Aliens vs. Predator: Old Secrets
Aliens vs. Predator: Old Secrets is a six-page story in Aliens vs. Predator Annual #1, written and drawn by Alex Maleev. The annual is dated July 7, 1999. Elena, a scientist at the Bulgarian Academy of Science, came back to Brodilovo after almost six years away. A Yautja body had been found on the hill by the Church of Saint George, its chest opened from the inside. A brotherhood had guarded a Yautja ship buried under that hill for seven hundred years.
Plot Summary
The Body On The Hill
Elena had been gone from Brodilovo for almost six years, working for the Bulgarian Academy of Science, when the body brought her home. Doctors in the village had a subject on the table that none of them recognized. It was a Yautja. The chest had been opened from the inside, in the way a Chestburster leaves a host, the skin was remarkably well preserved, and aside from that wound there was hardly any decay. They had found it on the hill, about thirty meters from the old church. Elena walked up through the graves, and the priest of that church met her there.
The Church Of Saint George
The priest took Elena into the Church of Saint George. He put its age at nearly seven hundred years, and an archaeologist from the academy had been through Brodilovo not long before her. He had a book that could date the building and explain why it stood on that little hill in a poor, forgotten stretch of country. Elena told him she had come as a scientist, not as a worshipper. He offered her the church's story anyway.
The Dragon Legend
The priest gave Elena the village story of Saint George. Seven hundred years earlier George had come to convert the village, as he had converted other villages across eastern Europe. A dragon in the nearby forest had terrorized the region for generations. The villagers fed it sheep, and when the sheep were not enough they gave it people. It demanded the daughter of a king. A ball of fire fell out of the sky, the dragon came out of the flames for the girl, and George drove a lance into its chest. The village was saved, and they built the Church of Saint George on that ground and gave it his name. Elena had heard the story before. She allowed that a legend could hold some truth, and she would not use a dragon to explain the body on the hill.
The Brotherhood
Elena told the priest that the evil she knew was disease, greed, and the ruin people made, not a dragon or a demon. The body from the ground might be an unknown species, and she would come back when she knew more. He let her go. After she had left, he took a lantern and went underground. A brotherhood tied to Saint George had lasted seven hundred years for one purpose, to guard a secret the village had not been ready to hear when the church was new. That secret had not ended.
The Buried Ship
The brotherhood had known for those seven hundred years that the thing under the hill was real, and that it was buried deep. The priest stood in the cavern with his lantern beside a Yautja ship set into the rock. He left it there as something asleep that was waiting to be reborn. The story closed on the Church of Saint George in the evening, on the hill above the cavern.
Key Characters
- Elena left Brodilovo to work for the Bulgarian Academy of Science and came back almost six years later for the Yautja body. She heard the dragon story, refused to explain the corpse that way, and left again to study it.
- The priest of the Church of Saint George met Elena at the graves, told her the village legend, and then went underground to the ship his brotherhood had guarded.
Editions
Dark Horse Comics published Aliens vs. Predator: Old Secrets in full color, as a six-page story in Aliens vs. Predator Annual #1, dated July 7, 1999. Alex Maleev wrote it and drew it. Staissi Brandt colored it. Clem Robins lettered it. Philip Amara edited the annual, Jeremy Perkins designed it, and Jae Lee drew the annual cover. The story was later reprinted in Aliens vs. Predator Omnibus Volume 1.
Behind The Scenes
Alex Maleev is Bulgarian, and the story is set in Brodilovo. He had drawn Aliens vs. Predator: Eternal the year before, for Ian Edginton. Old Secrets was one of five stories in the annual, with Hell-Bent, Pursuit, Lefty's Revenge, and Chained to Life and Death. Jae Lee drew the cover of that annual. A later digital release paired the story with Eternal and reused Glenn Fabry's cover from that series.
Conclusion
Aliens vs. Predator: Old Secrets is Alex Maleev's 1999 Dark Horse story, colored by Staissi Brandt. It follows Elena from a preserved Yautja body on a hill in Brodilovo through the dragon legend of Saint George, and it ends with a ship asleep in the rock under the Church of Saint George.
External Sources
Tag Categories: Avp Comics
