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Alien Omnibus #4
Aliens Omnibus, Vol. 4
Like sports, the victor is he who wants it more. Unlike sports, the loser earns extinction! Mankind has fought for survival over countless millennia, but nothing has threatened humanity's existence like the murderous Alien scourge. While some have tried to use the creatures' deadly abilities to serve their own selfish ends, no one can dance with the devil, and ultimately only one species must prevail. To that end, men have turned their own lethal instincts and cold intellect against the monsters, creating engineered plagues, cybernetic fighting suits, and even bogus android aliens, but survival rides not on technology, but on the primacy of the most deep-rooted, feral instincts.
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
13 people are currently reading
266 people want to read
About the author
Chris Warner
333 books6 followersLibrarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
Chris Warner (born 1955) is an American comic book writer, artist, and editor for Dark Horse Comics.
(source: Wikipedia)
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
Chris Warner (born 1955) is an American comic book writer, artist, and editor for Dark Horse Comics.
(source: Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
January 9, 2021
Music of the Spears by Chet Williamson, Tim Hamilton & Tim Bradstreet- ★
This started off so strong with ninjas fighting aliens. Then it dissolves into this weird 90's brand of horror where a composer wants to record the screams of an alien. The corporation he works for is cool with it and obtains an egg for him and then proceeds to keep bringing him people to feed to said alien. It's so dumb. It's not even scary, just boring as this composer rambles on, searching for the perfect crescendo of murderous sounds.
Stronghold by John Arcudi, Doug Mahnke & Jimmy Palmiotti- ★★★★★
The men behind The Mask on an Aliens comic. A husband and wife team are sent to a company outpost to do a security audit on a facility run by a doctor with his all synthetics team. I loved Jeri the synthetic Alien. Arcudi has so much fun with the character. Arcudi and Mahnke come up with ways to have fun with the Aliens concept while still giving us lots of xenomorph fighting action.
Frenzy by John Wagner & Paul Mendoza- ★★★
Your pretty standard Aliens affair. There were some neat concepts in this. It's about a bughunt team that goes in and destroys Alien infestations. They have a point man who wears protective gear over his face and allows himself to be brought back to the hive so the rest of the marines know exactly where to go. After the initial bug hunt, it drops back to the same tired Aliens affair where the company is trying to hide their mistakes and screw over their people.
Taste by Edward Martin III & Mark Nelson- ★★
An odd, little 4 page story, that is not interesting until the last page.
Mondo Pest & Mondo Heat by Henry Gilroy & Ronnie Del Carmen- ★★★★
Herk Mondo, Pest Control Extraordinaire (I added the title), is an over the top John McClane type character that comes to remote worlds to remove xenomorph infestations for burgeoning colonies. These are quite fun.
This started off so strong with ninjas fighting aliens. Then it dissolves into this weird 90's brand of horror where a composer wants to record the screams of an alien. The corporation he works for is cool with it and obtains an egg for him and then proceeds to keep bringing him people to feed to said alien. It's so dumb. It's not even scary, just boring as this composer rambles on, searching for the perfect crescendo of murderous sounds.
Stronghold by John Arcudi, Doug Mahnke & Jimmy Palmiotti- ★★★★★
The men behind The Mask on an Aliens comic. A husband and wife team are sent to a company outpost to do a security audit on a facility run by a doctor with his all synthetics team. I loved Jeri the synthetic Alien. Arcudi has so much fun with the character. Arcudi and Mahnke come up with ways to have fun with the Aliens concept while still giving us lots of xenomorph fighting action.
Frenzy by John Wagner & Paul Mendoza- ★★★
Your pretty standard Aliens affair. There were some neat concepts in this. It's about a bughunt team that goes in and destroys Alien infestations. They have a point man who wears protective gear over his face and allows himself to be brought back to the hive so the rest of the marines know exactly where to go. After the initial bug hunt, it drops back to the same tired Aliens affair where the company is trying to hide their mistakes and screw over their people.
Taste by Edward Martin III & Mark Nelson- ★★
An odd, little 4 page story, that is not interesting until the last page.
Mondo Pest & Mondo Heat by Henry Gilroy & Ronnie Del Carmen- ★★★★
Herk Mondo, Pest Control Extraordinaire (I added the title), is an over the top John McClane type character that comes to remote worlds to remove xenomorph infestations for burgeoning colonies. These are quite fun.
January 9, 2021
My boyfriend lends me these volumes and I really enjoy them. So glad he decided to share.
I like xenomorphs, they're scary and creepy and amazing. They're my favorite fictional alien species so far and I like that they took the creature and have expanded stories about encounters with them that explore the dark corners of human nature where greed and self-preservation at all costs lurk. This volume was very cool, particularly at the end. The Mondo one shots at the end were my favorite stories in this collection, largely because they add humor and a crazy awesome character into the human-xenomorph mix. I also really like how the art style changes between stories because it helps make each story unique while preventing me from getting bored of the same thing over and over again. All in all this is a very good collection that I highly recommend to fans of the Alien franchise or even anyone just looking for some space/alien horror.
I like xenomorphs, they're scary and creepy and amazing. They're my favorite fictional alien species so far and I like that they took the creature and have expanded stories about encounters with them that explore the dark corners of human nature where greed and self-preservation at all costs lurk. This volume was very cool, particularly at the end. The Mondo one shots at the end were my favorite stories in this collection, largely because they add humor and a crazy awesome character into the human-xenomorph mix. I also really like how the art style changes between stories because it helps make each story unique while preventing me from getting bored of the same thing over and over again. All in all this is a very good collection that I highly recommend to fans of the Alien franchise or even anyone just looking for some space/alien horror.
April 17, 2021
Really solid writing and art direction across the board here.
March 25, 2018
Velmi solidní omnibus z vetřelčí řady. Obsahuje několik vynikajících příběhů (mezi ně patří úvodní komiks s hudebníkem, komiks s vetřelčím androidem Jerim a první ze dvou komiksů s likvidátorem vetřelců Mondem). Kdyby byly všechny stejně povedené jako tyhle, v rámci žánru by to bylo snad i na pět hvězdiček. Ostatní příběhy se bohužel řadí ke snadno zapomenutelnému těžkému průměru. 3,784251 hvězdičky z 5.
September 23, 2011
For anyone who has yet to encounter some aspect of the transmedia franchise that originated with Alien, the relatively low-budget Sigourney Weaver monster thriller directed by Ridley Scott and brilliantly designed by H.R. Giger, here’s a thumbnail synopsis. Alien stories are dominated by the Alien xenomorph’s fascinating biology, more or less modeled on that of social insects like bees or ants, the Alien is an apparently asexual exoskeletal creature that serves an egg-laying queen. Eggs hatch the larval "facehugger" parasite in the presence of potential hosts (triggered by infrared? who the heck knows). Facehuggers, which look basically like a pair of bony hands glued together at the wrists by a dangling scrotum and a long prehensile tail, can scramble creepily around for a short time on their own, but exist to leap onto the host’s face, forcibly intubate (impregnate?) them with a pupa, and drop off as a wasted husk. The pupa takes a week to ten days to hatch as a "chest-burster" nymph (so named, because it eats its way out of the living, usually oblivious host), which itself takes about a week to a month of voracious predatory activity to reach maturity as an adult drone. See? This is an educational review.
Okay, that’s all icky and everything, but so what, you might say? Well, for one thing, the typical adult Alien is a speedy, praeternaturally strong carnivore about 8 feet tall, bipedal, and skeletal with strong, clawed six-fingered hands, a prehensile tail ending in a spear-point, extremely sharp teeth, and a skull-punching tubular "tongue" that has sharp teeth of its own. And, lest you plan to shoot, cut, or break off one of its appendages in self-defense, the Alien’s blood is a fictionally-strong acid that will burn through nearly everything: metals, glass, plastics, stone, faces. And it’s an ambush predator. And, as a drone devoted to the service of a queen, where there’s one, there are typically dozens about, so watch your step. And it can exist in a dormant state in a vaccuum (or the absence of hosts/food) for an apparently indefinite period of time, so infestations are next to impossible to eradicate.
(There’s actually a great story that explores the Malthusian problems arising from planets harboring large Alien populations called
“Genocide”, but that appears in Aliens Omnibus Volume 2. Incidentally, Aliens Omnibus Volume 1 is more or less an entertaining set of sequels to Ridley Scott’s and James Cameron’s movies and so is definitely worth checking out. I read both of those books long before I discovered GoodReads, so will not bother to backfill a review for either.
Anyway, surround any stage of the xenomorph’s development with a minor cast of humans, and bang! instant conflict. As it stands, stories in the Alien universe always seem to share three other components: (1) the political backdrop is an amoral establishment of corporations or multi-state (planetary) actors wholly indifferent to the well-being of individual citizens, (2) the vast majority of the universe works as a teamster, mercenary, or corporate hack (colonists show up largely as wallpaper and fodder), and (3) all women are sex goddesses, which is to say omnipresent if demographically rare, scantily-clad, and immortal. In other words, even though women make up at best only 25% of the Alien universe population, you can reasonably expect that in any Alien encounter they will be among the (frequently lone) survivors, have Barbie-like proportions, and wear minimal clothing. In other words, for want of a convenient name, I'll take to calling her Protagone whenever she appears as a major character. Now, there is no good reason I can think of for this dreary and predictable convention to have established itself in the Alien literary canon, but there you have it.
Notwithstanding the kink that serves no literary purpose (given that other genres handle titillation far better and more universally), the Aliens franchise is a theme that should offer fertile ground for variation.
Given all that, you should be able to determine whether or not to read this particular anthology from the following quick summary.
Music of the Spears – yet another mad scientist presiding over a captive monster whose inevitable escape yields mayhem and comeuppance. Twist here is that the scientist in question is an obnoxious, preening poseur “composer” whose studio recordings consist of a Faces of Death/death metal avant garde mashup. No likeable characters and a predictable plot. 3 stars would be generous
Stronghold – another Protagone must remove-the-mad-scientist tale, this time set in an “alien-proofed” environment the security of which can only be breached by a traitorous insider. 3 stars
Frenzy – Introduces another piece of unethical, biomech ordnance – basically a jacked-up Captain America in an Alien-killing Iron Man suit. Colonial Marines sent down to eradicate a mine-based hive. No real characters here, just armored human v. bug action that reads like watching some skilled player’s round of Doom. 3 stars
Taste – a 5-page joke, reminding readers that 4 stars
Mondo Pest – Aliens meet noir-style square-jawed, wisecracking blue-collared hero of the type typically portrayed by Bruce Willis in equally ridiculous (if entertaining) action blockbusters. Here called to eradicate the threat to a colony (unleashed and abetted as usual by a traitorous insider). 4 stars
Mondo Heat – Return of the laconic, wise-cracking tough guy hero, this time paid by a wealthy entrepreneur to rescue his spoiled brat daughter & bimbo friend (think Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, only dumbed down and pimped out) from the clutches of the monsters (unleashed and abetted as usual by a traitorous insider). 3 stars
Okay, that’s all icky and everything, but so what, you might say? Well, for one thing, the typical adult Alien is a speedy, praeternaturally strong carnivore about 8 feet tall, bipedal, and skeletal with strong, clawed six-fingered hands, a prehensile tail ending in a spear-point, extremely sharp teeth, and a skull-punching tubular "tongue" that has sharp teeth of its own. And, lest you plan to shoot, cut, or break off one of its appendages in self-defense, the Alien’s blood is a fictionally-strong acid that will burn through nearly everything: metals, glass, plastics, stone, faces. And it’s an ambush predator. And, as a drone devoted to the service of a queen, where there’s one, there are typically dozens about, so watch your step. And it can exist in a dormant state in a vaccuum (or the absence of hosts/food) for an apparently indefinite period of time, so infestations are next to impossible to eradicate.
(There’s actually a great story that explores the Malthusian problems arising from planets harboring large Alien populations called
“Genocide”, but that appears in Aliens Omnibus Volume 2. Incidentally, Aliens Omnibus Volume 1 is more or less an entertaining set of sequels to Ridley Scott’s and James Cameron’s movies and so is definitely worth checking out. I read both of those books long before I discovered GoodReads, so will not bother to backfill a review for either.Anyway, surround any stage of the xenomorph’s development with a minor cast of humans, and bang! instant conflict. As it stands, stories in the Alien universe always seem to share three other components: (1) the political backdrop is an amoral establishment of corporations or multi-state (planetary) actors wholly indifferent to the well-being of individual citizens, (2) the vast majority of the universe works as a teamster, mercenary, or corporate hack (colonists show up largely as wallpaper and fodder), and (3) all women are sex goddesses, which is to say omnipresent if demographically rare, scantily-clad, and immortal. In other words, even though women make up at best only 25% of the Alien universe population, you can reasonably expect that in any Alien encounter they will be among the (frequently lone) survivors, have Barbie-like proportions, and wear minimal clothing. In other words, for want of a convenient name, I'll take to calling her Protagone whenever she appears as a major character. Now, there is no good reason I can think of for this dreary and predictable convention to have established itself in the Alien literary canon, but there you have it.
Notwithstanding the kink that serves no literary purpose (given that other genres handle titillation far better and more universally), the Aliens franchise is a theme that should offer fertile ground for variation.
Given all that, you should be able to determine whether or not to read this particular anthology from the following quick summary.
Music of the Spears – yet another mad scientist presiding over a captive monster whose inevitable escape yields mayhem and comeuppance. Twist here is that the scientist in question is an obnoxious, preening poseur “composer” whose studio recordings consist of a Faces of Death/death metal avant garde mashup. No likeable characters and a predictable plot. 3 stars would be generous
Stronghold – another Protagone must remove-the-mad-scientist tale, this time set in an “alien-proofed” environment the security of which can only be breached by a traitorous insider. 3 stars
Frenzy – Introduces another piece of unethical, biomech ordnance – basically a jacked-up Captain America in an Alien-killing Iron Man suit. Colonial Marines sent down to eradicate a mine-based hive. No real characters here, just armored human v. bug action that reads like watching some skilled player’s round of Doom. 3 stars
Taste – a 5-page joke, reminding readers that 4 stars
Mondo Pest – Aliens meet noir-style square-jawed, wisecracking blue-collared hero of the type typically portrayed by Bruce Willis in equally ridiculous (if entertaining) action blockbusters. Here called to eradicate the threat to a colony (unleashed and abetted as usual by a traitorous insider). 4 stars
Mondo Heat – Return of the laconic, wise-cracking tough guy hero, this time paid by a wealthy entrepreneur to rescue his spoiled brat daughter & bimbo friend (think Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, only dumbed down and pimped out) from the clutches of the monsters (unleashed and abetted as usual by a traitorous insider). 3 stars
April 28, 2020
Another patchy omnibus outing of six stories, the standouts here are clearly the first two stories with the rest really making up the numbers in some interesting, unusual ways.
'Music of Spears' is a creative, unusual swerve for the Alien mythos. A failing musician (you'll be amazed to discover the music industry of the future is about as repellent as it is today) tries to incorporate the primal, terrifying noises of the xenomorph into his art, with predictably bloody, disastrous results for a lot of people, but not, of course, for the business.
'Stronghold' is a more traditional Alien tale which sees the return of synthetic aliens from volume 2's 'Harvest' but is otherwise centred around madmen scientists running spaceships, mis-using and abusing both synthetics and humans alike, with the xenomorphs providing the ever-present background threat. Though there's also a gigantic alien-slaying robot onboard this time. And a huge climactic battle that's a gory thriller.
In 'Frenzy' we're back on familiar Space Marine Corps territory with the - as usual - bickering bunch of alien-slayers battling against a hive and assigned to clear an infested space station. They have an extra weapon, though. Another huge robot (seemingly, but it soon becomes very clear this is a Mech, controlled by a captive human being) leads to the otherwise fairly standard action story's most interesting thread.
'Taste' is unusual, and extremely short. The final two stories, 'Mondo Pest' and 'Mondo Heat' see the over-the-top, cartoonish (yes, even for comics) action hero Mondo butchering aliens, speaking almost entirely in catchphrases and musing on the evils of corporations. None of the last three really felt like a good fit with the Alien universe and left this volume ending on a flat note.
'Music of Spears' is a creative, unusual swerve for the Alien mythos. A failing musician (you'll be amazed to discover the music industry of the future is about as repellent as it is today) tries to incorporate the primal, terrifying noises of the xenomorph into his art, with predictably bloody, disastrous results for a lot of people, but not, of course, for the business.
'Stronghold' is a more traditional Alien tale which sees the return of synthetic aliens from volume 2's 'Harvest' but is otherwise centred around madmen scientists running spaceships, mis-using and abusing both synthetics and humans alike, with the xenomorphs providing the ever-present background threat. Though there's also a gigantic alien-slaying robot onboard this time. And a huge climactic battle that's a gory thriller.
In 'Frenzy' we're back on familiar Space Marine Corps territory with the - as usual - bickering bunch of alien-slayers battling against a hive and assigned to clear an infested space station. They have an extra weapon, though. Another huge robot (seemingly, but it soon becomes very clear this is a Mech, controlled by a captive human being) leads to the otherwise fairly standard action story's most interesting thread.
'Taste' is unusual, and extremely short. The final two stories, 'Mondo Pest' and 'Mondo Heat' see the over-the-top, cartoonish (yes, even for comics) action hero Mondo butchering aliens, speaking almost entirely in catchphrases and musing on the evils of corporations. None of the last three really felt like a good fit with the Alien universe and left this volume ending on a flat note.
February 1, 2022
This was a great volume!
I read Music of the Spears as a novel and loved it. It was unique and different. The comic idea of future misic is retro 90s rock, but it was written in the 90s, so it makes sense and it really kind of cool to see.
Stronghold was interesting. I love it brought back the alien synthethic idea with Jeri. That was awesome. And the ending was super cool. But man, Joy was troublesome, I like how all the synthetic look at her like there was something wrong with her (other than her logic).
Frenzy was great too. The first part of a longer story that's in AVP comics. There is a novel version but it called Beserker and it not the same characters, just the same idea of volunteer convicts taking out infestations.
Tasty was short and sweet.
Mondo Pest & Heat were the best! They were just so funny and campy. I loved them. They were the perfect ending to volume 4.
I read Music of the Spears as a novel and loved it. It was unique and different. The comic idea of future misic is retro 90s rock, but it was written in the 90s, so it makes sense and it really kind of cool to see.
Stronghold was interesting. I love it brought back the alien synthethic idea with Jeri. That was awesome. And the ending was super cool. But man, Joy was troublesome, I like how all the synthetic look at her like there was something wrong with her (other than her logic).
Frenzy was great too. The first part of a longer story that's in AVP comics. There is a novel version but it called Beserker and it not the same characters, just the same idea of volunteer convicts taking out infestations.
Tasty was short and sweet.
Mondo Pest & Heat were the best! They were just so funny and campy. I loved them. They were the perfect ending to volume 4.
June 15, 2019
I appreciate how much of a mixed bag this volume was. New stories, some light hearted, some stuff was pulled from previous volumes. The best one liner is in this one.
If you like things to be read in chronological order, I know believe the Alien comics should be read before the AvP comics. We have a story arc that starts here and continues in AvP. Interesting considering there's another Aliens volume.
If you like things to be read in chronological order, I know believe the Alien comics should be read before the AvP comics. We have a story arc that starts here and continues in AvP. Interesting considering there's another Aliens volume.
December 8, 2020
Music of the Spears is an interesting and different take on the world, but would have worked better as a shorter story. Frenzy had some good action but also went on too long. Stronghold is the same mad scientist story as most of the other Aliens comics. Taste is a good, quick Aliens comedy strip but was basically the same as Reapers in the last volume. The highlight here is Mondo. Both of his stories are dumb fun.
June 2, 2019
Action and Adventure! :D Brilliant Crisp High Five! :D Review to Come! :D
August 29, 2023
Really enjoyed this one
April 9, 2024
I haven’t read a bad Aliens omnibus yet and volume four is no exception!
August 19, 2015
Have only read a couple from this collection, so I'm reserving judgement on the collection as a whole until I read the rest.
"Taste" was literally 5 pages. Nothing much to it.
By itself, it was 2.5 out of 5 stars.
"Music of the Spears" I read in 4 volumes. It was weird. A strange sort of concept. The art wasn't too bad.
3 out of 5 stars by itself.
18/8/2015: Read "Mondo Pest" this morning. Did very much enjoy this one, very amusing, well drawn, interesting story.
3.5 out of 5 stars by itself.
Read "Mondo Heat" this afternoon. This was such a fun, silly story. A nice change of pace I quite enjoyed.
3.5 out of 5 stars by itself.
"Taste" was literally 5 pages. Nothing much to it.
By itself, it was 2.5 out of 5 stars.
"Music of the Spears" I read in 4 volumes. It was weird. A strange sort of concept. The art wasn't too bad.
3 out of 5 stars by itself.
18/8/2015: Read "Mondo Pest" this morning. Did very much enjoy this one, very amusing, well drawn, interesting story.
3.5 out of 5 stars by itself.
Read "Mondo Heat" this afternoon. This was such a fun, silly story. A nice change of pace I quite enjoyed.
3.5 out of 5 stars by itself.
June 22, 2016
One of the best aliens collections I've read!
Horror? Absolutely!
Action? Lots!
Monsters? Probably more than you have ammo for!
Three entertaining stories with Music of the spears, Stronghold and Frenzy
A short and different tale in taste and two very funny with the Alien-hunter Mondo Herk.
Herk is never going to be a favourite. But he IS funny.
Horror? Absolutely!
Action? Lots!
Monsters? Probably more than you have ammo for!
Three entertaining stories with Music of the spears, Stronghold and Frenzy
A short and different tale in taste and two very funny with the Alien-hunter Mondo Herk.
Herk is never going to be a favourite. But he IS funny.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews