Private First Class Mark Drake was a United States Colonial Marine smartgunner on the USS Sulaco in Aliens, service number A23/TQ2.0.47619E7. He dropped on LV-426 with Jenette Vasquez as the unit's paired gun team, covered the hive retreat after the Warriors hit, and died meters from the APC when acid washed over him. V. Castro's 2022 novel Aliens: Vasquez filled in the years before that drop: a mixed juvenile prison, daily gym work with Vasquez, and the same Corps contract.
Origins And Prison
In the Aliens: Vasquez novel by Castro, Drake was already in the same mixed juvenile prison as Vasquez, a skinny blond with dirty hair and a scar at the corner of his left eye. He asked her to spot him on a bench, then they trained every recreation period. A prisoner named Hanson loaded extra weight on Drake to shame the pair, and Drake still finished the lift. The book never names Drake's crime, only the lockup and the gym. The film scar sits on the left cheek as well. Alan Dean Foster's Aliens novelization says surgeons could have fixed it and that Drake kept it on purpose.
A lawyer brought Vasquez a prison-to-Corps contract a few months before she turned eighteen. The same recreation hour, Drake already had the same news. They slapped palms on the pull-up bar and planned to walk out together. Aliens: Bug Hunt later filled earlier jobs for Apone's people, with Vasquez on those drops and Drake and Ferro missing from every story. The squad lost Stenbeck and Zeller on Clytemnestra, and Drake and Ferro could have joined later as replacements before LV-426.
Relationship With Vasquez
In Aliens: Vasquez he was homie, gym partner, and best friend, not a lover and not the father of Vasquez's twins. After they left lockup he drank at The Rooster, asked her to play wingman, and left with two women after she handed him condoms because he was short on cash. When she learned she was pregnant by recruit Lorenzo Sanchez, Drake's message was a short "I've got your back." On the Sulaco they still trained in the same room, buckled each other's smartgun harnesses, and hid spare power cells after Lieutenant Gorman ordered the guns cold near the reactor. James Cameron later pictured them coming out of a juvenile facility together, which matches the lockup. Fans often read the handshake as romance anyway.
In Pat Cadigan's book of William Gibson's unused Alien 3 script, Hicks later compared two lab workers to Vasquez and Drake as kids from a Brazilian favela. That did not match the prison story in Aliens: Vasquez.
Dropping To LV-426
Drake woke on the Sulaco next to Ellen Ripley. He told the squad they were not paid enough, then told Hicks he looked the way Drake felt. Hudson asked Vasquez if she had ever been mistaken for a man. After her reply, Drake told her she was just too bad, and they shook hands until she cuffed him. Before the drop he volunteered Hudson for Bishop's knife trick and held him down. Soon after, Drake and Vasquez trained their smartgun stance together. In the APC he only had to smack his helmet camera back on when Gorman lost the picture.
Colony Sweep
Apone let both smartgunners drop the M10 helmet because the gun sights got in the way. Drake wore a dark bandana, IR eyepiece, and boom-mic headset. He and Vasquez buckled each other into the harnesses, then followed the sweep through Hadley's Hope. Apone put him on Hicks's fireteam for the rooms, and the two of them took the second floor. When something moved in the ducts, Drake swung the smartgun onto Newt, and Hicks knocked the barrel up before he fired. Apone later sent Drake and Vasquez on point into the processor.
Hive Ambush
The processor floor opened into resin and cocooned colonists before the Warriors hit. Apone and most of the fireteams were dragged alive. Drake and Vasquez had already defied Gorman's no-fire order by loading spare battery packs after he told them to keep the guns cold near the reactor. Vasquez slammed a hidden cell home. "Let's rock" was the cue, and the two of them ripped off their headsets and fired back to back. The bursts tore up the reactor cooling as well as the hive, and they fell back toward the vehicle together while Ellen Ripley drove in to pull survivors out.
Death
Drake's smartgun ran empty meters from the hatch. He dumped the harness and brought up a flamethrower from his back. A Warrior closed on him from behind. Vasquez shifted fire and tore the creature open, and the acid blood hit Drake's face and chest. Foster has yellow fluid, smoke, and the flamethrower going off as he fell, which set part of the APC on fire. Hicks dragged Vasquez inside while she tried to go back for him, then sealed the door. That ended Drake's stand and forced the pullout. Ferro and Spunkmeyer died soon after when a stowaway Warrior hit the dropship cockpit.
Death In Newt's Tale
Dark Horse published Aliens: Newt's Tale as a two-issue miniseries in 1992, written by Mike Richardson and painted by John Bolton. The hive retreat stayed close to the film: Vasquez's burst hit the Warrior beside Drake, and green acid covered his face and chest. The comic put even more acid on him than the film showed. Aliens: Field Report and the Hungarian Aliens: Halál never showed Drake's death. Both are semi-adaptations of Aliens.
Drake Skin In Aliens: Colonial Marines
Aliens: Colonial Marines put Drake in competitive multiplayer as a Limited Edition skin, sold with Apone, Hicks, and Hudson as the four Aliens Marines in that pack. The in-game card called him Vasquez's smartgun partner, put him on the rearguard to the APC, and treated her shot on the Alien beside him as the splash that killed him. The model kept the bandana, boom mic, sleeveless shirt, and chest plate. The campaign did not find a body for him the way it later found Hudson under the colony.
Weapons And Equipment
On the drop he wore the M56 on its articulated harness, with the IR eyepiece and boom-mic headset over a bandana because the gun sights replaced the M10 helmet. Foster novelization also listed rifles, handguns, grenades, blades, and his teeth as weapons he could use. When the smartgun ran dry he switched to a flamethrower, still in M3 armor without the helmet stack. The wake-up still showed a tooth pendant and a dark cord on his chest, sensors still stuck to his skin after hypersleep. Armorers at Bapty & Co. hung the film prop on a Cinema Products Steadicam arm. Drake's receiver carried a painted MY BITCH, not Vasquez's ADIOS, and the two Steadicam arms were not identical builds.
Pfc. Drake As A Space Marine
Kenner's 1990s Aliens: Space Marines line sold a Drake figure and packed small Dark Horse comics with other Marines. Hicks' pack comic Showdown put Drake and Apone back in the fight after Hadley's Hope, with no explanation, now hunting bright hive variants under Lieutenant Ripley, outside Alien 3 continuity. Kenner's own card art put him in a sleeveless vest, orange strap, and headset against burning Xenomorphs, the same kid-line war the comics sold. The 1992 bio card claimed he was born in captivity and joined the Space Marines at 21, toy copy that does not match Aliens: Vasquez or the film.
Behind The Scenes
Mark Rolston read the same Hudson pages as the rest of the marine auditions and thought that was the part. Producer Gale Anne Hurd interviewed him first after he talked up a small role in Hugh Hudson's Revolution. The callback put him in front of Cameron at Pinewood, and the offer was Drake if he got in the gym. He put on about 35 pounds. A Lincolnshire stuntman who moved the power loader put him through the early workouts, then the marine cast trained together, including time with British SAS instructors. Rolston later recalled that Bill Paxton kept calling about how huge the film would be, which is why he bought a ticket to the premiere.
After Aliens he kept working as a character actor, including Bogs Diamond in The Shawshank Redemption. Cameron let the marine actors mark their own armor, and Rolston's on-screen kit stayed the bandana, eyepiece, and Steadicam gun rather than a named chest-plate slogan like Hudson's. In T. R. Napper's Aliens: Bishop, Hudson later counted Drake with Hicks as someone who treated the Bishop android like part of the unit.
Merchandise
Kenner shipped a 5-inch Drake in the 1992 Aliens Series 1 line as item 65750, packed with a smartgun, a removable bayonet, a rapid-fire sound in the torso, a bio card, and Dark Horse comic #5. He reached shelves before Vasquez. KB Toys later sold a green repaint. NECA did not add a movie-likeness Drake to the early 7-inch Aliens waves the way it did Hudson, Hicks, and Vasquez. In April 2020 it shipped a Kenner Tribute Drake instead, item 51682, about 7 inches, near 30 joints, with a large smartgun and a blade that mounts on the barrel or the figure's back.
Famous Quotes
Drake spoke less in Aliens than Hudson or Vasquez. The remembered lines are from the Sulaco wake-up and the briefing.
- "They ain't payin' us enough for this, man."
- "Hey, Hicks. Man, you look just like I feel."
- "Oh, Vasquez! You're just too bad."
- "Go, Vasquez. Kick ass, man."
Conclusion
Mark Drake was the Sulaco smartgunner who came out of a juvenile prison contract with Vasquez and died covering the hive retreat when her burst opened a Warrior beside him. Aliens: Vasquez gave him the gym and the handshake the film never explained. Foster kept the scar and the spare power cell. The acid at the APC hatch was the last clean exit he did not get.
Appearances
- Aliens (1986)
- Aliens novelization by Alan Dean Foster (1986)
- Aliens Colonial Marines Technical Manual by Lee Brimmicombe-Wood (1995)
- Aliens: Vasquez by V. Castro (2022)
- Aliens: Bishop by T. R. Napper (2023) - mention
- Alien 3: The Unproduced Screenplay by Pat Cadigan (2019) - remembered
- Aliens: Newt's Tale (1992)
- Aliens: Colonial Marines (2013)
- Kenner Aliens: Space Marines figure line
External Sources
- Aliens: Vasquez at Titan Books
- Mark Rolston on the Aliens casting at HeyUGuys
- NECA Kenner Tribute Drake product page
Tag Categories: Alien Universe Characters | Colonial Marine Lore | Alien Lore
