The Hook Predator was a male Yautja hunter and the father of two Young Bloods, Splitter and Pig Iron, in the Dark Horse comic Alien vs. Predator: Thicker Than Blood. He led his sons aboard the luxury ship USSC Double Down when it strayed into their hunting territory, and he killed the parents of the android boy Tyler Ward and his sister Maria. Crippled in a lift and left without both sons, he struck a bargain with Maria to kill a loose Xenomorph, kept his word and departed alive.
Biography
The Hunting Territory
Hook hunted with his sons in an uncharted system that the Double Down crossed after the children's father changed its flight plan to collect cartography data. His ship closed on the liner and parked over the boarding ramp of its tender, sealing off the only lifeboat the surviving family could reach. Pig Iron stayed aboard with a captive adult Xenomorph, while Hook and Splitter moved through the passenger decks and turned the lido into a killing ground.
The Forward Lounge
When Tyler brought Maria to the forward lounge, Hook was already in the dark room with their parents, where the skinned body of their uncle Gavin had been hung as a trap. He came out of the shadows with his twin hooked blades and impaled the children's father as he shouted for them to run. Their mother, Lydia, the captain of the ship, drove a stun baton into his chest and bought the children enough time to reach a lift. Hook recovered, seized her through a closing door while she told her children she loved them, and killed her before turning on the lift.
The Lift
Hook forced his arm and leg through the doors of the lift and grabbed Tyler as the children backed against the far wall. Maria used her voice override to send the car up, and the moving lift crushed the limbs he had pushed inside, pinning him in the shaft. Tyler then jammed the controls so the car could not return, and the hunter was left hanging in the doorway with his blood pooling below.
Splitter's Whip
Splitter found his father trapped in the lift, pulled him free and laid him on the deck with his mask and armor smeared in green blood. Hook was barely conscious, and the crushed arm and leg could not be saved. His son uncoiled his plasma whip and cut away the ruined arm and leg, sealing the wounds as the blade passed through them and leaving him among the maimed hunters of his kind. The amputation left Hook unconscious and with only one hand, which was later the key to working the scanners of his own ship.
The Loss Of His Sons
While Hook lay helpless, the children slipped aboard the hunter ship to unhook it from the tender, where Pig Iron kept a captive Xenomorph hung in chains and was burning it for sport. Tyler plugged into the controls of the ship and, while fighting off its failsafes, unlocked the restraints that held the creature. It turned on Pig Iron while he still held its chain, bit through his face and tore itself free. The creature then found Splitter standing over his father and tore off his head, holding the mask and dreads in one claw and a severed arm in the other. That left the unconscious Hook as the last of the three hunters.
Maria and Tyler dragged his unconscious body into a service lift while the Xenomorph fed on Splitter. They needed his hand for the controls of the hunter ship that still blocked the tender, and they hauled him down to the beach of the lido deck.
The Bargain On The Lido
On the artificial beach among the dead passengers, the children shocked Hook awake with deck poles and held him there each time he faded. Maria told him she would rather let the Xenomorph tear him apart for murdering her parents, but offered to help him kill it if he moved his ship and left as soon as it was dead. When he only roared back, Maria gave up on him and pushed his head under the surf, meaning to drown him and take the hand they needed. The children went to the lido bar to look for a knife, and Hook rose behind them leaning on one of the poles and accepted the deal in a mimicked human voice.
The Medical Bay
Maria took him to the medical bay, wrapped the stump of his arm and fitted him with a makeshift prosthetic leg, the best repair she could make with what the ship carried. With the leg and a pole for support, Hook could walk again, and the three made a plan to lure the Xenomorph into the geology lab where their father had kept explosives.
The Garden Fight
Tyler stayed in the lab with the Xenomorph and asked Hook to get his sister clear, but Maria refused to leave her brother. Hook dragged her away through the lido garden as she fought him, and the creature broke through the glass ceiling above them. Missing an arm and a leg, Hook met the Xenomorph head on with his pole and kicked it back with his prosthetic leg, until its tail hurled him through the glass doors of the garden. He drove his pole into the chest of the creature, but its acid blood burned him and it pinned him beneath its claws.
The Death Of The Xenomorph
Hook was close to being killed when Maria, armed with a hunter's wrist flamethrower, turned the creature away from him and set the garden alight. She threw him Splitter's whip as the creature turned and closed in on her among the burning trees, where she had collapsed against a trunk with the wrist flamethrower sparking on her arm. The Xenomorph crawled toward her across the scorched grass, but the whip lashed around its head before it could reach her. Hook raised the crackling weapon through the flames and brought it down again, splitting the creature apart in a spray of acid blood. The pieces of the body fell into the grass, and the acid that poured out of them ate down through the deck to the level below. When the fire died down, Hook found the exhausted girl alive among the burned trees, too drained to care whether he killed her or left her there.
Keeping His Word
Hook went back for Tyler and carried the burned android boy down a ladder to his sister, who thanked him. He had moved his ship off the tender as promised, and Maria told him he had been true to his word and was not what she had expected. Hook answered by repeating her own promise back to her that they would call it good, and returned to his ship. Once Maria had taken the tender clear with Tyler, the hunter ship fired on the Double Down and destroyed the liner where his sons had died.
Personality And Traits
Hook was a ruthless hunter who killed both parents of Tyler and Maria, including the captain of the ship, in front of their children. At the head of his family hunting party, he led his sons through the passenger decks and turned the lido into a killing ground. He was stubborn and fierce even after his maiming, and he went on fighting the Xenomorph without an arm and a leg. When the children first offered him a bargain on the lido beach, he only roared back at them, and he accepted it only after they had nearly drowned him. His bargain with Maria nevertheless showed that he honored a promise once made, and he returned her brother to her and moved his ship before he departed.
Weapons And Equipment
Hook fought with a pair of long curved wrist blades shaped like hooks, and he wore a silver bio-mask, heavy armor plates, a red cape and a belt hung with skulls. After his maiming he relied on a makeshift prosthetic leg and a long pole that served him as both crutch and spear. In the lido garden he drove the pole into the chest of the Xenomorph and kicked the creature back with his prosthetic leg. In the last fight he took up Splitter's plasma whip, and his purple hunter ship carried the weapons that destroyed the Double Down.
Behind The Scenes
The Hook Predator was written by Jeremy Barlow and drawn by Doug Wheatley, with colors by Rain Beredo, letters by Michael Heisler and covers by Chun Lo. Dark Horse Comics published the first two issues in December 2019 and January 2020, and the last two were released only in the trade paperback in November 2020. Hook is never named inside the comic, and the names of the family come from Barlow, who described the father in an interview as an exiled elder whose bargain with the children let him regain some honor.
Conclusion
The Hook Predator began his hunt on the Double Down as the killer of Maria's parents and ended it as her reluctant ally. He lost an arm, a leg and both his sons, yet killed the Xenomorph with Splitter's whip and left alive after keeping the only promise he had made to the humans aboard.
Appearances
- Alien vs. Predator: Thicker Than Blood #1-4 (2019-2020)
Tag Categories: Individual Predators | Predators From The Comics | Predator Lore
