The Cracked Tusk Predator was an elder Yautja who led younger hunters, first in the 1993 Kenner pack-in Aliens vs. Predator: The Ultimate Battle and later on LV-797 in Predator: Life and Death. On an unnamed jungle world he flushed a hive and opened the hunt with a war cry. On Tartarus his clan guarded an Engineer juggernaut against Seegson strippers and Colonial Marines from the Hasdrubal, until Captain Humble shot him at the sleeper berth.
Biography
Earlier Life
Before the jungle pack-in, NECA's 2015 Series 13 card gives Cracked Tusk other hunts. It calls him an old tribe leader and a revered elder who stayed on the hunt after most Yautja of his age had stopped hunting and ruled a clan from home. The card names the lava deserts of Yautja Prime, then the cold ground of Rim and Fiorina 161, as places he had survived.
He used those hunts to train young Yautja in the same conditions. The card credits him with weapons and tools later used by the Lava Planet Predator's clan, and with a reputation for finishing a mission and bringing his hunting party home. Predator: Life and Death ends on another result. He died on LV-797, and the horseshoe ship left Tartarus without him.
An Earlier Hunt
On an unnamed jungle world, Cracked Tusk brought a hunting party to a hive he treated as a real match for them. Renegade, a Young Blood, Scavage, and the rest of the party fired on the nest until the adult Xenomorphs broke into the trees. Renegade raised his shoulder cannon while the creatures were close to the hive, and Cracked Tusk stopped him. He wanted the prey farther out, where the hunt would be a chase. After that wait he threw his head back and howled, and the war cry sent the party under the canopy after the adult Xenomorphs one by one. The pack-in ends on Renegade facing a single adult Xenomorph, with no winner drawn.
The Dropship
By Predator: Life and Death his clan was on LV-797, which the Marines called Tartarus, guarding an Engineer juggernaut that Seegson wanted to strip. He and the Hive Wars Predator killed Corporal Chimo's patrol in the trees. Captain Paget's Marines from the Hasdrubal came down to investigate, and the hunters used their cloaks against the search teams until Sergeant Roth's squad drove them back into the jungle. Melville and Humble told Paget the horseshoe ship was an artifact the hunters meant to keep.
Roth's dropship climbed the horseshoe hull to put a team on the control decks. Cracked Tusk met it on the outside of the ship and drove a combistick through the glass. The stabilizers failed, the cabin called for the pilot Singer, and the dropship crashed onto the derelict. He had been hanging on the juggernaut when the ship came over him, and the spear was what brought it down.
The Cockpit
In the wreck he reached into the cockpit and hauled Singer out, and the pilot called for a sergeant while he was in the hunter's grip. A Marine shot Cracked Tusk and forced him to let the pilot go. He broke contact and went into the derelict instead of finishing the crew on the hull. Roth's people then pushed inside, onto decks they had meant to take in good order before the crash.
Inside The Derelict
From inside the derelict he watched Roth's people on the bridge, where Seegson gear was patched into the alien consoles. Singer told them he could light the environmental and navigation systems and have the drives up in about ten minutes, long enough to get the hull off Tartarus. They found a sarcophagus-like sleeper berth in that control space while Singer worked the board. Cracked Tusk called the hunters who were fighting Paget's column in the forest back to the ship, to stop the Marines from flying the juggernaut away.
Killed By Humble
He hit the control party at close range, cut the head off a Marine named Schrader, and went for Singer and Roth. He pinned Singer against the sleeper berth and drove a wristblade into it when Singer moved. The blade stuck, and that held him there. Captain Humble took a pulse rifle and shot him at the berth. Green blood poured down the mask, and Marines died in the corridors around that fight. Roth held the bridge long enough for Singer to bring the drives online while the rest of the clan rushed the hull.
Course For Ganymede
With the drives live, Singer set a course for Ganymede Station, and the astronavigation took it. The Marines covered Cracked Tusk's body on the deck. Roth scorned Humble for using a firearm in that close fight, and Humble answered that he had killed the big monster. The blade had torn the sleeper berth open, and the Engineer inside it began to stir as the horseshoe ship left LV-797.
Personality And Traits
Cracked Tusk led from the front of a party and stopped a Young Blood from firing into a hive before the prey had room to run. On Tartarus he treated the juggernaut as something to keep, and he called the rest of the clan back when the humans tried to fly it away. He went after Singer himself, first on the hull and then in the control space. The mistake that killed him was his own blade stuck in the berth, and Captain Humble, from the Seegson excavation, was the one who shot him.
Weapons And Equipment
He carried a long combistick, a shoulder cannon, and wristblades, with a hose running from the gauntlet back to the armor. The Life and Death pages show a metal bio-mask with red eyes, a net shirt over orange skin, metal plates, and a loincloth. On the hull he used the combistick. In the control space he used the wristblades, and one of them lodged in the Engineer berth.
Merchandise
NECA released him in Predator Series 13 in 2015, in a wave with Renegade and Scavage that looked back to the Kenner figures from the same pack-in comic. The figure is about 8 inches tall, with more than 25 points of articulation, a spear, a throwing disc, a shoulder cannon that retracts, and wristblades that extend. The cardback follows the old Kenner card art, and it prints that elder biography beside windows for Scavage, Renegade, and Cracked Tusk.
Prime 1 Studio showed the Premium Masterline statue PMDHPR-01 in 2019. It stands about 39 inches on a ship-interior base, posed to throw the combistick, with a fabric belt and armbands, and lights in the shoulder cannon and the bio-mask. The exclusive version adds an unmasked head. Prime 1 paired the statue with its Scorpion Alien piece.
Basis On Kenner Figure
The comic hunter is based on a Kenner figure from the early 1990s Predator toy line. The card art shows him unmasked, with a gold face, tusks, orange hide, a green loincloth, a clawed gauntlet, and a shoulder cannon with a visible charge. Kenner sold him beside Renegade and Scavage. The two-pack that carried the mini-comic paired Renegade with the Warrior Alien, while Cracked Tusk's own figure carried the elder design the later comic redrew. Life and Death carried the orange hide and the heavy cannon arm over from that figure, and put a full metal mask and a net shirt on him for the fight on the juggernaut.
Conclusion
Cracked Tusk was the elder who opened the 1993 jungle hunt with a war cry and then died on LV-797 in Predator: Life and Death. He brought a Marine dropship down on the Engineer juggernaut, and Captain Humble shot him when a wristblade stuck in the sleeper berth. The horseshoe ship left Tartarus with his body on the deck and that berth torn open.
Appearances
- Aliens vs. Predator: The Ultimate Battle (Dark Horse mini-comic, 1993; Kenner pack-in)
- Predator: Life and Death #1-4 (Dark Horse, 2016)
Tag Categories: Individual Predators | Predators From The Comics | Predators From The Toylines | Predator Deaths | Predator Lore
