Aliens vs. Predator: Deadspace
Aliens vs. Predator: Deadspace is a Dark Horse Comics one-shot written by Mike Kennedy and drawn by Francisco Ruiz Velasco. Dark Horse gave it a March 2008 cover date and packed it with Best Buy copies of the Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem unrated DVD. The story follows astronauts Dennis and Carl, who were thrown into orbit after exploring a derelict ship containing a captive Xenomorph Queen, several Xenomorphs, and two Yautja hunters. Carl was the one falling toward the atmosphere.
Plot Summary
Freefall
Carl was falling into a planet's atmosphere with the heat climbing in his suit, and Dennis drifted higher up among the broken pieces of the ship, close enough for their radios to work. Dennis confessed that he had slept with Carl's wife. Carl blamed him for the affair and for the fall, and Dennis treated both as an accident he had meant to admit before they boarded. Carl called his name as the suit began to burn.
The Derelict
Before the fall, Dennis and Carl closed on a dark ship with no running lights. On the way in, Carl complained that the engagement ring he had bought his wife was too small for what he felt about her. Dennis had slept with her and did not say so. Aboard the ship he started to tell Carl, and then a flare would not light. The deck was in free fall, bodies were drifting through the compartments, and the ship had lost its air.
The crew had not had time to seal their suits. Dennis and Carl read those bodies as decompression deaths, the kind that come from debris flying like bullets or from holding a breath until the lungs rupture. The deaths came from a hunt: a Yautja hunter drove a spear through one of the crew, an adult Xenomorph sprayed acid into a man's face, and people were thrown through the compartments when the hull failed.
The Caged Queen
Dennis and Carl went through a dark hatch and found a Xenomorph Queen standing in a cargo bay, held by cables. Dennis took her for the reason the ship had lost pressure, and he took the dead crew for animal catchers who would never have cleared quarantine with a queen in the hold. A second Xenomorph, this one burned, lay beside a hole in the deck. They could not tell whether the breach had killed it or whether the acid from its body had burned the opening.
The Breach
The Xenomorph Queen came off the cables and into the bay where Dennis and Carl were standing, and acid sprayed across the compartment. Two Yautja hunters were in that same bay with a spear and a plasma caster. Dennis went out through the hole in the hull. Carl caught him by the suit and fired a grappling line back into the plating, so the open hull would not pull both of them clear of the wreck.
The Explosion
Dennis and Carl had that line in the opened bay when a Yautja hunter took an adult Xenomorph's head off beside them. Acid from the wound sprayed through the bay with the two men in it. One of the hunters pulled the pin on a grenade while the fight was in that compartment. The charge broke the ship apart and threw Dennis and Carl into space with the debris.
The Atmosphere
Carl dropped farther into the atmosphere with the suit burning, and he would not treat the affair or the fall as an accident. Dennis had been drunk with Carl's wife, and he wanted Carl's anger on himself rather than on her. Carl burned up with Dennis's name on the radio while pieces of the ship fell with him. Three adult Xenomorphs moved across the wreckage toward Dennis, and he took the blame for the fall as they closed in.
Key Characters
- Dennis was one of the two astronauts. He had slept with Carl's wife, waited until they were falling to confess, and caught Carl at the hull breach. After the grenade he was left on the wreckage with three adult Xenomorphs, and he took the blame for the fall.
- Carl was Dennis's partner. He had bought his wife an engagement ring he thought was too small, burned up in the atmosphere after the ship blew apart, and would not accept that the fall was an accident.
- The Xenomorph Queen was caged in the ship's bay when Dennis and Carl found her. Dennis took her for the cause of the lost pressure. She came off the cables when the hunters were in the compartment, and acid sprayed the bay.
- The Yautja hunters were aboard the derelict with the queen. They fought the Xenomorphs with a spear and a plasma caster, took an adult Xenomorph's head off, and one of them pulled the pin that broke the ship apart.
Editions
Dark Horse published Aliens vs. Predator: Deadspace as a one-shot with a March 2008 cover date. Mike Kennedy wrote it. Francisco Ruiz Velasco drew and colored the story and the cover. Dave Lanphear lettered the pages. Dave Land edited the issue, Katie Moody was the assistant editor, and Tony Ong designed it. Mike Richardson was the publisher, and the comic was printed in Canada.
Best Buy copies of the unrated Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem DVD were the only place the comic shipped. Fox Home Entertainment released that DVD in the United States on April 15, 2008, the month after the March 2008 cover date. Dark Horse did not put the one-shot on the monthly racks, and the issue has not been reprinted in a collected edition.
Behind The Scenes
Dark Horse made the one-shot for the home-video release of Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. Mike Kennedy also wrote the other original comics tied to the two Alien vs. Predator films: Thrill of the Hunt, Civilized Beasts, and Alien vs. Predator: Sand Trap. The title is printed as one word, Deadspace, and it is separate from the Electronic Arts game Dead Space, which shipped in October 2008.
After the story, the issue runs an AvP Pinup Gallery of hunters and Xenomorphs. Lucas Marangon, Jason Armstrong, Kevin Ferrara, and D'Israeli each contributed a page, and one further page is credited to Clément Sauvé, Serge LaPointe, and Jonny Rench. The gallery follows the last story page and fills the rest of the issue.
Conclusion
Aliens vs. Predator: Deadspace is Mike Kennedy and Francisco Ruiz Velasco's 2008 Dark Horse one-shot. It follows Dennis and Carl from a confession during a fall, back through a dead ship and a caged Xenomorph Queen, to the grenade that broke the hull apart. Carl burned up over a planet, and Dennis was left on the wreckage with three adult Xenomorphs.
External Sources
Tag Categories: Avp Comics
