Aliens: Pig: Comic Guide
Aliens: Pig is a March 1997 Dark Horse Comics one-shot written by Chuck Dixon and penciled by Flint Henry, with inks by Andrew Pepoy and colors by Cary Porter. Chris Scalf painted the cover. Stitch and his salvage crew found the crashed ore tug Wanderer, loaded with iridium, before United Mining could reach the wreck. A hive of adult Xenomorphs was on the crash site. Stitch fitted a low-yield nuclear charge to a pig named Porkchop and sent the pig in to destroy that hive.
Plot Summary
Stitch Finds The Wanderer From Orbit
Porkchop got loose outside the hull, and Tool and Lorry hauled the pig back in while the salvage ship was in orbit. The crew had Porkchop aboard as livestock for the trip home. The sensors showed the ore tug Wanderer just south of the equator, in map section five, with a full load of iridium ore at sixty percent. Stitch valued that cargo at seventy million or more. United Mining's salvage unit was waiting at Quad Station, and he wanted the wreck emptied before that unit could arrive.
They Strap A Charge To Porkchop
Heat scans and a biological watch showed a hive at the crash, and Racks wanted the crew working as soon as they had the number. Stitch put Porkchop at the center of the plan. Tool fitted the pig with four liters of explosive jelly and a low-yield nuclear charge, built to open a crater about two kilometers across, and a harness to carry it. Stitch would fire the charge from the ship, and Tool had a second detonator. Lorry went out with the team that set Porkchop on the ground, then came back.
Porkchop Runs Through The Hive
They set Porkchop down near the wreck, and the pig ran toward the rocks. Xenomorphs came out after it, and the harness stayed on the pig's back. From the ship, Stitch expected the charge to kill the hive and Porkchop together, but the blast never came. The pig ran on with more Xenomorphs behind it, and the crew watched the harness go into the hive without firing.
The Remote Fails To Fire
Stitch dropped the detonator hammer, and the charge on Porkchop did not fire. The signal had cut off before it reached the harness. Dumphy laughed. Stitch had fitted a proximity fuse before they let the pig go: if the remote never fired, the charge would arm after twelve hours, then go critical once it read enough movement around it. Racks did not want a partial kill. He wanted every Xenomorph in the hive dead, and the crew had no second pig.
They Drop Dumphy With The Vest
The crew seized Dumphy and fitted him with the same kind of charge, packed into a red vest. The other four would split the seventy million among themselves. The ship set him on the surface and climbed away, and he ran across the broken ground with the vest on his chest. Xenomorphs were moving in the rocks ahead of him. This time the crew meant to fire the charge by hand, from overhead, once he was in the hive.
Dumphy Reaches The Hive
Dumphy went into the hive with the vest strapped on. Xenomorphs crowded the cavity behind him, set into the resin between the rocks. He was the one who had laughed when Porkchop's charge failed, and Stitch had picked him as the replacement. The crew overhead could fire this charge by hand. Porkchop was in that same ground with the first harness live, so the hive held two charges at once.
Stitch Fires The Vest
The Xenomorphs closed on Dumphy, and acid cut across the hive. He called for Stitch to fire, and Stitch pressed the detonator. The blast came up over the crash site almost at once. The crew took the ship around to the far side of the wreck so they would not fly through the radiation. Stitch then located the Wanderer and brought the ship down beyond the blast area.
The Loaders Land At The Wreck
They set down beside the Wanderer, clear of the blast. The wreck showed more than one impact, and the crew took that to mean the tug had bounced. The Xenomorphs were not native to the planet, and the crew blamed the crash on them. Stitch wanted the iridium off the hull and into low orbit with a matter cannon, before United Mining entered that region. Racks went out in an armored suit with a cannon on the arm, and he would not trust a high-orbit scan to say the hive was gone.
Racks Burns The Remaining Xenomorphs
Sensors found movement on every side of the wreck. Racks turned the suit's flame on the Xenomorphs that came out of the hive and burned through the ones in front of the cannon. The crew called the ground clear after that and started on the cargo. They left the dump hatches unwired so they would not have to burn through their own hull to get the ore out. The bay was open while they worked, and that was when they heard Porkchop.
Porkchop Walks Back To The Ship
Porkchop walked into the open bay between the loader arms, dirty from the ground outside, with the harness on and alive. The crew recognized the pig. The proximity fuse on that harness was set to blow if a life reading got close, and the people standing around Porkchop were inside that range. The device started to beep. The charge Stitch had meant for the hive was in their own bay, with Tool's jelly on the harness.
The Charge Breaks Their Ship Apart
The charge on Porkchop detonated in the bay and killed the pig with the crew. The blast tore the salvage ship apart above the planet, and Stitch and Racks died aboard with the others. The iridium they had come for remained in the Wanderer on the ground, because the crew never got it off the wreck.
Key Characters
- Stitch led the salvage crew. He planned the charge on Porkchop, fired the vest on Dumphy, and was aboard when Porkchop walked back into the bay.
- Dumphy laughed when Porkchop's remote failed. The others fitted him with a vest, set him on the surface, and Stitch detonated him in the hive.
- Porkchop was the crew's livestock pig. The pig carried the first charge into the hive, lived through that run, and walked back to the ship with the harness armed.
- Tool fitted the explosive jelly and had a backup detonator on the ship. Lorry went out on the trip that put Porkchop on the ground.
- Racks wanted the whole hive dead. He took an armored suit out to the Wanderer and burned the Xenomorphs that were left on the wreck.
Editions
Dark Horse Comics published Aliens: Pig as a one-shot in March 1997. The story runs 22 pages. Chuck Dixon wrote it, Flint Henry penciled it, and Andrew Pepoy inked it. Dark Horse collected the one-shot in Aliens Omnibus Volume 6 in December 2008, with Apocalypse, Xenogenesis, and other short Aliens stories from the same stretch of the line. A digital edition followed on 6 September 2022.
Behind The Scenes
Chuck Dixon wrote Aliens: Pig, and in 1997 he was also writing DC's Detective Comics. Flint Henry penciled the story, Andrew Pepoy inked it, and Cary Porter colored it. Steve Dutro lettered the pages. Ian Stude and Randy Stradley edited the one-shot, and Harald Graham handled design. Chris Scalf painted the cover, and the cover line reads "In space, no one can hear you squeal." The corner box lists Dixon, Henry, and Pepoy.
Conclusion
Aliens: Pig is Chuck Dixon's March 1997 Dark Horse one-shot, penciled by Flint Henry and inked by Andrew Pepoy. It follows Stitch's salvage crew and the pig Porkchop from the wreck of the ore tug Wanderer through a hive they tried to clear with a nuclear charge. The comic ends when Porkchop walks back aboard with that charge live, and the blast destroys the crew's ship.
External Sources
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