Aliens: Defiance
Dark Horse Comics
By: Brian Wood
Art by: Tristan Jones (Illustrations), Massimo Carnevale
(Illustrations), Riccardo Burchielli (Illustrations), Dan Jackson (Colorist),
Tony Brescini (Illustrator), Nate Piekos (Letterer)
Story: Colonial Marine Zula Hendricks was sent on a mission
with a bunch of Wayland-Yultani synthetics. She was just supposed to type in a
key to the computer giving over the rights from the abandoned ship over to WY
as salvage. What happens next Zula doesn’t remember she was knocked unconscious
and when she woke up she was still on board with a handful of the synths
remaining. One of the synths in particular is helping her with the designation
Davis 01.
Davis tells her what happened something was brought on board and it
killed the whole crew and when they boarded the strange aliens started to kill
the synths. Davis managed to shoot them all out the airlock along with most of
the other synths. Davis further tells her that WY has plans to bring back a specimen
so they can weaponize it. Zula understanding what she is hearing also picks up
on the fact that Davis has gone against his programming. Davis admits it and
again surprised her by saying he has evolved into something better he has
taught himself new things and to let WY get its hands on something as dangerous
as these creatures would be horrible. After barely surviving the first time
Zula agrees with Davis and together they begin to thwart WY at every turn.
The
Aliens are not the only thing Zula is battling right now she has massive spinal
damage due to a previous and only mission. Zula is dealing emotionally,
psychologically, and physically with the damage and pain she’s going through. Davis
and Zula become friends they even pick up a sole survivor at a filling station
and continue to do what they think is right but Davis has secrets of his own.
Art: The art was my favorite thing about this but it’s not surprising
when you have fantastic artist like Tristan Jones and Massimo Carnevale. The illustrations
were just so beautifully detailed and dark, it’s dark and gloomy in that
typical Alien style but not so dark you lose the fine details. Massimo’s work
on the covers and the chapter breaks is stunning, there is one that I would
love to have a print of to hang on my wall.
Overall: I love the Alien franchise, I have loved it since
my sister first showed me Alien as a kid in the late 80’s. (Yeah, my mom wouldn’t
let me watch horror movies like Halloween or Friday the 13th but she
was ok with Alien) I haven’t read as many Alien comics as I would like, aside
from Sandman they were one of the first ones I did read when I first got into
comics. I think Zula is a perfect fit with the typical type heroine we normally
see in these roles. I think I like her even more because she is so broken. I
loved the tie in with Alien: Isolation and Amanda Ripley. The story is great it’s
so much more than just fighting aliens, there’s great character development and
the relationship between Davis and Zula, I like where it’s going. This was a
great one I really look forward to the rest of the series. 
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