original edition, names of people and places were changed thus creating a bizarre mirror world to the one described in the film. It is best read by neglecting the events from the third and fourth movies, something that the hardcore xenomorph fan won't be hard-pressed to do anyway.

Having said that, the story itself is a clever multi-threaded epic about the inevitable doom lurking over mankind: it was only a question of time before the Alien was going to arrive on Earth, and when it does, Lord help us all. The society depicted in the book is a grim and sinister one. Companies struggle to get their hands on an Alien prototype, a bizarre cult somehow connected to the alien presence is growing its influence and amidst all of this the fallen heroes attempt to survive in a world that has disowned them. The artwork is brooding and at times unnerving. This edition has been coloured as part of the remastering process but the tension from the black and white panels remains.

"Outbreak" ought to be required reading for any Aliens aficionado, it is that good, and like most other science fiction has a thing or two to say about the planet we call home.

[Ystyn Francis · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of the beautiful things about [most] of the alien movies is that they are simple stories that are brilliantly told through great characters and well-earned tension, and most importantly, the horror of the aliens themselves is not overshadowed by what is going on elsewhere. This graphic novel has far too much going on to feel like canon, and really struggles to utilise the qualities of the amazing quadrilogy.

[Johnny Andrews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good read, with what was originally a continuation, basically HICKS now wilkes and NEWT now billie return to a ALIEN homeworld.
Good for fans with an interesting story that flows nicely, but if you're not a fan i think it may be a little on the dull side.