Aliens vs. Predator: Xenogenesis: Comic Overview
Aliens vs. Predator: Xenogenesis is a four-issue Dark Horse miniseries written by Andi Watson, with pencils by Mel Rubi. Dave Stewart colored the first issue, Pat Brosseau lettered it, and that issue is dated December 22, 1999. Charley Sakada was pulled out of a Weyland-Yutani prison colony to break into a Biotech lab with Elliot. A Yautja was hunting the adult Xenomorphs inside. The pair got out alive, and Ms. Ford died when the ship he set off exploded on the team she had waiting.
Plot Summary
The Prison Colony
Charley was eighteen months into a sentence at the Weyland-Yutani prison colony, the yard the sign called the Playpen, digging in the rain under armed guards. A second parole board had turned her down. Another prisoner came at her with a knife. She stabbed that prisoner, people fell from the rocks, and a guard with a shotgun treated the fight as her failure to get along with the yard.
On Earth, Ms. Ford called Elliot in. She was his former stepmother, the marriage was over, and she could have Charley at Gate 18 that evening if he took a theft for the company. The prison was a company prison, and the parole officer was a company parole officer. He said yes. Pearce, Woz, and Elomo met them before a lift from Miyazaki Station and made it plain the pair would not be allowed to run.
Sector 22
Ford briefed them over a screen. An off-world transport would take them to a biotech research facility at night. A de-icer she provided would open the locks. Once inside they were to reach Sector 22, crack a safe, and take what was in it. She said the lab was making military applications from geno-research. She would give the getaway password only after the take was out. No take, no password, no way off the site.
The perimeter motion detectors were down when they went in, and Elliot put a gun in Charley's hand even though she hated guns. Adult Xenomorphs filled the bay over them while he pointed the way on a tablet. The lights dropped to emergency power. Pearce took one of the creatures for a guard dog and opened fire, and acid sprayed out of the wounds.
The Hunter
A Yautja in purple netted armor was killing Xenomorphs deeper in the facility while the team shot in the bay. One creature came through a window onto him, a red sight marked it, and his shoulder cannon blew its head apart. He cut others apart with wristblades and left the pieces in broken glass. The doors had locked after the power cut, and the alarms were off.
Charley called Ford for the override codes and was told Ford was in a meeting. Elomo would not let her drop the call. Xenomorphs came up from under the floor. Elliot, Charley, Elomo, and the other armored fighter shot a path up the stairs, crashed through a wall into a soda machine, and found no staff and no guards on their feet.
The Safe
The guards were dead in resin, chests opened and eaten from the inside. Elliot was sick at the sight. A Xenomorph caught Charley with her pistol pointed at the floor, and he shot it off her. He led them to a Section 23 safe he said mattered to Ford. The room was full of eggs, and the eggs were empty. Elomo told Ford that something with heavy firepower had freed the creatures before the team arrived. The call did not ask about Pearce.
With no specimen left to carry, the minders wanted the research on the creatures downloaded, and then the exit codes. Elliot had those files on his laptop and had told them he needed a disk, because they would kill Charley and him once they held copies. On the way to a computer lab a Xenomorph got its tail around her throat. His first pull clicked empty. The next shots took the creature off her, and Ford left him on hold.
The Control Room
The minders caught Charley and Elliot in a control room. A Facehugger landed on one of the armored fighters, and the other shot it apart. Security tape from days earlier showed the safe blown and the guards killed by a large figure the light bent around, using a cloak and laser sights. Biotech had disowned the site. The files said the lab had been impregnating people with the creatures, and the company did not want that work found. One fighter told an old story about Ty Ostermann and a unit called Spearhead, a government program that had put soldiers against Yautja and then ended in an explosion.
Once the files were on a disk, Ford sent the getaway code working lunch and the minders told the pair this was where they parted. The Yautja came through the wall, blasted one fighter across the room, and hauled the armored woman off the floor. Wristblades took her hand. She left a pistol and a bloody case on the tile. Elliot went back through that blood for the laptop. The hunter, mask off, closed on both of them.
Escape
Charley asked if Woz had made it. Elliot did not know. They boarded through old sections, ran out of ammunition, and reached the ship where working lunch failed. An armored man Ford had sent was there with the same bad code. He shot Elliot through the side. Charley clubbed the unmasked Yautja, the hunter threw her, and Elliot got the code Gross Profit out of Ford by promising she would get the files. They shot the hunter, lifted off with him in the ship, and dropped clear when the autopilot took over.
The files on the laptop showed two carriers had taken eggs off that site. The first was sent on. The second lost radio contact after the cargo got loose, and the Yautja had followed that ship to go on hunting. Hilary, from Charley's old gang, had worked for Ford and had set Charley up to be the only one arrested. Ford had held her in prison so she could use Elliot, and the pair had been sent in to recover the eggs and be fed to them. In the grass he had cash and a ring, and he called her Ms. Sakada. She did not take his name. They walked into the trees.
The wounded Yautja was in the ship in a pool of his own blood. He worked a control on his gauntlet, and the ship exploded over Ford and two gunmen who were waiting in the trees to take the files and kill the pair. Charley and Elliot were clear of that blast. In an epilogue an unnamed man took the late Ms. Ford's office and treated her files as his.
Key Characters
- Charley Sakada was eighteen months into a Weyland-Yutani prison sentence when Ford pulled her out for the break-in. She fought the yard, the Xenomorphs, and the hunter, and she walked away without taking Elliot's name.
- Elliot took Ford's theft so Charley could leave the prison. He carried the research on his laptop, took a shot through the side, and got the ship code Gross Profit out of Ford.
- Ms. Ford was Elliot's former stepmother and a company executive. She withheld the getaway code until the files were out, then waited with two gunmen to take those files and kill the pair. The ship exploded on top of her.
- Pearce, Woz, and Elomo were the minders sent so Charley and Elliot could not run. Pearce dropped out of Ford's later calls, Charley never learned if Woz had made it, and the hunter took a hand from the woman holding them in the control room.
- The Yautja blew the safe days before the team arrived and hunted the Xenomorphs he had let loose. Shot apart inside the ship, he set off the blast that killed Ford.
Editions
Dark Horse Comics published Aliens vs. Predator: Xenogenesis in four full-color issues. Andi Watson wrote the series. The first issue, dated December 22, 1999, was pencilled by Mel Rubi, inked by Mark Lipka and Norman Lee, colored by Dave Stewart, and lettered by Pat Brosseau. Hughes Labiano drew the title illustration with Dave Stewart. Philip Amara edited the series, and Jeremy Perkins designed it. Issue two is dated January 26, 2000, issue three February 23, 2000, and issue four March 29, 2000.
The fourth issue, dated March 29, 2000, added Ben Herrera on pencils beside Mel Rubi, Christopher Ivy and Mike Perkins on inks, Studio F on colors beside Dave Stewart, and Steve Dutro on lettering. Dark Horse listed that issue as a 32-page full-color comic, the same format as the three before it. The series was later reprinted in Aliens vs. Predator Omnibus Volume 2.
Behind The Scenes
Xenogenesis was a Dark Horse event published as three series in 1999 and 2000. Aliens: Xenogenesis, written by Tom Bierbaum and Mary Bierbaum, followed Weyland-Yutani's Strikeforce. Predator: Xenogenesis followed the government unit Spearhead. This miniseries was the Aliens vs. Predator part of that event. The books share the title, and the plots do not carry from one into the next. A footnote in the control room sends Ty Ostermann's Spearhead account on to Predator: Xenogenesis.
Dark Horse billed Aliens: Xenogenesis as the future of the Aliens comics. The three series were poorly received, and new stories in the Aliens, Predator, and Aliens vs. Predator lines then largely stopped. The next Aliens vs. Predator series was Thrill of the Hunt in 2004. Hughes Labiano painted the issue 4 cover, with Charley and Elliot between the Yautja and the Xenomorphs. Philip Amara edited the issues, and Jeremy Perkins designed them.
Conclusion
Aliens vs. Predator: Xenogenesis is Andi Watson and Mel Rubi's four-issue Dark Horse series, begun in December 1999. It follows Charley Sakada from a Weyland-Yutani prison colony into a Biotech lab, where a Yautja hunted the Xenomorphs Ms. Ford sent her and Elliot to steal. They walked away alive. Ford died when the ship exploded on the gunmen she brought to kill them.
External Sources
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