Four-Armed Predator was a giant Yautja hunter dropped onto the Game Preserve Planet in Predators: Surviving Life, the 2010 Dark Horse sequel also sold as Predators: Preserve the Game. After the film Predators, the preserve hunters staged Royce with human-sized armor and beamed the tetrabrachial giant down as their next champion trial. It cloaked at once, drove Royce and Isabelle off a cliff, and died under Isabelle's sniper fire at a waterfall.
Biography
Dropped For The Champion
Months after the events of Predators, Royce and Isabelle were still stranded on the Game Preserve Planet when armored hunters gifted Royce a set of human-sized Yautja armor. The gift staged him as a champion for the next hunt rather than as prey left to scavenged gear alone. Predators: Surviving Life opens that sequel hunt with the armor drop.
A ship then beamed down the huge Four-Armed Predator, which hit the forest floor hard enough to raise rock and dust. The hunter arrived unmasked, already larger than the Super Predators that had stalked the preserve earlier, including the Berserker.
Cloaked Attack And Cliff
The Four-Armed Predator turned invisible soon after landing and attacked while Royce and Isabelle were still arguing over a waterfall ambush plan. It closed with wristblades rather than a long stalk from the trees, cutting Royce as Isabelle struggled with the hard-wired cannon from his gifted suit. The fight forced them into flight before their planned ravine trap could open.
When the giant pressed hard, Royce grabbed Isabelle and leapt from a cliff he guessed was a thousand feet high, letting the new armor take the landing while his knees buckled but did not break. The pair fled into flooded trees, where Royce used the suit's bio-mask and a forest fire from the shoulder weapon to throw the cloaked hunter off their trail. Isabelle sealed his chest wound with the armor's first-aid gear before they made their stand at the falls.
Death At The Waterfall
Royce stood in the river as bait while Isabelle took a ledge above the falls with her sniper rifle. He waited waist-deep under the falls with wristblades out while the Four-Armed Predator cloaked into the trees and laughed at him in clicks. When the fight opened, Royce held the hunter's attention in the water so Isabelle would have a clear shot from cover.
Isabelle hit the hunter in the head and body with repeated sniper shots until it fell in the clearing. The kill used her sniper rifle from the waterfall ledge, and it ended the champion hunt the armor gift had staged. Both humans lived through the waterfall fight, and the Four-Armed Predator died on the preserve that day. Royce and Isabelle remained stranded on the Game Preserve Planet for a while longer after the kill.
Biology And Size
The Four-Armed Predator stood larger than the hunters already shown on the Game Preserve Planet, with four arms that made it one of the most distinctive largest Predators drawn in the comics. Surviving Life never explained whether the extra arms were natural, a mutation, or the product of splicing like that later associated with other Predator hybrids. The art shows plate armor on a massive frame and an unmasked face at the landing, without a stated height in the comic itself.
Weapons And Armor
In the fight against Royce and Isabelle the Four-Armed Predator relied on wristblades, plate armor, a wrist gauntlet, and a cloaking device. It arrived unmasked at the landing and turned invisible almost at once, then pressed the humans in close quarters instead of opening with a plasma caster of its own. The comic never shows it taking a skull trophy or finishing a ritual kill before Isabelle's sniper fire dropped it at the waterfall.
Behind The Scenes
David Lapham wrote and Allan Jefferson drew the Four-Armed Predator for Dark Horse's July 2010 Predators sequel, published as Predators: Surviving Life and also sold under the Preserve the Game title. The one-shot followed the 2010 film and put the giant on the same Game Preserve Planet where the Super Predators had hunted Royce's group. Jefferson's interiors carried the hunter's bulk and four-armed silhouette through the landing, the cliff chase, and the waterfall kill.
Years earlier, Kenner had planned an unreleased Heavy Infantry Predator deluxe figure, a massive four-armed design with a back-mounted spring-fired missile launcher, a removable helmet, and a bladed staff. That toy was cancelled with the late Aliens and Predator lines in the mid-1990s, though test shots survive in collector archives such as toyarchive and alienscollection.com. The Kenner concept was an earlier four-armed Predator toy idea, not merchandise tied to the 2010 Surviving Life comic.
Conclusion
The Four-Armed Predator was the giant Yautja the Game Preserve hunters dropped after arming Royce for a champion hunt in Predators: Surviving Life. It cloaked on arrival, drove Royce and Isabelle off a cliff, and died under Isabelle's sniper fire at the waterfall. The comic left its extra arms unexplained and its status deceased, while Kenner's earlier Heavy Infantry Predator showed that a four-armed design had already haunted Predator toys long before the Dark Horse sequel.
Appearances
- Predators: Surviving Life / Predators: Preserve the Game (Dark Horse, 2010)
Tag Categories: Individual Predators | Predators From The Comics | Predator Lore
