Green Lantern vs. Aliens: Plot, Characters & Lore

Published: September to December 2000
Writer: Ron Marz
Pencils: Rick Leonardi
Inks: Mike Perkins
Colors: David Stewart
Lettering: Steve Dutro
Covers: Dwayne Turner
Editors: Phil Amara and Bob Schreck
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics, with DC Comics
Format: Four-issue miniseries, collected in a 2001 trade paperback
Setting: Earth, a border world in Barin Char's sector, and the living planet Mogo

Green Lantern vs. Aliens is a four-issue crossover comic written by Ron Marz, pencilled by Rick Leonardi, and inked by Mike Perkins, with covers by Dwayne Turner. Dark Horse Comics published it with DC Comics from September to December 2000, and the series was collected in a trade paperback in August 2001. Hal Jordan and a team of the Green Lantern Corps found a hive of Xenomorphs on a border world and moved it to the living planet Mogo instead of destroying it. Ten years later, Kyle Rayner went to Mogo with former Corps members to rescue the crew of a crashed freighter, lost his ring inside the hive, and had to decide what to do with the creatures that Hal had spared.

Plot Summary

Hal Jordan's Mission

Barin Char caught by a Xenomorph in the dark hive, groaning as the creature's jaws open beside his face

On a dark border world, a Green Lantern died inside a cavern full of eggs, and his power ring dropped to the floor beside his body. His last call for help went unanswered, and a Xenomorph pulled him back into the dark as his ring light faded. On Earth, Hal Jordan caught up with Green Arrow and Black Canary, who had broken up a bank robbery by men wearing alien masks, and he caged the robbers with his ring. Green Arrow joked that the next bunch of aliens Hal ran into might be a little nastier. Before the three of them could go to dinner, a projection of one of the Guardians of the Universe appeared and ordered Hal to meet other members of the Corps on a world in a distant sector.

Hal flew out and joined Kilowog, Katma Tui, Tomar-Re, Salaak, the Green Man, and several other Lanterns. Kilowog explained that Barin Char, the Green Lantern of that sector, was missing and presumed dead on a border world, and that the Guardians believed an unknown alien lifeform had killed him. His ring had not passed to a successor, and the Guardians did not know much more, because nobody who had made contact with the creatures had lived to describe them. Kilowog remembered Barin as a decent guy who had not been easy to kill, and the team set off for the border world with no clear idea of what they would find.

The Hive On The Border World

Hal Jordan shouting for help behind a green cage construct as Xenomorphs close in on him

The Lanterns followed the trace of Barin Char's ring signal across a canyon world and found an organic structure that had not formed naturally. Inside lay rows of Xenomorph eggs, and the team split up to search the caverns. Hal found Barin's body with its chest torn open from the inside and the ring on the ground beside it, and moments later dozens of Xenomorphs came out of the walls around him.

Hal called for help, and the Corps fought the creatures in the tunnels until the Lanterns had them surrounded inside a field of green energy. Hal shielded himself behind a cage construct as the creatures swarmed him, and the Lanterns found that the Xenomorphs were fast, came from every direction, and sprayed acid blood when they were hurt.

Kilowog wanted to wipe them out, but Hal argued that the creatures were animals following their instincts rather than evil beings, and that the Guardians had sent the Corps out as saviors, not exterminators. Katma Tui pointed out that the creatures had already killed one Lantern, and Kilowog called them killing machines, but nobody could argue that the Corps had the right to wipe out a whole species. The others agreed, and they gathered up every Xenomorph and every egg in giant energy bubbles.

The Lanterns carried the hive across space to Mogo, a living planet that was itself a member of the Green Lantern Corps and could watch the creatures and keep them from reaching any other world. They released the Xenomorphs onto its uninhabited surface, and Hal admitted that he hoped the solution was as simple as it seemed. A decade later, a burning starship tumbled through space and fell toward Mogo.

The Crash On Mogo

Green Lanterns flying over a canyon carrying Xenomorphs and eggs inside giant green energy bubbles

By then the original Green Lantern Corps no longer existed, and Kyle Rayner was the only Green Lantern. In his apartment on Earth, Kyle was finishing a painting for a comic called Alien Invasion late at night when Tomar-Dar, the son of Tomar-Re, walked in with Brik, Ash, M'hdahna, and Salaak. All five had served in the Corps or trained to join it before it was destroyed, and they had found Kyle by following his ring's energy signature. Kyle had never met any of them, and the Lanterns who had lost their rings when the Corps fell treated him with a mix of hope and resentment.

Tomar-Dar told Kyle about the hive that Hal Jordan had moved to Mogo, and explained that a Gowlian transport ship had crashed there. The former Lanterns had taken a ship to Mogo after hearing its distress beacon, but without rings they could do little against the creatures, and they argued that the Corps was responsible because it had put the Xenomorphs there. Kyle charged his ring at his lantern and took them back to Mogo, where the freighter lay broken on the shore of an island. Tomar-Dar said that he had picked up the ship's distress signal at a deep-space monitoring station, and that Mogo was the only world in reach after an explosion in the drive system.

The Gowlian Freighter

Kyle Rayner firing his ring at Xenomorphs in the freighter wreck while a former Lantern fires a gun beside him

Kyle led the group into the dark wreck, and Salaak, who had served the Corps for years, made it clear that he did not like taking orders from the one member of the group who wore a ring. On the bridge, a woman with a gun stopped Kyle and introduced herself as Crowe, first officer of the Gowlian freighter, which had been carrying a crew of nearly thirty to a mining world. The ship had developed a crack in its engine seal and come down on Mogo, and the Xenomorphs had dragged the rest of her crew off into the jungle. Salaak reminded Kyle that the old Lanterns had all taken oaths, and Kyle answered that he had not picked the ring, the ring had picked him.

Crowe showed Kyle the hole in the deck where the creatures had broken in, and the Xenomorphs attacked moments later. The former Lanterns opened fire, but the creatures overwhelmed them and dragged off Ash, Brik, and M'hdahna while Kyle shielded the others. When a Xenomorph pulled Tomar-Dar away, Kyle grabbed his hand and tried to hold on, but the creature tore Tomar-Dar loose, and Kyle found that his ring had gone with him.

Without The Ring

Close view of a Xenomorph drone with its jaws open among other drones in the hive

Kyle, Crowe, and Salaak were the only survivors on the ship, and the Xenomorphs left them alone for the moment. Kyle tried to call the ring back as he had done once before, but nothing happened, and he did not know if the distance or his own fear was blocking it. Crowe noted that the Xenomorphs had pulled back once the ring was gone, as if they had noticed that the group was helpless. She told him that the creatures took living hosts to breed, so her crew and the Corps members could be alive, and she gave him a rifle and taught him how to shoot it.

The three of them climbed down into the hive on ropes, and on the way Salaak apologized for his earlier attitude and told Kyle that he had been with Hal on the first mission, and that Hal had decided to leave the creatures alive when it seemed the only right choice. Salaak said that he had wondered in the years since whether the hive was a test set by the Guardians, and Kyle told him that he hoped not, because he was no killer.

In the chamber below, they found people cocooned in resin on the walls, and one of them begged for help before a Chestburster broke out of him. Xenomorphs poured out of the walls, and Salaak's gun jammed as he tried to hold them back so the others could get away. Before the creatures reached him, Salaak told Kyle to make sure the tradition of the Corps did not die with him, and Crowe dragged Kyle away as he tried to go back for him.

The creatures killed Salaak, and Crowe pulled Kyle away into a narrow tunnel where the Xenomorphs could come at them only one at a time. Crowe had been wounded, and Kyle noticed that she did not want him to look at the injury. The tunnel led them into a vast chamber where a Xenomorph Queen stood over her eggs, with captured crew members and Corps members cocooned around her, and Kyle saw his ring lying among the eggs at the bottom of the chamber.

The Queen's Chamber

The Xenomorph Queen looming over her egg sac with captives cocooned in resin around the chamber

A drop of resin lifted the ring off the chamber floor, and a Facehugger crept out of an egg nearby while the Queen hissed over the hive. Kyle could not call the ring to him, so Crowe made him promise to save the rest of her crew and went down first with her gun to draw the creatures away. She shot at the Xenomorphs until one tore into her, and as she fell, Kyle saw wires and machinery under the torn skin of her face. Even as the creature held her, Crowe kept firing and told Kyle not to stop and to save her crew.

Kyle ran for the ring, and a Facehugger leapt onto him and wrapped its tail around his throat. He reached the ring, put it on, and threw the Facehugger off with a burst of green energy. The ring dropped back into the resin with a splash as he fell, and Kyle had to dig his fingers into the mire to get it onto his hand while the Facehugger squeezed his throat. The Queen attacked him next, and the fight with her and her drones left Kyle bruised and with a broken arm before he blasted his way clear of them.

Crowe lay dying among the eggs, and she told Kyle that she was an android built to protect the crew of a Gowlian ship. She asked him to destroy the creatures and save whoever he could, and Kyle remembered being told to make sure the tradition of the Corps did not die with him. Kyle wrapped the hive in a sphere of green light and told Crowe that he no longer had to be lethal now that he had the ring back, but Crowe asked whether he wanted whatever followed him to face the same thing. Remembering Salaak's last words, Kyle recited the oath of the Green Lantern Corps, and the light of his ring swept through the hive and destroyed the Queen and the Xenomorphs.

Later, Kyle stood by a fire on Mogo with Tomar-Dar, M'hdahna, and the members of Crowe's crew he had freed, about a quarter of the people the freighter had carried. He told Tomar-Dar that he had saved everyone he could, but he could not stop thinking about Ash, Brik, Salaak, Crowe, and the crew who had died, and about the fact that he had killed every one of the creatures. Tomar-Dar told him that Hal had done what he thought was right, and that Kyle had made sure the Xenomorphs would never threaten anyone again.

The Xenomorphs And The Ring

A Xenomorph drooling over Kyle Rayner from above, its jaws open, as Kyle looks up at it

The Xenomorphs were the first creatures in years to give a Green Lantern real trouble. On the border world they came out of the walls of the hive in such numbers that Hal's team needed their whole force to surround them with energy, and Hal's cage construct gave him only a few seconds before the creatures tore at the bars. Their acid blood splashed over the Lanterns whenever a creature was hurt, and Kilowog described them as killing machines with no intelligence the Corps could measure.

The rings were enough to hold the hive when the whole Corps worked together, and the Lanterns carried every adult and every egg to Mogo in giant energy bubbles. Ten years later, the former Lanterns who came with Kyle had only guns, and the creatures overran them at the freighter within moments. Kyle's constructs could block an attack, but the Xenomorphs struck from every direction, and one of them pulled Tomar-Dar away with the ring still caught on his hand.

The hive under Mogo followed the Xenomorph life cycle from the Queen's eggs to the cocooned hosts on the walls. The creatures moved the ring along with Tomar-Dar, and it ended up in the resin at the foot of the Queen's egg chamber, where Kyle had to reach it with a Facehugger around his throat. With the ring back on his hand and Crowe's plea in mind, Kyle used the oath of the Corps to send a single wave of light through the chamber, which no single construct had done against the creatures before.

Crowe And The Gowlian Crew

Kyle Rayner, Crowe, and Salaak standing in the dark hive among crew members cocooned in resin on the walls

Crowe was the first officer of a Gowlian freighter that had been carrying a crew of nearly thirty to a mining world when an engine fault brought it down on Mogo. She held the bridge alone with a gun after the creatures took the rest of the crew, and she showed Kyle the breach in the deck where they had dug their way in. Crowe was the one who explained that the Xenomorphs kept their victims alive as hosts, which gave Kyle a reason to go into the hive instead of leaving the planet.

Through the descent, Crowe treated Kyle as a fighter who had lost his weapon, and she taught him to use a rifle and set the ropes for the climb down into the hive. She kept her wound hidden in the tunnels, and the truth came out only when a Xenomorph tore open her face and showed the machinery underneath. Dying among the eggs, Crowe said that she was an android built to protect the crew of a Gowlian ship and asked Kyle to save whoever he could.

The survivors Kyle carried out of the hive were about a quarter of the freighter's crew. Along with Crowe, the dead included the people the creatures had used as hosts before the rescue reached them, and Kyle counted them among the losses he could not stop thinking about at the fire on Mogo.

Hal Jordan And Kyle Rayner

Kyle Rayner standing with his arms folded inside a green energy sphere as Xenomorphs press against it from outside

The story set Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner on either side of the same problem. Hal had the full Corps behind him and argued that the Lanterns were saviors, not exterminators, so the Xenomorphs were moved to Mogo instead of being destroyed. Kyle came to Mogo as the only Green Lantern left, with a few former Lanterns who had no rings and a freighter crew already in the hive.

Salaak was the link between the two missions. He had backed Hal's choice ten years earlier, and in the hive he told Kyle that he still wondered whether the Guardians had meant it as a test. Kyle answered that he was no killer, and when he had the hive trapped in a sphere of light, he first said that he no longer had to be lethal.

Crowe's question about who would face the creatures next and Salaak's last words changed his mind, and Kyle destroyed the hive that Hal had spared. At the fire afterward, Tomar-Dar told him that Hal had done what he thought was right, and the story left it open which of the two Lanterns had made the right choice.

Key Characters

Kyle Rayner was the last Green Lantern. He lost his ring in the Mogo hive, fought his way back to it in the Queen's chamber, and destroyed every Xenomorph on the planet.
Hal Jordan led the Lanterns who found the first hive. He chose to move the Xenomorphs to Mogo instead of killing them.
Crowe was the first officer of the Gowlian freighter. She taught Kyle to shoot, drew the creatures away from his ring, and was revealed as an android built to protect the crew.
Tomar-Dar, the son of Tomar-Re, brought Kyle to Mogo. The Xenomorphs dragged him into the hive with Kyle's ring, and he survived to be rescued.
Salaak served on both missions to the hive. He died holding back the creatures so Kyle and Crowe could escape.
Ash and Brik were former Corps members who died after the Xenomorphs dragged them away from the freighter.
M'hdahna came to Mogo with Tomar-Dar and survived the hive.
Kilowog, Katma Tui, Tomar-Re, and the Green Man were among the Lanterns who helped Hal round up the first hive.
Barin Char was the Green Lantern who died in the hive on the border world before Hal's team arrived.
Mogo was the living planet and Green Lantern where the Corps left the Xenomorphs.
The Queen laid her eggs in a chamber deep under Mogo and was destroyed with the rest of the hive.

Editions

Green Lantern vs. Aliens ran for four issues with cover dates from September to December 2000. The indicia credit Ron Marz as the writer, Rick Leonardi as the penciller, Mike Perkins as the inker, David Stewart as the colorist, Steve Dutro as the letterer, and Dwayne Turner as the cover artist. Darcy Hockett designed the issues, Tim Ervin-Gore and Frank Berrios were the assistant editors, Phil Amara and Bob Schreck edited the series, and Mike Richardson was the publisher.

The four issues were collected in a Green Lantern vs. Aliens trade paperback in August 2001, with a new cover by Eric Kohler. Dark Horse reprinted the story in the Dark Horse Comics/DC Comics: Justice League Volume 2 trade paperback in March 2017, beside Batman/Tarzan: Claws of the Cat-Woman, JLA vs. Predator, and Spyboy/Young Justice.

Behind The Scenes

Ron Marz wrote the series as he was finishing a run of more than seven years as the main writer of DC's Green Lantern, and Dark Horse announced the first issue for September 13, 2000. Green Lantern was the third DC hero to meet the Xenomorphs in a Dark Horse crossover, after Batman and Superman. The indicia of each issue thank Debbie Olshan at Fox and Neela Weber at DC Comics, and the story gives Hal Jordan's part as a mission ten years before Kyle's.

Green Lantern vs. Aliens is one of the Aliens crossovers, and in the Dark Horse crossover line it followed Aliens vs. Predator vs. The Terminator and Superman vs. Predator. It was followed by Witchblade/Aliens/Darkness/Predator: Mindhunter, which put the Xenomorphs and the Predators on Kenneth Irons' ship.

Conclusion

Green Lantern vs. Aliens is Ron Marz and Rick Leonardi's four-issue crossover for Dark Horse Comics and DC Comics. It follows the hive from Hal Jordan's decision to spare it on a border world to Kyle Rayner's rescue mission on Mogo ten years later. The comic ends with Kyle destroying every Xenomorph on Mogo, with Salaak, Crowe, and most of the freighter crew dead, and with Kyle wondering if Hal's choice or his own was the right one.