Alien 3 Comic Adaptation (1992): Plot & Characters

Published: June to July 1992
Issues: Alien 3 #1 to #3
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Writer: Steven Grant
Penciller: Christopher Taylor
Inker: Rick Magyar
Cover Artist: Arthur Suydam
Reprint: Aliens: The Original Years Omnibus Vol. 1 (Marvel, 2021)
Format: Three-issue film adaptation
Setting: Fiorina 161
Based On: Alien 3 (1992)

Alien 3 is a three-issue comic adaptation of the 1992 film Alien 3, published by Dark Horse Comics in June and July 1992, written by Steven Grant with pencils by Christopher Taylor and inks by Rick Magyar. It follows Ellen Ripley after her escape pod crashed on the prison planet Fiorina 161, where a Xenomorph born from a dog hunted the inmates while Ripley learned that a Queen embryo was growing inside her. The series was later reprinted by Marvel Comics in Aliens: The Original Years Omnibus Vol. 1.

Plot Summary

Crashing On Fiorina 161

A Queen chestburster swimming past the drowned Newt toward Ripley inside the flooded EEV in the Alien 3 comic

A fire broke out in the cryogenic compartment of the Sulaco, and the ship ejected its EEV with the sleepers still inside. The lifeboat fell toward Fiorina 161, nicknamed Fury, an ore refinery on the Outer Veil that also served as a maximum security correctional facility. It hit the sea close to the shore and filled with water. Inside, a Xenomorph had already been at work during the flight, and the dying Newt was the first host to give up her passenger.

The newborn creature left Newt's drowning body through her mouth and swam through the flooded capsule. It was a Queen embryo, and it moved past the unconscious Ellen Ripley, whose face was barely above the water. Corporal Hicks died in his pod during the crash, and the battered remains of the android Bishop were thrown loose in the wreck. Only Ripley was still breathing when the capsule finally settled in the surf.

Recovering The Survivor

A prisoner and his Rottweiler running across the beach of Fiorina 161 toward the crashed EEV in the Alien 3 comic

On the beach of Fury 161, a prisoner out with the dog Sparky spotted the capsule in the waves and called the others. The inmates dragged the wreck open and counted three bodies. One of them, a prisoner startled by something moving in the debris, said the dog had scared him. No one noticed the Facehugger that had come ashore with the capsule. The rescuers carried the only survivor up to the prison, surprised to find that she was a woman.

The prison sent a report to Weyland-Yutani listing one survivor and three dead, and the company answered within hours. In the infirmary, the medical officer Clemens watched over Ripley until she woke. He told her where she was and warned her that the facility held only men, many of them convicted of violence against women. Superintendent Andrews wanted her kept out of sight, but Ripley insisted on seeing the wreck before anyone touched the bodies.

Cremating Newt And Hicks

A chestburster breaking out of the dog Sparky during the funeral of Newt and Hicks in the Alien 3 comic

Ripley searched the EEV with Clemens and found acid burns in one of the cryotubes. She asked for an autopsy on Newt, telling Clemens she suspected cholera. He found nothing in the girl's chest, but Ripley still demanded that both bodies be cremated. Andrews agreed only to stop the disease scare from spreading. The prisoners, members of an apocalyptic faith led by Dillon, gathered in the foundry, and Dillon read the service while the coffins went into the furnace.

As Dillon spoke of every death bringing new life, a creature broke out of Sparky in the shadows of the facility. The Facehugger from the crash had taken the dog instead of a human. The young Xenomorph scrambled away from the torn body before anyone found it. Ripley, meanwhile, had picked up lice in the infirmary and had her head shaved like the prisoners. Clemens showed her the record of his own past and admitted that he had been sent to Fiorina as an inmate before becoming its doctor.

Hunting In The Air Ducts

The Xenomorph lunging out of the ventilation shaft at the prisoners with torches in the Alien 3 comic

The first prisoner to die was Murphy, who was cleaning a ventilation shaft when he found a shed skin and was pulled into a fan. Andrews blamed an accident. Later, Boggs, Rains and the simple-minded Golic went into the ducts with torches to look for something that might have been left behind. They argued about the dark, the smell and the long walk, and Golic complained that someone else should have gone in his place.

The creature that had grown out of Sparky, later called the Dragon, dropped from above and attacked them. It killed Boggs and Rains in the tunnels and left Golic alive. He was found later, covered in blood and raving about a monster, and the prisoners tied him up and took him to the infirmary. Andrews summoned Ripley to his office and told her that no one in the facility would believe her claims about creatures from her ship.

Reactivating Bishop

Ripley wiring the damaged head of Bishop back to life in the infirmary in the Alien 3 comic

Ripley found the remains of Bishop in the prison dump and wired his damaged head into a terminal. The android woke and complained that his legs hurt. Ripley asked him to access the flight recorder of the Sulaco. Bishop confirmed the fire in the cryogenic compartment and the emergency separation of the EEV. When she asked whether there had been an alien aboard, he answered that the sensors had detected a moving life form before the launch.

Bishop also told her that the Company already knew everything the ship had recorded. He asked Ripley to switch him off for good, explaining that he could be repaired but would never be top of the line again. She did as he asked and pulled the plug. Ripley then returned to Clemens, who told her about the overdose of painkillers that had killed eleven patients, a mistake that had sent him to prison and cost him his medical license.

Losing The Superintendent

The Xenomorph bursting from the ceiling to seize Superintendent Andrews in the Alien 3 comic

While Clemens was speaking with Ripley, the Dragon came out of the infirmary ceiling and killed him. Ripley fled down the corridors and burst into the mess hall, where Andrews was addressing the prisoners about a rescue ship due within days. She shouted that the creature had taken Clemens. Andrews ordered his assistant Aaron to get the hysterical woman back to the infirmary, and he was still giving the order when the alien seized him from the vent overhead.

The prisoners scattered as the creature dragged Andrews into the ceiling. With both the superintendent and the doctor dead, Aaron believed he was now in charge, but most of the men refused to follow a man they called 85 after his IQ score. Ripley told them the creature would keep hunting until they killed it. The facility had no weapons. They could only fight with fire, and the network had only told them to wait for the company.

Setting The Fire Trap

A prisoner taunting the Dragon as it charges after him through the flames in the Alien 3 comic

Ripley and Dillon decided to trap the creature in the old toxic waste storage tank. The prisoners spread an inflammable fuel through the ducts to drive it toward the tank. One prisoner dropped his lit torch too soon, and the fuel exploded in the tunnels. Several men burned to death in the blast, and the rest ran from the fire. The Dragon came through the flames with them, and one prisoner turned to taunt it, calling for it to come and get him.

The man drew the creature into the waste tank, and Morse hit the switch to seal the door behind it. The sprinklers came on to put out the fires, and the survivors counted their losses. The prisoners had now lost their superintendent, their doctor and several more men. Still, they had trapped the beast. Morse and the others posted a guard by the tank while Ripley and Aaron turned to the question of why the alien had never harmed her.

Scanning In The Escape Pod

Ripley lying in the EEV scanner while Aaron reads the screen in the Alien 3 comic

The prison had no scanning equipment, so Ripley went back to the wrecked EEV, the only place with a working body scanner. She lay inside and had Aaron run the controls. He did not know what he was looking for, and she told him to search the bio-functions for anything strange. Aaron struggled with the machine, and Ripley talked him through improving the image until the scan finally showed something lodged inside her chest.

Aaron was horrified by what he saw and told her she did not want to look. Ripley turned the screen around anyway. The scan showed a chestburster curled behind her ribs. Ripley recognised it at once as a Queen. She now understood why the Dragon had refused to kill her. It was protecting the embryo of the Xenomorph Queen that would carry on its species, and Ripley was its host.

Facing The Dragon

The Dragon looming over Ripley without killing her as she begs it to end her life in the Alien 3 comic

The prison sent the company word that the creature had been trapped and asked for permission to kill it. Weyland-Yutani refused, ordered the staff to avoid all contact and said a rescue team would arrive within hours. Then Golic, who believed the creature was a dragon sent to him, killed the guard at the tank and let it out. The prisoners turned on one another, and Aaron realised that the company wanted the creature taken back to Earth alive.

Ripley did not want to be rescued. She went into the old sections of the facility to find the Dragon and met it in a hall of pipes. When it crawled up to her, she shouted at it to kill her. The creature lowered its head close to her face and then backed away. It would not harm the Queen growing inside her. Ripley returned to Dillon and asked him to kill her, but he refused while they still had a chance to kill the beast.

Luring The Dragon

The Dragon grabbing a prisoner from behind in the corridors as the men run as bait in the Alien 3 comic

Aaron argued that they should wait for the rescue ship, but the prisoners realised the company would kill them all to keep the creature quiet. They agreed to fight. Ripley and Dillon worked out a plan to lure the Dragon through the corridors into the lead mold of the foundry and drown it in molten metal. The prisoners would act as bait, running down the tunnels in turn while the others slammed the doors behind the creature to drive it toward the mold.

The chase went badly. The Dragon caught several of the runners in the corridors and pulled them apart. Gregor lost his arm to the creature, and other runners were caught before they reached the next door. Morse was almost killed and laughed hysterically when he realised he had survived. The doors went shut one by one, and the last of the men ran ahead of the creature into the mold, where Dillon waited for it.

Drowning The Dragon In Lead

The Dragon rising out of the molten lead with the metal pouring off its body in the Alien 3 comic

Dillon fought the Dragon inside the mold so it could not escape before the metal came down. Ripley called for Morse to pour the lead, knowing that Dillon was still inside. The molten metal flooded the mold, and Dillon died with the creature. For a moment it seemed that the plan had worked, but the Dragon rose out of the lead, burning but still alive, and climbed toward the edge of the mold while Ripley screamed.

Ripley grabbed the sprinkler chain and pulled it. Ice water poured from the pipes above onto the creature. The sudden change in temperature cracked its armour, and the Dragon exploded into pieces over the mold. Ripley and Morse were the last two people left alive in the foundry. A moment later they heard the rescue ship landing outside, and armed company troopers began to flood into the facility to look for the creature and its host.

Refusing The Company

A Weyland-Yutani ship on the landing pad of Fiorina 161 as the prison is closed in the Alien 3 comic

The troopers were led by a man who looked exactly like Bishop. He said he was Michael Bishop, the human designer of the android, and promised to remove the embryo safely and destroy it. Ripley refused to believe him. Aaron struck the man with a wrench, crying that he was an android, and a trooper shot Aaron dead. Ripley climbed onto the furnace railing as Bishop told her the Queen inside her would kill her first.

Ripley told him it was too late. She threw herself backward off the railing and fell into the furnace, taking the Queen with her before the company could claim it. Morse was taken away as the sole survivor of the outbreak. A closing account said that the Weyland-Yutani facility on Fury 161 had been closed and that its last inmate had been instructed to stay silent. Only the transmissions of the dead were left playing in the empty prison.

Key Characters

Ellen Ripley was the only survivor of the EEV crash. She discovered she was carrying a Queen embryo and threw herself into the furnace rather than let the company take it.
Dillon was the spiritual leader of the prisoners. He led the fight against the Dragon and died with it in the lead mold.
Clemens was the prison's medical officer and a former inmate. He treated Ripley and was killed by the Dragon in the infirmary.
Andrews was the superintendent of Fury 161 and refused to believe Ripley. The Dragon took him in front of the prisoners.
Aaron was Andrews' assistant, nicknamed 85. He ran the scanner that found the Queen embryo and was shot after attacking Michael Bishop.
Golic was a disturbed prisoner who survived the attack in the ducts and later freed the Dragon from the waste tank.
Morse was a hostile prisoner who helped seal the trap and pour the lead. He was the last survivor of the prison.
Bishop was the damaged android from the Sulaco, briefly revived by Ripley. Michael Bishop was the man who led the company team and claimed to be his designer.

Differences From The Film

The comic follows the film closely but keeps several scenes that were later cut from the theatrical release. The Dragon comes from the dog Sparky and is trapped in the toxic waste tank before Golic frees it, a subplot that only returned in the longer Assembly Cut. The opening also shows the Queen embryo leaving Newt and swimming to Ripley inside the flooded EEV. The creature is drawn darker than the film's Runner, almost black, with a thicker tail.

Some deaths play out differently on the page. The Dragon kills Clemens in the infirmary, and later tears Gregor's arm off during the chase through the corridors. Dillon dies fighting the creature inside the mold, where the lead buries them both. The ending keeps Ripley's fall into the furnace, but the comic does not show the Queen bursting from her chest as she falls. A closing account describes the prison being closed and Morse silenced by the company.

Collected Editions

Dark Horse Comics published the series as Alien 3 #1 to #3, with the first issue dated June 1992 and the last two dated July 1992, close to the film's theatrical release. Each issue opened with a cover painted by Arthur Suydam showing the creature, from the Xenomorph crawling through red smoke on the first issue to the Dragon in a doorway on the second and a lone figure among rows of eggs on the third. The three covers were reprinted between the chapters of the later omnibus edition.

After Marvel Comics regained the Alien comic license, it reprinted all three issues in Aliens: The Original Years Omnibus Vol. 1, released in April 2021. The omnibus placed the adaptation alongside the first Dark Horse Aliens series, Earth War, Genocide, Hive and Aliens: Newt's Tale, the 1992 story of Newt's life on Hadley's Hope. It was the first time the Alien 3 comic had been printed together with the other early Dark Horse Aliens stories.

Behind The Scenes

The comic appeared in the same year as the Alien 3 novelization. Decades later, Dark Horse also adapted the unproduced first draft of the film in William Gibson's Alien 3, a very different story set on the Sulaco and the Anchorpoint station. The 1992 adaptation stayed with the filmed version, but its extra scenes made it one of the first places where readers could see the waste-tank subplot and the dog host of the Dragon. The comic also left Dr. Sora Matsushita out of the company team that arrived with Michael Bishop.

The artwork leaned on bold colour and heavy shadow, with the foundry and its tunnels drawn in red, purple and fire-lit yellow. The prisoners were drawn with shaved heads and long dark coats like their film counterparts, while the Dragon was shown more often in full than in the film. The adaptation was one of the earliest film tie-ins in the Dark Horse run of Alien comics that began with the 1988 Aliens series.

Conclusion

Alien 3 is Dark Horse Comics' three-issue adaptation of the third Alien film, later collected by Marvel in Aliens: The Original Years Omnibus Vol. 1. It covers the crash of the EEV on Fury 161, the birth of the Dragon from the dog Sparky, the deaths of Clemens and Andrews, the failed fire trap, the chase into the lead mold and the arrival of the company. The story ends with Ripley falling into the furnace with the Queen embryo inside her, leaving Morse as the only survivor.