Private First Class Daniel Spunkmeyer was a United States Colonial Marine dropship crew chief on the USS Sulaco in Aliens, service number A23/TQ6.0.92810E7. He loaded Bug Stomper with a power loader, rode the left seat of the UD-4L Cheyenne with Ferro on the LV-426 drop, stayed with the ship while Apone's squad swept Hadley's Hope, and died when a stowaway Warrior caught him in the cargo bay. The crash wrecked the APC and left the survivors on the surface.
Earlier Bug Hunts
In Christopher Golden's Blowback, from the Aliens: Bug Hunt anthology, Spunkmeyer was already with Apone's later Sulaco people on the toxic moon Clytemnestra, under Lieutenant Emma Paulson. Weyland-Yutani wanted glassy black fliers cleared so a science team could take an atmospheric gas. Pulse rounds detonated the fliers because their body solvent was propane, a risk the company already knew about. Stenbeck and Zeller died in that fight, and Corporal Khan flew the Cheyenne because Ferro was not on the roster.
He was already Bug Stomper's crew chief when the Sulaco woke them. He sat up from hypersleep with the monitor patch still on his chest and the dog tags on. No book named an earlier unit beyond that Clytemnestra drop. By the briefing he already sat at the mess table with Frost, Hicks, and Dietrich, and the working pair with Ferro was already in place.
Loading Bug Stomper
Before the drop he climbed into a yellow P-5000 on the Sulaco hangar deck and swung racks into Bug Stomper. The loader cage held him in a blue harness while deck crew moved around the bay under the AIRWAY 41 marking. Ellen Ripley later ran another loader on that same floor. After the racks were in, Spunkmeyer left the cage and took the left seat on Bug Stomper.
Drop To LV-426
Gorman had Ferro take them in low over the main colony complex. Spunkmeyer rode behind her under the canopy, flight helmet on, while the hull carried orange Bug Stomper nose art, a white 01, and the crew names CPL FERRO and SPUNKMEYER stenciled above the number. Ferro found a pad and set the Cheyenne down in the rain so Apone could walk the Marines out. Once the lock was open they lifted again and stayed on station while the rifle team cleared rooms that were already dead.
Waiting At The Colony
After that first sweep Ferro put the ship back on the pad. Spunkmeyer hauled gear to Bishop in the medlab while Bishop dissected the dead Facehuggers. Ferro stayed with the aircraft. The ground team then drove the APC to the atmosphere processor, and the air crew waited at the colony. They left their dropship unguarded, which was a big mistake.
Emergency Extract
After the hive ambush wrecked the sweep, Hicks called Ferro in to pick up whoever was left, with the plan to pull off the moon and nuke the site from orbit. Ferro sent him back to the ship. He hit the ramp, slipped on thick slime, and never reached the cockpit. Ferro was already in the air. The Sulaco still had a second Cheyenne, Smart Ass, but that ship was still in orbit. Bug Stomper was the only ride on the ground.
Death
The Warrior Xenomorph that left the slime was already inside. It killed Spunkmeyer in the cargo bay, then opened the cockpit door on Ferro. She reached for the holstered VP70 and never cleared it. Bug Stomper pitched into a dive, came down on the rocks, rolled over the APC, and stopped in the atmosphere processor. The blast wrecked the carrier and tore into the cooling gear, so nuking the site from orbit was off the table. Hicks and Hudson later cut a pair of UA 571-C sentry guns out of that wreck, along with other weapons they could still use, and hauled the guns back to Operations. The damaged plant ran a little more than four hours, then the reactor went critical and the processor detonated. Alan Dean Foster's Aliens novelization moves Spunkmeyer's supply run until after the hive fight, so he already knew the squad was wrecked when he walked back to the ramp, and Bishop was at the crash in that version.
Spunkmeyer In The Comics
Dark Horse published Aliens: Newt's Tale as a two-issue miniseries in 1992, written by Mike Richardson and painted by John Bolton. Spunkmeyer is not shown in this comic. Hicks called Ferro for extract, then the crash was shown from the ground. Hudson treated the wreck as the end of their ride off the moon until Hicks cut him short.
Hungary's 1987 film comic A Bolygó Neve: Halál, drawn by Attila Fazekas for the Filmsikerek Képregény Változata line, kept him unnamed. The captions called Ferro the female pilot and had her call her crewmate into the cockpit. She got no answer, turned around reaching for a knife, and lost the stick a moment later. The crash came next, with Ripley and Newt watching from the ground.
Weapons And Equipment
Spunkmeyer never put on M3 armor for the colony search. He stayed in the olive flight suit, headset, and flight helmet, and he ran a P-5000 before the drop. The helmet carried a full-motion camera on the right side, the lens ring marked f/2.8 10mm, plus a green eyepiece over the left eye for the approach to LV-426. The sidearm was the standard VP70. The Aliens Colonial Marines Technical Manual wants a Warrant Officer in a rifle-section Cheyenne. The film still puts a Corporal in the right seat and a Private in the left.
Behind The Scenes
Daniel Kash is a Canadian actor who first read for Hudson in London, on crutches, after a broken leg. He told two people in the room to rewrite the script, then found out they were James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd. Cameron gave him Spunkmeyer instead, and Kash handed over the long coat Cameron had liked. He trained with the rest of the marine cast at Pinewood. Cameron's September 1983 Aliens II treatment called the crew chief Hay. The finished film kept him a Private in the left seat.
In Aliens Expanded, the lines Spunkmeyer has on the dropship when he finds the slime were not Kash. Another actor recorded them as an ad lib because Kash was not available later. The May 1985 script also had him sit up from hypersleep and call himself too old for the job, a line that never made the cut.
Merchandise
NECA never shipped a movie-likeness Spunkmeyer the way it did Hudson, Hicks, Frost, and Vasquez. Kenner's 1990s Aliens Series and Space Marines line also skipped him. The figure that did reach shelves is a Gale Force Nine 30 mm hard-plastic miniature in the Heroes of Hadley's Hope set for Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps, item GF9ALIENS16. The 15-figure box puts him in a flight suit, unpainted, with Ripley, Gorman, Apone, Hicks, Hudson, Vasquez, Drake, Frost, Dietrich, Crowe, Wierzbowski, Ferro, Burke, and Newt. The later 2023 expansion We're in the Pipe, Five by Five, item GF9ALIENS14, packed another flight-suit sculpt beside Ferro.
Famous Quotes
- "What's this crap supposed to be?"
- "Yeah, Frost, but the one that you had was a male!"
- "Hello, Bishop. Do you need anything else?"
- "Hold on a second. There's something-"
- "I'm in. Ramp closing."
Conclusion
Daniel Spunkmeyer was the Sulaco crew chief who loaded Bug Stomper, rode the left seat with Ferro onto LV-426, and died in the cargo bay when a Warrior came aboard. Blowback put him on Clytemnestra with Apone's people. The crash wrecked the APC and left the survivors on the ground.
Appearances
- Aliens (1986)
- Aliens novelization by Alan Dean Foster (1986)
- Aliens Colonial Marines Technical Manual by Lee Brimmicombe-Wood (1995)
- Aliens: Bug Hunt - Blowback (2017)
- Aliens: Newt's Tale (1992) - radio call and crash only
- Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps - Heroes of Hadley's Hope and We're in the Pipe, Five by Five
Tag Categories: Alien Universe Characters | Colonial Marine Characters | Colonial Marine Lore | Alien Lore
