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Alien: Isolation #1-2

Aliens: Defiance Library Edition

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New York Times best-selling comics writer Brian Wood gives us a gripping story of strength against all odds in the face of the most frightening monster in deep space. Joined by artists Tristan Jones, Tony Brescini, Stephen Thompson, Eduardo Francisco and Riccardo Burchielli, Defiance brings the nightmare into stark relief.An AWOL Colonial Marine battles Aliens and her fears in the deepest corners of space to protect humanity from the Xenomorph threat. Colonial Marine Private First Class Zula Hendricks is in for the fight of her life. After a frightening discovery in deep space, Zula goes on an AWOL mission to undermine the nefarious Weyland-Yutani Synthetics Corporation. Battling for her life against aliens, space pirates, and her very own painful demons, Zula must prove that her own strength and loyalty are enough to save humanity.

320 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 12, 2019

4 people are currently reading
45 people want to read

About the author

Brian Wood

1,173 books961 followers
Brian Wood's history of published work includes over fifty volumes of genre-spanning original material.

From the 1500-page future war epic DMZ, the ecological disaster series The Massive, the American crime drama Briggs Land, and the groundbreaking lo-fi dystopia Channel Zero he has a 20-year track record of marrying thoughtful world-building and political commentary with compelling and diverse characters.

His YA novels - Demo, Local, The New York Four, and Mara - have made YALSA and New York Public Library best-of lists. His historical fiction - the viking series Northlanders, the American Revolution-centered Rebels, and the norse-samurai mashup Sword Daughter - are benchmarks in the comic book industry.

He's written some of the biggest franchises in pop culture, including Star Wars, Terminator, RoboCop, Conan The Barbarian, Robotech, and Planet Of The Apes. He’s written number-one-selling series for Marvel Comics. And he’s created and written multiple canonical stories for the Aliens universe, including the Zula Hendricks character.

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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
Profile Image for Daniel Kovacs Rezsuk.
179 reviews7 followers
October 26, 2021
I was very hesitant to check out this comic. First and foremost: Alien: Isolation (the game) has been on my backlog for years and I thought it's necessary to finish the main campaign before jumping into the series. Second: I find Brian Wood's writing pretty hit-or-miss. Fortunately the comic series is a spin-off done right, meaning it can be read whenever in relation to the video game and Brian Wood did an astounding job breathing new life into the Alien franchise.
Profile Image for Spencer.
1,488 reviews40 followers
August 19, 2024
Defiance is a fantastic stand alone story in the alien franchise, while there are obviously references to the expanded universe, this can easily be enjoyed on its own merits. The artwork is great, the story is fast paced and engrossing and I really liked the characters. Defiance is a worthy addition to the Alien franchise.
Profile Image for Rocky Sunico.
2,277 reviews25 followers
October 22, 2021
Wow. Just wow. I wasn't expecting too much from this book but what I got was very satisfying. As someone who has read quite a number of Alien stories, this was rather refreshing in how it expanded on the usual tropes and gave us a truly unique narrative. Sure, we once again had a female protagonist and Weyland-Yutani up to its usual tricks. But the rest of this story has a shape of its own.

This compiles pretty much the entire Defiance story in one volume, as Library Editions tend to do. But I totally didn't feel like it was that long a book as I couldn't put it down once the story kicked up into gear.

The art for this book is also quite beautiful and supported the narrative well. A lot of times we get rather messy artwork with less than appealing humans and all the effort invested in the xenomorphs. In this case, there was particular attention to detail all throughout that really stood out to me.

Great book all around.
Profile Image for Blake.
56 reviews6 followers
January 13, 2021
The presentation of this book was top-notch, the pages were very thick often leading me to think they were stuck together. The coloring of the artwork and the artwork itself was also very well done.

I understand this edition was a collection of works put into one volume but it was disappointing to see such a large variety of artists that worked on it (5 artists in total). This variety led to some pretty jarring transitions between chapters which really took you out of the story. As for the story, it was pretty average and the ended was very lackluster. The added sketchbook section at the back of the book was a nice touch, although there could have been a lot more extra content added given the sheer amount of artists involved. This actual section only had the work of one out of the five artists that worked on this series. Overall, this would be an enjoyable read for any alien fan, and a nice addition to any fan's collection. Although, I really couldn't recommend paying full price for this with the varying inconsistencies and pitfalls in content.
Profile Image for Relstuart.
1,247 reviews112 followers
November 15, 2019
Great quality for this hardcover which is typical of the Dark Horse Library Edition line.

Story was fun and the art was ok. A wounded marine is tasked to go on a mission with a cadre of humanoid robots owned and controlled by the big corporate (Waylund-something) entities in the Aliens universe. They need the marine to provide access codes as they enter a derelict ship to find out what happened on board. Pretty standard opening but the story takes a different turn as one of the robots goes rogue and leads the group against the company to protect humanity.

One of the better Brian Wood stories IMHO.
282 reviews2 followers
December 8, 2019
This started off really great but it lost me with the last few issues. I particularly liked Tristan Jones' art and the colouring throughout. I wish they'd stuck with just Jones but there are a few other illustrators and I was not into all of them. Still, a good book and I may read again.
Profile Image for KittensDotCalm.
8 reviews
June 25, 2023
Pretty interesting seeing a Synth override and rewrite himself, nice change of pace for the Alien world!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Eric.
722 reviews6 followers
July 9, 2020
Finally a great new story set in this universe that doesn't lean on the movies.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews

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