ARC REVIEW Dark Horse Comics: Life and Death mini series

Life and Death

Dark Horse Comics

Predator and Prometheus

Writer: Dan Abnett

Artist: Andrea Mutti (Prometheus), Brian Thies (Predator)

Colorist: Rain Beredo

Cover Artist: David Palumbo

The story starts off in Predator, where a group of colonial marines are to assist the Weyland-Yutani in making sure the planet isn’t being illegally strip mined. Not only do they find evidence of another company there but a strange horse shoe shaped alien craft that is being protected by a group of ruthless hunters. The colonial marines are split into two groups as one distracts the Predators and the other sneaks on board the alien craft. But something happens and the original pilot wakes up and takes off with the marines still on board. In the second chapter, continued in Prometheus, the engineer takes off and lands on another planet. The marines exit off the ship only to run into a bunch of xenomorphs, they are rescued by a small group of survivors including a Predator they named Ahab. This just keep going from bad to worse when the Engineer wake up another one of his kind and starts hunting the survivors. It continues in Aliens Life and Death.

Art: Absolutely beautiful, both Brian Thies and Andrea Mutti did a remarkable job depicting the alien landscape, space and the Xenomorphs, Predators, and Engineers. The level of detail in each is impressive. So much of the story is told in the art and I think they did a great job telling their part.

Review: Overall, I think this was a great crossover between the three, and so far the story is captivating and the art beautiful. One thing I have noticed about Alien and Predator comics is that always just seem to throw you into the story and then fill in the blanks as you go. There is minimal character development but each new one brings in more characters. The Weyland-Yutani company plays more of a part in Predators and the ruthlessness of the company comes out very clear especially when the representative is willing to sacrifice the Marines to the Predators in order to get the alien spacecraft back to the company.