Aliens: Inhuman Condition: Plot, Characters & Lore

Published: April 24, 2013
Writer: John Layman
Artist: Sam Kieth
Colors: John Kalisz with Sam Kieth
Lettering: John Layman
Cover: Sam Kieth
Editor: Chris Warner
Publisher: Dark Horse Books
Format: Hardcover graphic novella, 56 pages
Setting: Nivalis-4

Aliens: Inhuman Condition is a 2013 hardcover graphic novella from Dark Horse Books, written and lettered by John Layman and drawn by Sam Kieth, first serialized in Dark Horse Presents. It takes place over one week at a Weyland-Yutani plant on the ice planet Nivalis-4, where artificial humans were built and trained. Socialization specialist Jean DuPaul taught the artificials to behave like people, while her superiors fed them to the Xenomorphs nesting in the caves nearby.

Plot Summary

Walking Through The Snow

The story opened on a Sunday, with Jean DuPaul walking through the snow toward the plant with a pink talking teddy bear called Bear. Bear kept asking whether they were there yet and whether Jean would be dead soon, and she told him not for a while. A trail of blood ran through the snow behind them, toward the long building raised on struts above the ice. When Bear asked whether she planned on killing them when they got there, Jean called the creatures monsters who deserved to die, every last one.

Protected In The Attack

Bald GB combat units firing on Xenomorphs below a balcony during the Monday attack in Aliens: Inhuman Condition

The story then went back to the Monday before, when the creatures attacked the plant. A bald GB combat unit told Jean there was no time to stay and promised to protect her, while other units fired on the creatures below a balcony. On Wednesday Jean was teaching a class of artificials what it meant to be human, and she told them the answer was empathy. One student, GB144, said that hearing about her lost husband had made him sad, and Jean praised him for it.

A Tour Of Nivalis-4

Rows of EL pleasure unit artificials shown to visitors at the Nivalis-4 plant in Aliens: Inhuman Condition

Administrator Joshua Alder interrupted the class to introduce Karl Bennett, a company vice president who had come to evaluate the plant. Alder had been promoted to chief administrator after the death of a science officer, and the socialization program had been the idea of Jean's predecessor. On the tour, Alder boasted that the cold helped the artificial nerve and tissue growth, and he showed off the EB worker unit, the ADM for heavy labor, and the EL pleasure unit. He promised 250 units a month by the end of the year with a human staff of only 28.

The Combat Demonstration

The Xenomorph specimen captured after Monday's attack in Aliens: Inhuman Condition

Alder then showed his visitors the GB tactical and hard-combat unit. The GBs fought each other in a test room, and Alder claimed they could withstand extreme cold and abuse and were ready for work four to six weeks after coming online. Bennett already knew this from the prospectus and asked for a different sort of demonstration. Alder had kept a creature captured after the Monday attack, and he sent combat unit GB480 in with a spear to fight it. The plant was also coming in under budget for the third quarter in a row.

Alder explained that every GB unit had an IQ of 170 or above, unless a customer asked for less, as was often the case with the pleasure units. Thanks to their programming, neural implants, and Jean's socialization lessons, they were ready to take their roles in society four to six weeks after coming online. When the creature was released, Jean recognized the unit with the spear as GB480 and remembered him shielding her during the Monday attack. Jean stared in shock as the creature hissed at its new opponent.

Efficient And Expendable

The captured Xenomorph standing over the fallen combat unit GB480 in Aliens: Inhuman Condition

Bennett said the company was worried about expanding the plant on a planet where the creatures were proving such a problem. Alder answered that Weyland-Yutani had put a clutch of them on Nivalis-4 itself, and that they let him test his combat units and gather information for the company's weapons division. The creatures were mostly dormant in the cold, though they were adapting to it, and they could not breed in the bodies of artificials. GB480 lasted 45 seconds before the creature killed him, and Alder called him the ideal soldier.

Alder praised the fight as it happened. He pointed out that GB480 had lasted 45 seconds in close combat with one of the creatures and was still trying to fight, and he said this would revolutionize modern warfare and bring the company great profits. He added that the creatures attacked the plant from time to time, but the GB units had driven them back every time. Jean could only watch in horror, and afterward she told Alder he could have just repaired GB480.

Bennett's Evening Visit

Jean DuPaul cornered by a Xenomorph during her three weeks trapped in Aliens: Inhuman Condition

That evening Jean told Bear that it had been horrible, and that Alder had let GB480 die just to make a better presentation. Bear insisted that the artificials were not real people, but Jean answered that her job was to make them real, and that they could not be trained to be human and then treated as machines. Karl Bennett then knocked on her door with a bottle and asked her to join him for a drink. Inside her quarters he noticed a nursery, although her file said nothing about a child.

The Gift Of Bear

Jeromy Harris and Jean DuPaul with Bear, the toy he built for her, in Aliens: Inhuman Condition

Jean explained that she and Science Officer Jeromy Harris had been engaged and were planning a family, and that she would have a little girl. Bennett had read that she was trapped for three weeks in a room surrounded by the creatures, as everyone with her was killed one by one, Harris among them. He left in a hurry, saying he was tired from cryosleep. Jean then remembered the day Harris had given her Bear, a toy he built with the technology used for the artificials. He had programmed it to shut down around anyone except the two of them.

The Exclusive Contract

On Thursday morning Jean watched two GB units clear away the wreckage of a party the night before, including a broken pleasure unit. They told her that Alder and almost all of the human staff had been there with Bennett. On Friday Bennett left the planet, and Alder gathered the artificials to announce that the plant had won the exclusive contract for the next generation of artificials. The production line would switch to the new models at once, and the current units had become obsolete.

Alder planned to arm the old artificials and send them into the nests, using up his inventory and wiping out the creatures at the same time. When Jean called it monstrous, he said that was good business. He then told her he had arranged her transfer, and that Harris had really been engaged to an off-worlder, not to her. He called her story a fantasy she had built while trapped, tore Bear apart in front of her, and said he would send her as far from the plant as possible.

Into The Hive

The GB combat units walking into the Xenomorph hive cave in Aliens: Inhuman Condition

On Saturday the artificials marched out to the nests under orders from Alder, who said that any who stayed behind would regret it. He did not care where Jean went, since she had her transfer papers and would be replaced as soon as she left. She followed the units into a cave far bigger than they had been told, where they were ordered to destroy the eggs and everything else that moved. The creatures came from every side, and the units ran low on ammunition.

Some of the units warned Jean to get out, and one told her she would be killed if she went deeper. She said she was counting on it and walked past the fighting to the Queen. She told the Queen that a few dozen artificials were behind her, programmed to kill all of her young, and that the hive would win but lose so many that it could not survive the next attack. Jean said she could do something the Queen needed, and that the Queen had something she wanted.

Right Back Where It Started

Two human workers beating artificials who refused Alder's alien hunt in Aliens: Inhuman Condition

On Sunday Jean came back to the plant with Bear, as the creatures followed her across the snow, and she left the door open behind her. Inside, two human workers boasted that they had found a couple of artificials who would not follow orders and join Alder's alien hunt, and had beaten them with an iron bar for fun. One of the workers, wearing a cap and a ginger beard, mocked Jean as she walked past. She ignored them and went on toward the control room.

As she passed through the plant, Bear warned Jean that the creatures were following them. She answered that they were not the monsters, and that the two of them were going to kill the monsters. When Bear asked her to shut the door before she let the cold in, Jean said she planned to let in more than the cold. Moments after she passed the two workers, a creature came up behind them and struck them both down.

A Future Queen

The infant Queen bursting from Jean DuPaul's chest in front of Alder in Aliens: Inhuman Condition

Jean found Joshua Alder in the control room, where he told her the creatures were overrunning the plant and his combat units were used up. Jean answered that he had killed them, just as the aliens were now doing to the humans. Alder realized that she had done this, shouted that he would kill her, and began to strangle her. She told him it was too late for that, and too late for him, as a chestburster burst from her chest.

As Jean lay dying on the floor, Bear asked her whether she was dead yet, and she told him not yet but very soon. Bear asked whether the creature was her little girl, and said it did not look much like a princess. Jean agreed that it did not, but said that someday she would be a queen. The newborn creature slithered away past Alder, who lay on the floor, to join the other creatures among the eggs. The story did not show what happened to Alder.

Key Characters

Jean DuPaul was the socialization specialist on Nivalis-4. She survived three weeks trapped among the creatures, then gave herself to the Queen as a host and let the hive into the plant.
Joshua Alder was the chief administrator of the plant. He fed his obsolete artificials to the creatures, tore Bear apart, and was left at the mercy of the hive at the end.
Karl Bennett was the company vice president who came to evaluate the plant. He asked for the fight with the captured creature and signed off on the exclusive contract before leaving.
Bear was the pink talking teddy bear that Jeromy Harris built for Jean from the technology used in the artificials. It stayed with her until her death.
Jeromy Harris was the science officer and designer of artificial humans whom Jean called her fiance. He died while she was trapped, and Alder claimed he had been engaged to someone else.
GB480 was the combat unit that protected Jean during the Monday attack. Alder sent him to fight the captured creature, and he died 45 seconds into the fight.

Editions

Dark Horse Books published Aliens: Inhuman Condition on April 24, 2013, as a full-color hardcover graphic novella in a 7 by 10 inch format, priced at $10.99 and rated for readers 14 and up. It collected the story serialized in Dark Horse Presents #12 to #17, and the indicia give April 2013 as the first edition. John Layman wrote and lettered it, Sam Kieth drew it and painted the cover, and John Kalisz colored it with Kieth. Chris Warner edited the book with Daniel Chabon, Kat Larson designed it, and Mike Richardson was the publisher.

After Marvel Comics took over the Alien comics license from Dark Horse, it reprinted the story in Aliens: The Original Years Omnibus Vol. 4, released on March 14, 2023. The 1,072-page hardcover collected the Dark Horse Presents #12 to #17 material alongside Aliens: Fast Track to Heaven, Aliens: Dead Orbit, Aliens: Defiance, Alien: Isolation, and Aliens: Colonial Marines, No Man Left Behind. It was the first reprint of Inhuman Condition since the 2013 hardcover.

Behind The Scenes

Inhuman Condition was the first Dark Horse project for John Layman, the creator, writer and letterer of the Image Comics series Chew, which won the 2011 Eisner Award for Best Continuing Series. He had written Godzilla, Scarface, Red Sonja and Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness, and was writing Detective Comics for DC at the time. Sam Kieth first became known for drawing The Sandman with Neil Gaiman and for his Wolverine covers, then drew his first Aliens series for Dark Horse, the story later adapted as the novel The Female War. He went on to create The Maxx at Image Comics.

Dark Horse sold the book as a deluxe graphic novella and as the return of Aliens to the publisher, two years after Aliens: Fast Track to Heaven. The back of the book included the cover Kieth painted for Dark Horse Presents #12, with a woman in a helmet beside a Xenomorph in a tank, along with short biographies of the three creators. The GB units are among the combat synthetics built by the company, and they appear only in this story. The story is set over a single week, from Sunday to Sunday.

Conclusion

Aliens: Inhuman Condition is John Layman and Sam Kieth's 2013 Dark Horse graphic novella set on the ice planet Nivalis-4. It follows Jean DuPaul through one week at a plant that built artificial humans, as Alder fed the obsolete units to the hive and broke what was left of her. The story ends with a future Queen bursting from Jean's chest in front of Alder, after she had let the creatures into the plant.