Aliens vs. Predator: War: Comic Overview
Aliens vs. Predator: War is a five-issue Dark Horse series written by Randy Stradley. Issue #0 is dated May 1, 1995, and issue #1 followed on May 2, 1995. After Aliens vs. Predator on Ryushi, Machiko Noguchi spent a year with the Yautja clan of Top-Knot. She turned on that clan when the hunt on the jungle world Bunda went after humans, joined three survivors from Aliens: Berserker, killed the novice she called Shorty, and left toward a home she had not reached.
Plot Summary
Capture Of The Queen
Machiko Noguchi hunted with Top-Knot's clan on a world the hunters had seeded with eggs. The party went in to take a live Xenomorph Queen off her sac. A novice Machiko called Shorty, barely taller than she was, shoved her aside for kills and copied her English to laugh at her. She pulled him out of a fight he could not finish, which the other hunters treated as an insult, and Top-Knot put him in the protected middle of the line.
Eight hunters roped the Queen while Machiko, Shorty, and two others watched for adult Xenomorphs. The Queen broke a line and crushed a hunter Machiko called Three Spot. Machiko held the capture together and left her post to do it, and Top-Knot struck her for that. On the hunt ship the Queen tore free again. Shorty shut Machiko in the hold with her. Machiko climbed out alive, and the clan locked the Queen down for the next hunt.
Life With The Predators
Broken Tusk's mark had put Machiko on this ship after Ryushi, and she had lived with the clan for a year. She prepared meat, wore hunter mesh, and stood on the line with students who were larger than she was. Lower-caste hunters slept together in a common pit on the deck. Private rooms went to the strongest older hunters, and to her, because Broken Tusk had blooded her. That mark did not make the students treat her as one of them. They shoved her off kills and treated her as soft meat that had no place on a hunt ship.
Other hunt ships docked before the hunt on Bunda. One of the last to arrive was Light-Stepper, the one-handed hunter from Aliens vs. Predator: Duel who had fought on Ryushi with Colonial Marines. He wore a Colonial Marine banner as a wrap on the stump. Machiko touched that banner, he took it as an insult, and she had to give a submissive sign that cost her standing in the clan. The only way back onto the hunt was a pit fight with those at the bottom, which meant Shorty.
Duel For The Bunda Hunt
The bout was an honor fight for a place on the Bunda hunt. Shorty was small for a hunter, but if he closed his hands on Machiko the match would end. She used reach and training to hold him at range until a hunter in the crowd seized her from behind. Shorty used that grip to throw her off the floor, and the clan roared for him. Top-Knot treated the throw as the result. Machiko lost her place on the Bunda hunt and remained on the ship while the rest of the party went down to the jungle.
Humans On Bunda
Second Lieutenant Katherine Lara, convict volunteer Martin Jess, and technician Brian Ellis were the last of the Nemesis crew after DS 949 burned. Ellis had climbed into MAX 09 without a surgical implant and pulled the other two off that station. They called for help with little air left, and Machiko overheard the traffic on a receiver aboard the hunt ship without knowing the voices.
Big Archey, a floating survey platform over the jungles of Bunda, answered them. Administrator Kevin Vincent was told by executive Lucas Briggs to hold the survivors in quarantine on a possible infection. Their shuttle came in as an APC. A Facehugger took a monkey-like animal in the trees below as they landed, and the platform staff arrested Lara, Jess, and Ellis on the pad. Two surveyors, Pratt and Rembert, were driven into an egg silo in the jungle, and Facehuggers took them there.
Top-Knot's party landed for the seeded hunt, then turned on the humans after they heard a Weyland-Yutani shuttle overhead. Briggs arrived with the synthetic Nirasawa and a guard named Keene and pressed the three survivors for the data from DS 949. When the hunters hit Big Archey, Briggs, Vincent, and Nirasawa went to look, and Keene was left with the prisoners. Lara killed Keene while he was looking the other way. She, Jess, and Ellis ran for the APC while the platform was under fire.
Machiko Turns On The Clan
Machiko heard the distress call from Big Archey and understood that the hunters were killing humans, not only the creatures they had seeded. She broke with Top-Knot, killed the ship's captain, sealed the bridge so the rest of the clan on board could not stop her, and freed the captive Queen. The Queen hit the young hunters left on the ship before they could reach proper weapons, tore through them in the hold, and went down toward Bunda.
Machiko flew the hunt ship toward Top-Knot's shuttle signal. On the platform a hunter hit the survivors while Ellis was refueling the APC. He doused that hunter in jet fuel, and the blast wrecked Big Archey and dropped the pad into the trees. Ellis left the wreck as Machiko put the hunt ship down in front of Jess and Lara. They had little time to speak before the clan closed in.
Xenomorphs On Bunda
Top-Knot's hunters closed on Machiko, Jess, and Lara in the jungle before they could reach cover. The Queen Machiko had freed reached the same ground with her brood, and the fight split three ways between hunters, adult Xenomorphs, and the humans. Adult Xenomorphs came in close on the wreck of Big Archey while hunters fired from the trees. Machiko used a caster and a blade to hold the creatures off Jess and Lara long enough to move.
Ellis came back through that fight in MAX 09, the suit he had taken off DS 949 without an implant. He had left after the jet-fuel blast, then climbed into the armor and walked back into the three-way fight on the wreck of Big Archey. The suit gave him the mass to shove adult Xenomorphs aside and clear a path that a caster could not hold alone. He pulled Machiko, Jess, and Lara off the pad and into the trees while Top-Knot's party and the Queen's brood fought each other on the wreck.
Escape From Bunda
In the jungle they met Nirasawa, Briggs's synthetic, carrying Briggs. A Facehugger had taken Briggs on the wreck. The clan came in again before they could reach a ship. Machiko and Nirasawa held that line so Lara, Jess, and Ellis could get to a shuttle. Shorty caught Machiko there, and they fought. She cut off his left arm and wristblades, acid blood ran from the stump, and she killed him. Nirasawa was destroyed covering the others to the shuttle.
Lara had the shuttle moving when Machiko got aboard. Before they lifted, Machiko put Briggs into the MAX. A Chestburster was about to tear out of Briggs's chest, and she left him on the ground in that armor, firing at hunters and adult Xenomorphs with the time he had left. In the shuttle Jess asked where they were going. Lara said home. Machiko took that as a life she had not reached.
Key Characters
- Machiko Noguchi had spent a year with Top-Knot after Broken Tusk blooded her on Ryushi. She lost standing after she touched Light-Stepper's Marine banner, lost the pit fight to Shorty, killed the ship's captain, freed the Queen, killed Shorty, and left Bunda with the Nemesis survivors.
- Top-Knot led the clan. He captured the Queen, turned the Bunda hunt on the humans after Briggs's shuttle passed overhead, and was in the field when Machiko left. The series does not kill him.
- Shorty was an undersized novice who shoved Machiko, copied her voice, shut her in with the Queen, and won the pit only after a spectator grabbed her. She cut off his left arm in the jungle and killed him.
- Katherine Lara was second lieutenant from the Nemesis crew and the one with flight time. She killed Keene on Big Archey, flew the shuttle off Bunda, and called that way home.
- Martin Jess was a convict volunteer who had come off DS 949 with Lara and Ellis. In the shuttle he asked where they were going.
- Brian Ellis was a young technician. He wrecked Big Archey when he set a hunter on fire with jet fuel, then came back in MAX 09 and pulled the others out of the three-way fight.
- Lucas Briggs was a Weyland-Yutani executive who ordered the survivors quarantined. A Facehugger took him. Machiko put him in the MAX with a Chestburster about to tear out of his chest and left him firing on the ground.
- Nirasawa was Briggs's synthetic bodyguard. He carried Briggs after a Facehugger had taken him, stood with Machiko against the clan, and was destroyed covering the shuttle.
- Keene was Briggs's other guard. He was left with the prisoners on Big Archey, and Lara killed him.
- Kevin Vincent ran the Big Archey survey platform over Bunda and was told to hold the Nemesis survivors in quarantine.
- Three Spot was a hunter on the Queen capture. The Queen crushed him when a rope slipped.
- Light-Stepper was a one-handed visitor from the Ryushi hunt in Aliens vs. Predator: Duel. He docked with a Marine banner on the stump. Machiko touched it and lost her standing in the clan.
Editions
Issue #0, dated May 1, 1995, reprints the Dark Horse Insider serial from January 1992 through February 1993, with script by Randy Stradley, art by Chris Warner, colors by James Sinclair, and lettering by Steve Dutro. That issue is the Queen capture on the hunt ship. Richard Corben painted the Corben covers for the series. Edward Martin III and Bob Cooper edited #0.
Issue #1 is dated May 2, 1995, with pencils by Mike Manley, inks by Ricardo Villagran, colors by Chris Chalenor, lettering by Steve Dutro, and editing by Bob Cooper. Manley also pencilled issue #2, dated June 1, 1995. Issue #3, dated July 1, 1995, was pencilled by Jim Hall. Issue #4, dated August 1995, was pencilled by Mark Heike. The omnibus collected here splits the story as Part 1 (Warner) and Part 2 (Manley, Hall, Heike), with Duncan Fegredo's jungle painting as the title illustration.
Dark Horse collected the series as Aliens/Predator: War in May 1996, with Fegredo's painting on the trade and an introduction by Robert Sheckley. That paperback also collected Aliens vs. Predator: Blood Time and Aliens vs. Predator: Duel. The story was reprinted in Aliens vs. Predator Omnibus Volume 1 in June 2007, released digitally on February 6, 2013, and collected again in Aliens vs. Predator: The Essential Comics Volume 1 on October 16, 2019.
Behind The Scenes
Dark Horse billed #0 as the prelude to the miniseries and #1 as the start of the Bunda hunt. The series is a sequel to the 1990 comic, to Aliens vs. Predator: Duel, and to Aliens: Frenzy, the Berserker comic that left Lara, Jess, and Ellis alive. Top-Knot had also hunted in Aliens vs. Predator: Blood Time. War shipped in the same stretch as Aliens vs. Predator: Deadliest of the Species and Aliens vs. Predator: Booty. The first printing used the title Aliens versus Predator: War. Later collections shortened it to vs.
After issue #4 there were three years with no new AvP story from Dark Horse, only the 1997 reprint line Dark Horse Classics - Aliens versus Predator and a later one-shot of Booty. The next new series was Aliens vs. Predator: Eternal in June 1998. S. D. Perry novelized this hunt in December 1999 as Aliens vs. Predator: War. That book adds scenes the comic does not carry at that length, including Briggs's fight with company officers before he reaches Bunda. Aliens vs. Predator: Hunter's Planet is a separate novel sequel that ignores this break with the clan. Randy Stradley later continued Machiko in Aliens vs. Predator: Three World War.
Conclusion
Aliens vs. Predator: War is Randy Stradley's 1995 Dark Horse miniseries, drawn by Chris Warner, Mike Manley, Jim Hall, and Mark Heike. It covers Machiko Noguchi's year with Top-Knot and the hunt on Bunda. She killed Shorty, left Briggs in the MAX on the ground, and flew off with Lara, Jess, and Ellis toward a home she had not reached.
External Sources
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