Predator vs. Judge Dredd vs. Aliens: Splice and Dice

By , Founder & Editor, covering Alien vs. Predator since 2001

Predator vs. Judge Dredd vs. Aliens: Splice and Dice is a four-issue crossover written by John Layman and drawn by Chris Mooneyham, with colors by Michael Atiyeh. Dark Horse Comics published it with IDW and 2000 AD from July 27, 2016 to June 14, 2017, and the Splice and Dice subtitle came with the 2017 trade paperback. Judge Dredd and Judge Anderson chased a robot cult leader from the Cursed Earth into the Alabama Morass, where the geneticist Dr. Niels Reinstöt had captured a Predator and was growing Aliens from a Xenomorph skull. The Judges joined the captured hunter's Predator clan against Reinstöt, then followed him to Mega-City One when he unleashed his hybrids on the city.

Plot Summary

The Captured Predator

Two Ani-Men, one of them the stag-headed Buck, looking over the skulls in the crashed Predator's trophy room

A few weeks before the Judges arrived, a lone Yautja came down in the swamps and jungle of the Alabama Morass, a wild stretch of the Cursed Earth outside Mega-City One. In Chris Mooneyham's sketchbook this hunter is Castaway, the Predator with the classic helmet and armor. He had come for prey, but a pack of Ani-Men hunted him instead. These were talking animal hybrids, including a gorilla, a bear, a rhinoceros, a raccoon, and a stag-headed man called Buck. They speared the Predator, brought him down, and took him alive because their creator, Dr. Reinstöt, wanted to study the space man's DNA.

The Ani-Men then searched the hunter's crashed ship. They found an arsenal of weapons and a trophy room lined with skulls. Buck sent the weapons to their compound and the trophies to the doctor's laboratory. Among the skulls was the head of a Xenomorph, and the Ani-Men trusted that Reinstöt could do almost anything once he had the right DNA.

Archbishop Emoji In Isotope Gulch

Judge Dredd rode motorcycles into the Cursed Earth with three other Judges: the psychic Judge Anderson, Judge Gilligan, and Judge McCrary. They were tracking terrorist fugitives from Mega-City One to Isotope Gulch, a settlement near the Alabama border. The fugitives were robot followers of Archbishop Emoji, a robot messiah whose cult had burned half of the John Corbett Block. Inside a bar, Anderson picked out patrons who were disguised robots using holographic inducers.

The red-robed cultists fought back, and Dredd, Anderson, and Gilligan brought them down. One escaped, and Dredd stopped it with a heat-seeking round from his Lawgiver. Under questioning, a cultist admitted that they had been left behind as a distraction while Emoji fled on a bike. Through binoculars Dredd saw that the archbishop had gone west into the Alabama Morass, the swamp and jungle between Lake Louisiana and Texas City. The locals warned that trespassers never came out of the Morass alive, but Dredd followed anyway.

Reinstöt's Laboratory

Dr. Niels Reinstöt holding a Facehugger to the face of the Predator strapped into his laboratory chair

In his laboratory in the Morass, Dr. Niels Reinstöt, a small man with four spider-like eyes who called himself the Geneticist Supreme, admired the Xenomorph skull from the Predator's trophies. He had made the Ani-Men himself by splicing human and animal DNA. The captive Predator was strapped into a chair beside him, bandaged across the mouth and chest. From a few strands of DNA taken from the skull, Reinstöt had grown a Facehugger, and he placed it on the hunter's face.

Buck then reported that surveillance robots had picked up Judges crossing into the Morass. Reinstöt ordered the Ani-Men to bring them to him, because he had plans for them as well. Buck also warned him about a second group of trespassers. Four more Predators had landed and found the captured hunter's distress beacon, and the Ani-Men could tell that these visitors came from somewhere much farther away than Mega-City One.

Into The Alabama Morass

The four Predators of the rescue party reading the tracks of their captured clanmate in the Alabama Morass

The four Predators had been returning from a hunt when they picked up the distress signal. It led them to the overgrown swamp in a radioactive wasteland on Earth's northern continent. From animal tracks and vehicle tracks they worked out that one of their own had been chased, wounded, and captured. Their leader, Bosu, had hunted on this planet before and knew something about humans, but the trail through the Morass made little sense even to him. Bosu wore a skull on his belt and two shoulder cannons, the design the sketchbook calls Boss. With him were Two-Face, who wore a Xenomorph ribcage as chest armor, Blade, with a grey helmet and long curved wristblades, and Snare, who carried a long electro snare staff.

Dredd and his Judges caught up with Archbishop Emoji in the jungle. The robot fired back from his bike and hit Gilligan, so Dredd switched his Lawgiver from armor-piercing to high-explosive rounds and blew the bike apart. He read the wrecked archbishop a long list of charges, starting with the firebombing of the John Corbett Block, and passed sentence with a final shot. Anderson then sensed minds closing in from every side.

The Ani-Men ambushed the Judges and overpowered them. The Predators reached the wreck soon after, found the leaking machinery and signs of the fight, and concluded that the humans had been taken by the same creatures that had captured their clanmate. They activated their cloaking devices as a precaution. Back in the Ani-Men's village, Buck scolded the hybrids who had lost track of the four space men.

Prisoners In Lab 13

The Predalien grown from the captive hunter loose in Reinstöt's laboratory while Judge Dredd is held in a restraint frame

The Judges woke up in restraint frames in Lab 13, and Dredd recognized his captor. Five years earlier, a man posing as an officer of the Department of Disease Eradication had given the children of City Orphanage BD36-30 in Mega-City One injections that mutated them. He took one orphan hostage on a ledge high on the orphanage building and named himself as Dr. Niels Reinstöt. Dredd sentenced him to death and shot him. Reinstöt explained that the dead man had been a decoy, infused with his DNA and dosed with the drug Psychine so that he would act like a killer while the real doctor escaped.

Anderson read his mind and found it full of madness and spiders. Reinstöt had started with insect and spider DNA, and his early results were crude and unstable. He had moved to the Alabama Morass to work on mammals away from the city's academics and the Justice Department, and he considered the Xenomorph skull a gift of perfection that had fallen out of the sky. He injected Judge McCrary with a formula built from its DNA, and McCrary changed painfully into a Xenomorph hybrid with an Alien's head. Then he put a Facehugger on Gilligan.

The doctor showed the Judges what the parasite had done to the captive hunter. A Chestburster had torn out of the Predator, and the creature it grew into was a Predalien. Buck interrupted with news that the four Predators had found the village and were attacking it. Before he fled, Reinstöt had the bear-man Gobi carry off Anderson, whom he wanted to turn into a Queen. Dredd had once tried to kill him, so the doctor switched off the locks and force field of the quarantine room and left the restrained Judge to the Predalien and the hybrid that had been McCrary.

While that happened, the story of Archbishop Emoji was filled in. The robot had hated humans, and the Judges had driven him out of Mega-City One. His head and torso had survived Dredd's sentence in the jungle, and the Ani-Men found him while they were rounding up Judges for Reinstöt's experiments. Emoji came to believe that the Morass held the key both to salvation and to the destruction of Mega-City One.

Alliance With The Yautja

Judge Dredd and Judge Anderson setting out with three Predators to hunt Reinstöt's Xenomorph hybrids

The Predators tore through the Ani-Men's village and turned the hunters into the hunted. Reinstöt escaped with the unconscious Anderson and planned to implant her with a Queen embryo. Even unconscious, Anderson had reached into the mind of the hybrid that had been Judge McCrary. Back in the lab she turned it against the Predalien and wounded it, and for a few seconds she controlled it long enough to cut Dredd free.

Dredd carried Gilligan out of the lab with the Facehugger still on his face. Outside, dead Ani-Men lay everywhere. Two-Face threw a forked spear through Gilligan's chest and killed both the Judge and the parasite. Dredd treated it as the murder of a Judge and attacked the hunter with his fists until Anderson arrived, stopped the fight, and vouched for the Predators as allies.

Reinstöt had surrendered to the hunters, and he was locked in a holding cell with the last surviving Ani-Men. Using her psychic powers, Anderson could understand the Yautja and explained their code of honor to Dredd. Prey that begged for mercy was unworthy, and better prey came first. The scarred hunter who had killed Gilligan removed his mask and explained that it had been a mercy, since nothing could have saved the Judge in time. The Yautja also knew what the Aliens would do if they reached a city. Anderson returned Dredd's Lawgiver, and he agreed to hunt with them.

The Hunt In The Morass

The hybrid that had been Judge McCrary, still wearing his badge, leaping onto the Predator leader Bosu in the jungle

Dredd, Anderson, Bosu, Blade, and Two-Face went into the jungle after the two hybrids, which had escaped once Reinstöt shut down the force fields. Anderson sensed them nearby. Nothing of Judge McCrary was left in the creature that had been him, though it carried his DNA. It dropped onto Bosu while wearing the remains of McCrary's uniform and badge.

The Predalien came out next, and Dredd met it with his Lawgiver on rapid fire. While Bosu wrestled the McCrary hybrid, Blade drove his wristblades through it, and its acid blood sprayed across his mask and burned him. With both hybrids on the ropes, Dredd, Anderson, and Two-Face fired together, the Judges with their guns and Two-Face with his plasmacaster, and blew both creatures apart. Dredd said they had been lucky, since the Predalien was already injured, but it had gone worse for some of them, and Blade did not survive the acid. Dredd decided not to charge the Yautja over Gilligan's death, since the Judge could not have reached Mega-City One in time. He still wanted the Predators off the planet. They agreed to leave Reinstöt and the Ani-Men for the Judges to sentence, and Anderson relayed that they were calling a crewmate to prepare their starship for takeoff.

The call was answered by Reinstöt. Their crewmate was dead, and the Predator ship was already climbing away. Archbishop Emoji had freed the doctor from his cell, and the robot of faith and the man of science had found a shared purpose. The cargo hold carried Xenomorphs with horns and tusks, grown from Reinstöt's Ani-Men. They were heading for Mega-City One, where Emoji meant to deliver salvation and Reinstöt meant to deliver the apocalypse.

Mega-City One Overrun

Judge Dredd confronting the elephant-like Ani-Man Xenomorph as it attacks a woman outside a Mega-City One construction site

Archbishop Emoji had told his followers in Mega-City One to gather outside his church for a front-row view of the end of the world. The stolen ship landed among them, and Reinstöt's hybrids slaughtered the crowd. Reinstöt watched beside the archbishop and called the massacre purification. He declared that adding Xenomorph DNA had at last given him genetic perfection, then injected himself in the neck with a serum and turned a pistol on Emoji.

About two hours later, Dredd and Anderson entered the city's airspace in the Predator ship that had crashed in the Morass, which the hunters had patched together. Dredd asked Control for backup at the Willie Ames Block. Control refused and ordered the unregistered craft to land for inspection at the Hall of Justice. It was busy with a bombing, a pile-up on a slipzoom, and a gang loose in a neighboring block, and the only calls from Ames Block were noise complaints about animal sounds. Dredd switched off the radio. Bosu and Two-Face were all the backup he had.

They landed beside Reinstöt's ship among the dead cultists, and Anderson could not find the doctor with her psychic scan. The hunters wanted to split up, but Dredd refused to let off-world hunters loose in his city without supervision. The Yautja tracked the hybrids through the city as well as they had in the swamp. The group found fresh blood without enough bodies, killed one hybrid that attacked a street dealer, and fought an elephant-like hybrid that went after a woman outside a construction site on Level 53. Across from the Aggro Dome on Level 14, a third creature grabbed a citizen and carried him off alive, and Dredd held his fire so they could follow it.

The Hive In The Reclaim Site

Reinstöt transformed into a spider-legged Queen in her web above the eggs of the Mega-City One hive

The creature led them into an abandoned reclaim site. Inside was a field of Xenomorph eggs and tunnels lined with cocooned citizens, the people missing from the Willie Ames Block. A horned hybrid speared Bosu through the body from behind with its tail and grabbed Dredd. In the brawl among the eggs, Anderson's pistol was broken, and Two-Face was fighting in the middle of the creatures, so Dredd had no clean shot. Dredd set his Lawgiver to incendiary rounds at maximum temperature and burned the creature, then finished it with armor-piercing fire.

The flames also caught Two-Face. Dredd pulled the unconscious hunter clear and apologized, since he would wake up with a few more scars but would wake up. By then Anderson had gone deeper into the hive alone, following a presence she could feel in her head. Eggs opened around her, and in a web above them she found Reinstöt. He had become a giant spider-legged Xenomorph Queen.

End Of The Hunt

Judge Dredd dropping a Yautja cloak and firing high-explosive Lawgiver rounds into the Reinstöt Queen

Anderson worked out that Reinstöt had injected himself with the serum he had saved to turn her into a Queen. His spider DNA had made the result worse. Inside the Queen's mouth was a small face with spider eyes, and it promised her death. Anderson went on talking so that the Queen and its young watched only her. Behind them, Dredd was approaching under a Yautja cloaking device.

Dredd dropped the cloak and fired every high-explosive round in his Lawgiver into the Queen, and the blast threw eggs and Facehuggers across the hive. Dredd brought the burned Two-Face out, Anderson brought out two of the cocooned citizens, and they left the hive to burn. Dredd reported the alien organisms eliminated and called in medics, coroner wagons, fire crews, and a clean-up team for the Willie Ames Block. He also told Control they would discuss later why it had refused his first request for backup.

At the Predator ship, Two-Face, the last of the rescue party, thanked Dredd through Anderson for his part in the hunt and in avenging his friends. He called Dredd a worthy warrior and an honorable hunter who would be a challenge in single combat, which was the highest compliment he could give. Dredd told him to take his trophy, a horned skull from one of the hybrids, and leave. If he came back he would be breaking Earth's law and Dredd's law, and Dredd wanted the rest of his people told that Earth was off limits. The ship lifted off over Mega-City One, and hunting season was over.

Key Characters

Dr. Niels Reinstöt boasting about the Ani-Men beside the Predator strapped into his laboratory chair
  • Judge Dredd followed Archbishop Emoji's cult from Isotope Gulch into the Alabama Morass. He fought a Predator over Judge Gilligan's death, hunted the hybrids with the Yautja in the Morass and in Mega-City One, and killed the Reinstöt Queen with high-explosive rounds.
  • Judge Anderson was the psychic Judge on Dredd's patrol. Reinstöt chose her as the host for a Queen, and she used her powers to turn the McCrary hybrid, to translate for the Predators, and to hold the Queen's attention while Dredd closed in.
  • Dr. Niels Reinstöt was the mad scientist who made the Ani-Men and grew Aliens from the Predator's Xenomorph skull. He escaped with Archbishop Emoji to Mega-City One, injected himself with the Queen serum, and died as a spider-legged Queen in the reclaim site hive.
  • Archbishop Emoji was a robot cult leader who spoke in emoji and text abbreviations. He survived Dredd's sentence as a head and torso, freed Reinstöt, and brought the hybrids to his own followers outside his church, where they were killed.
  • Bosu led the four Predators who came to rescue their captured clanmate. He had hunted on Earth before, and his party stormed the Ani-Men's village and then hunted Reinstöt's creatures alongside the Judges. A horned hybrid impaled him with its tail in the Mega-City One hive.
  • Two-Face was the scarred Predator who wore a Xenomorph ribcage as armor. He killed Gilligan, helped destroy the Predalien with his plasmacaster, survived Dredd's incendiary rounds in the hive, and was the only one of the rescue party to leave Earth.
  • Judge Gilligan was wounded chasing Emoji and then given a Facehugger in Reinstöt's lab. Two-Face killed him with a spear before the embryo could emerge, and the hunter treated it as a mercy.
  • Judge McCrary was injected with Reinstöt's Xenomorph formula and turned into a hybrid with an Alien's head. Anderson used it to free Dredd, and it was later shot apart beside the Predalien in the Morass.
  • Buck and Gobi were Ani-Men who served Reinstöt. Buck, a stag-headed man, led the hybrids who captured the first Predator, and Gobi, a bear, carried off Anderson for the doctor.

Editions

Dark Horse Comics published Predator vs. Judge Dredd vs. Aliens as a four-issue miniseries, co-published with IDW and 2000 AD. John Layman wrote it, Chris Mooneyham drew it, Michael Atiyeh colored it, and Michael Heisler lettered it. Glenn Fabry painted the covers and chapter breaks with Adam Brown. Patrick Thorpe edited the collection with assistant editor Cardner Clark, and Patrick Satterfield designed it.

Issue one came out on July 27, 2016, and issue two followed on August 31, 2016. Issue three slipped to December 7, 2016, and the final issue did not arrive until June 14, 2017. Dark Horse Books collected all four issues as Predator vs. Judge Dredd vs. Aliens: Splice and Dice on October 4, 2017. The 104-page trade paperback reused Fabry's first-issue cover, and its indicia lists the first edition as September 2017.

Behind The Scenes

The Predator designed as Two-Face, wearing a Xenomorph ribcage as chest armor, cutting through Ani-Men in their village

Splice and Dice was not Dredd's first crossover with either species. He had fought a lone hunter in Predator vs. Judge Dredd and a hive in Judge Dredd vs. Aliens: Incubus, and an editor's note in issue two points readers to Incubus when Dredd says he knows what the Aliens can do. John Layman was known for his series Chew, and Chris Mooneyham had drawn Five Ghosts and Predator: Fire and Stone. The series was announced at Emerald City Comicon in 2016.

The trade paperback closes with a sketchbook of Mooneyham's designs with notes on Atiyeh's colors. Reinstöt was modeled on Bela Lugosi in White Zombie, a small European-looking man in classic mad scientist clothes with four large spider eyes. The five Predators were designed as Blade, Two-Face, Castaway, Boss, and Snare. Blade had long spines and an oversized wristblade, and Two-Face wore Xenomorph chest armor and had a badly scarred right side of the face with no mandibles. Castaway had the classic helmet, the original AVP armor, and a scatter gun, Boss carried two shoulder cannons and long blue dreadlocks, and Snare had extra cranial ridges, an energy lasso, and a retractable electro snare. Only the leader is named in the story, as Bosu, so the other names come from the sketchbook. Snare was with the rescue party in the Morass but was not part of the later hunt with the Judges. Archbishop Emoji got a 1950s-style television screen for a face, a beard of cables, and a mitre built into his head.

Conclusion

Predator vs. Judge Dredd vs. Aliens: Splice and Dice is John Layman and Chris Mooneyham's four-issue crossover from Dark Horse, IDW, and 2000 AD, published between 2016 and 2017. It takes Judge Dredd and Judge Anderson from a cult hunt in the Cursed Earth into Dr. Niels Reinstöt's laboratory, where a captured Predator becomes the source of a Predalien and the doctor's Xenomorph hybrids. The Judges and the captured hunter's clan follow Reinstöt to Mega-City One, and Dredd kills him in a hive under the city after he turns himself into a Queen. The last surviving Predator, Two-Face, leaves Earth with Dredd's warning not to come back.

External Sources

Tag Categories: Avp Comics | Alien And Predator Crossovers