Alien vs. Predator: Sand Trap
Alien vs. Predator: Sand Trap is a Dark Horse Comics one-shot written by Mike Kennedy and pencilled by Davide Fabbri, with inks by Christian Dalla Vecchia. Dark Horse printed it with an October 2007 cover date for the Alien vs. Predator: The Ultimate Showdown collector's set, and the comic was not sold on its own. During the Iraq War, a journalism student joined his uncle, a sergeant, on a convoy that was supposed to be a short run. The town was sacked before they reached it. An adult Xenomorph came up out of a fighting pit, a Yautja hunter fired from the roofs, and the blast that ended the fight lit the town.
Plot Summary
The Desert Convoy
During the Iraq War, a journalism student rode with his uncle's convoy across open desert and drafted a story about the fighting, revising the lines as he went. He was the sergeant's nephew, and he had never seen a war. His father had pulled strings to put him in the unit, and the sergeant treated the convoy as a hard way to make a man. The sergeant hoped those strings had made his nephew bulletproof. His advice was that the young man would be better off writing for Auto Trader. The carriers were M113 armored vehicles, which the men called the taxi, and they walked beside them because they were watching for an ambush.
The sergeant called the trip a milk run and treated the hired guns as nothing for his nephew to fear. He described corporate and paramilitary men out of Germany, Russia, and Kentucky, running their own racket, and he likened them to Blackwater. Another soldier asked if this was the same road where an earlier milk run had been ambushed. The sergeant treated that dirt as worth more than it looked, and then someone called him forward.
The Sacked Town
The town was wrecked when the carriers came in. Smoke hung over the huts, and nobody came out to meet them. The report to the sergeant was that the place had been sacked. He sent the men through every hut and stayed with his nephew, where he could watch him. Bodies were lying in the street. A soldier thought the boy might be safer in the taxi, their name for the M113, and the sergeant took that watch himself.
Whippet found a dead man in a doorway with his chest torn open and took the mutilation as a warning that the town was under new management. The sergeant had the squad regroup to the south and call the find in. He took it as the same kind of ambush that had hit a milk run on that road.
The column did not get clear of the town. Something jammed in a drive wheel and tore teeth off it, and the track link broke. Hooter checked the treads. A soldier reported to the lieutenant that roadkill had waylaid them, and a new wheel from the forward operating base would take a few hours. They were stuck among the huts with the light going. While they waited, the sergeant talked his nephew through life after the Army. Back at the base the boy could join a private outfit for real. The outfit would look after him in the sandbox in Iraq, on the south side of Chicago, in Atlanta, and in Brooklyn, and the pay would beat what Uncle Sam offered. The nephew liked that better than the Army wage.
The Fighting Pit
The nephew had a camera he was not supposed to carry, and he could not make himself look at the pictures. The sergeant took it and looked for him. Shake and Payday were sent to dig a pit fifty yards up the hill so the watch could rotate outside the town, in case anyone came to visit. The sergeant wanted the nephew two feet behind him.
In that pit the squad argued about giant scorpions. They had seen egg sacs on one creature, and no stinger, and they guessed it was a female laying eggs in the dirt. Bolo was afraid of them. An adult Xenomorph came out of the dark over the hole, and a soldier waved it off as only a bug. The creature took a man. The others froze, then fired into the dark, and a fire burned on the open sand after the shooting stopped.
Fire From The Rooftops
After dark someone was shooting, and the men in the huts could not see a target. Hooter was sent to the .50, and Shake was sent out to cover the gunner's blind side. A night sight picked a figure up on a roof. The shooter was a Yautja hunter, and the fire from up there came from a plasma caster, not from a rifle. A gunner called a soft target on the rooftops and started shooting back.
Hooter died on the carrier's .50, and Shake went down in the open under the fire from the roofs. With both of them down, Whippet and Payday were sent around the north side of the town to come at the hunter from the flank, because the men in the huts could not see who was shooting at them.
An adult Xenomorph caught a man in a doorway and killed him there. When the squad fired into that opening, the rounds were hitting their own men. One soldier was dragging a wounded man clear when the Yautja hunter came in the front door. The hunter's mask showed the men in the room as heat. The hunter and the adult Xenomorph fought through the rooms. Wristblades and the plasma caster were both in that fight, and a soldier fired on the hunter after ordering him not to move.
The Grenade
The hunter pressed the top of a plasma grenade, and the charge lit with a green glow. He threw it up the open ramp of an M113 parked in the street among the huts. A soldier inside had a pistol in his hand when the grenade landed next to him, and he had no time to get clear of the carrier.
The Recovery
The plasma grenade went off inside the M113 and threw a fireball over the huts. The blast caught the Yautja hunter and the adult Xenomorph in the same light. The hunter had a spear in one hand, and the creature stood against that flash beside him. The soldier who had been in the carrier was in the path of the charge. When the fire fell back, the fight in the town was over.
A Weyland-Yutani recovery team came in on a Chinook, and the people on the ground wore yellow sealed suits. The nephew was alive, with a brace on his neck. He called it a monster fight with weapons like lasers. The crew did not believe the account, and he knew his father would not believe it either. One of the suits lifted a camera out of a plastic bag. He decided he would have been better off writing for Auto Trader.
Key Characters
- The sergeant's nephew was a journalism student whose father had pulled strings to put him on the convoy. He carried a camera he was not supposed to have, lived through the blast, and left in a neck brace with a story about a monster fight and a plan to write for Auto Trader.
- The sergeant was the nephew's uncle. He called the run a milk run, pitched the boy on private-outfit pay once they reached the base, and sent Shake and Payday to dig the hill pit.
- Whippet found the opened corpse and the message that the town was under new management. He was later ordered to the north side with Payday to flank the hunter.
- Hooter was the gunner on the .50. The hunter's fire from the roofs killed him on the carrier.
- Shake dug the watch pit with Payday and then went out to cover Hooter's blind side. He went down in the open when the hunter fired from the roofs.
- Payday dug the pit with Shake and was sent with Whippet to flank the sniper from the north side of town.
- Bolo was in the fighting pit and was afraid of the creatures the squad called giant scorpions. An adult Xenomorph took a man beside him while another soldier waved the creature off as only a bug.
- The Yautja hunter fired a plasma caster from the roofs, fought an adult Xenomorph through the huts with wristblades, and threw a plasma grenade into an M113.
Editions
Dark Horse published Alien vs. Predator: Sand Trap as a one-shot with an October 2007 cover date. Mike Kennedy wrote it. Davide Fabbri pencilled the pages, and he painted the cover with Christian Dalla Vecchia, who also inked the interiors. Michelle Madsen colored the story and the cover. Michael David Thomas lettered the pages. Dave Land edited the issue, Katie Moody was the assistant editor, and Tony Ong designed it. Mike Richardson was the publisher. The comic was printed in Canada.
Dark Horse Books had scheduled Aliens vs. Predator: The Essential Comics Volume 2 for August 5, 2020. That trade would have reprinted Sand Trap for the first time, in one book with Aliens vs. Predator: Eternal and eight other AvP stories. Marvel took the Alien and Predator comic license before the book could ship, and the collection was cancelled.
Behind The Scenes
Dark Horse announced the one-shot on October 28, 2007, as a story made for Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment rather than for the monthly racks. It shipped only inside the Alien vs. Predator: The Ultimate Showdown collector's set, limited to 10,000 copies, and Best Buy sold that set in the United States on November 27, 2007. The box held the comic, the Alien and Predator films as two-disc DVDs (fifteen discs in all), two figurines, and two tickets to Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, which opened on December 25, 2007. The comic was not offered for sale by itself. Mike Kennedy also wrote the other original comics tied to the two Alien vs. Predator films: Thrill of the Hunt, Civilized Beasts, and Aliens vs. Predator: Deadspace.
Conclusion
Alien vs. Predator: Sand Trap is Mike Kennedy and Davide Fabbri's 2007 Dark Horse one-shot. It follows a desert convoy from a milk run into a sacked town, a fighting pit, and a Yautja hunter on the roofs. The comic ends with a plasma grenade in an M113, a Weyland-Yutani team on the wreckage, and the sergeant's nephew alive in a neck brace with a camera and a story about a monster fight.
External Sources
Tag Categories: Avp Comics
