Superman vs. Aliens II: God War Plot, Characters & Lore
Superman vs. Aliens II: God War is a four-issue crossover written by Chuck Dixon, penciled by Jon Bogdanove and inked by Kevin Nowlan, published by DC Comics and Dark Horse Comics between May and November 2002. An ancient craft full of Xenomorph eggs crashed on Apokolips, and Darkseid used the creatures as a weapon against New Genesis, infecting his own Parademons and sending them through a Boom Tube while Superman was visiting the New Gods. It is the sequel to Superman's first fight with the Xenomorphs on Argo City and one of the stranger Aliens crossovers, pitting the creatures against Jack Kirby's Fourth World.
Plot Summary
The Craft Falls On Armagetto
The first issue opened in Darkseid's control center on Apokolips, where Dr. Jinn caught an ancient craft in an acquisition field and tried to bring it down in a controlled descent. His calculations were wrong, and the ship came down on Armagetto, the slums of Apokolips, where Jinn warned that millions could die. Darkseid told him to proceed anyway, reasoning that the flimsy dwellings might cushion the impact and keep the object intact, and the craft plowed through the crowds before coming to rest with scanners reading multiple life energies aboard.
At the same time, Superman was on holiday on New Genesis, flying with Lightray over a world he called beautiful and saying he felt at peace in a place where nobody needed him to rescue them. Orion spoiled the mood by reminding him that New Genesis lived in the shadow of Apokolips, and that every god on the planet trained for the coming war of life against anti-life. When Superman caught a winged girl he thought was falling, she told him it was a controlled fall, and Lightray laughed that nothing on New Genesis was as simple as it seemed.
Darkseid went down to the cooled wreck with Desaad, Dr. Jinn and his guards, saying that he wanted to see for himself what manner of being dared to travel so close to Apokolips. Jinn guessed that the craft was eons old and could not determine where it came from, and its hold was full of dead creatures whose bodies looked as if they had been torn apart from the inside. Deeper in, they found that the readings came from beings in an embryonic state, and Jinn described the chamber as a construct much like a womb, full of creatures that were still gestating.
Darkseid's Specimen
When Darkseid leaned over one of the leathery eggs, a Facehugger sprang out and wrapped itself around his arm, but the lord of Apokolips simply held it up and studied it with a bored grunt. Dr. Jinn was fascinated by the larval creature and asked for permission to study its entire life cycle from as close as possible. Darkseid told him that he would certainly have that opportunity, and he added that many others would as well, a remark that the panicked scientist did not understand until it was far too late to refuse.
Back in Darkseid's laboratory, Jinn hung in a harness while the creature's work was done, protesting that this was not what he had meant, and Darkseid told him that he could now study the visitors firsthand and serve his lord with his life. Desaad was left to oversee the project, and soon Jinn accepted that he would die for the glory of Darkseid. With a final cry of his master's name, a Chestburster tore out of his chest and splattered the observation window with blood, while Darkseid watched with his hands folded behind his back and never flinched.
A Warning From The Source
On New Genesis, Highfather received a message from the Source written in letters of fire: a plague of horrors was coming, and a stranger to New Genesis would fall. The message also said that Apokolips nurtured this horror but did not give birth to it, that one would fall with a monster at his heart, that many would follow the one, and that all would follow the many. Highfather explained that the Source was never direct, that its truth shifted as the future did and that only a few strands of fate could be changed, and he said that he already feared he knew the stranger.
Darkseid's soldiers chased the escaped newborn through the lab with weapons drawn, and Desaad scolded them for risking harm to the specimen. When Vundabar asked how such an insect could help them subjugate their enemies, Darkseid called the creature only the tiniest gear in the machine of terror he planned to visit upon New Genesis, and said that from this seed would grow a nightmare. The narration hinted that his plan was larger than the newborn, as the caged Chestbursters multiplied beneath a horde of shrieking Parademons.
In the city, Superman walked with Big Barda and Lightray, enjoying the fact that nobody stared at him there, until Highfather and Orion joined them on a terrace overlooking the city. Superman said he had been planning to seek an audience, but Highfather told him that fate had brought them together and that his visit was not as recreational as he believed. Orion was blunter, saying that the Source had mentioned their guest from Earth, that war was coming and that Superman might be the cause of their destruction.
The Parademon Assault
A Boom Tube opened and an army of Parademons poured through, led by a massive war machine and screaming that they would make a graveyard of New Genesis. They cut down Ixix and Anaxia in the Hassar forests while Superman, Lightray and Barda flew into the fight, and Superman knocked out Colonel Harrendous, the commander Darkseid had chosen to lead the raid. Orion ignored Highfather's order to wait and consider their actions, shouting that Highfather was not his father, and charged into the battle with a fury that his Astro-Harness made almost unstoppable.
Lightray brought Harrendous before Highfather, but the commander only said that he was a cog in his lord's machine and laughed that he was expendable. While Lightray protested that Superman had not struck him fatally, a creature burst out of the colonel's body and was burned down before it could escape, and Metron told Highfather that he had seen the species on many worlds, all of them now dead. Highfather realized that the plague did not originate on Apokolips at all, which matched the words of the Source.
On the battlefield, the surviving Parademons suddenly stopped fighting and began to convulse, and Superman recognized what was happening with horror, saying only that it could not happen here. Thousands of Chestbursters erupted from the Parademons at once, and Superman realized that every Apokoliptian who had come through the Boom Tube was infected and that Darkseid meant to plant a colony on New Genesis. He told Barda that he had fought the creatures before, that they would evolve into much more dangerous forms and that the most dangerous of all was the Hivequeen, which had to be stopped.
Orion Is Infected
Superman and Barda smashed their way into the grounded war machine, where Superman said he hoped Barda would never know the horror the monsters could bring, and in its hold they found Orion with a Facehugger clamped over his face. Orion later woke in a medical bay of New Genesis, still raging about the Parademons who had dragged him into the craft, and Superman told him that the battle was over but that the worst was only beginning. The New Genesis medics showed him the dead creature that they had removed from his face and told him it had implanted something in his chest.
Superman explained that he had seen the species before and that it needed a host to gestate, growing inside the victim until its birth killed him. Orion first assumed the creature was one of Darkseid's tools for enslaving him, but Superman told him it was not his father's creation, that it would not control him and that it would simply kill him. Orion smashed a monitor showing the embryo, shouting that he was the greatest warrior of New Genesis and that he could not be brought low by a mere parasite.
Highfather reminded Orion that he was not alone, since his whole world now faced colonization by the creatures, which had hatched from the Parademons and were hiding in vast numbers in every shadow of New Genesis. Barda was already leading a band of warriors through a flooded passage toward their lair, keeping their weapons ready and remarking on the sharp, unfamiliar stench. Below them, the walls of the tunnel were already lined with the dark, ridged bodies of adult Xenomorphs waiting in the shadows.
The Swarm Beneath New Genesis
Barda's warriors were ambushed by a swarm of adult Xenomorphs, which were much larger than the vermin they had seen before, and Barda ordered her troops to kill them all and let none survive. The fight drove the defenders back, and Forager and his people, the Bugs, offered the survivors refuge in the tunnels they knew better than anyone. Meanwhile, Highfather called a council, where Orion insisted that the Queen's hive must be on Apokolips and Highfather warned that Darkseid could use a hivequeen to breed an army.
Superman vowed to go to Apokolips and end it, but Orion said that he was already doomed and would choose his own death, and he left alone through a Boom Tube. Superman followed him through, and Highfather admitted to Lightray that he had misread the Source, since the stranger who would fall with a monster at his heart was Orion, not the visitor from Earth. He said he now feared Orion's return more than his death, because the prophecy said many would follow the one and all would follow the many.
Barda, Forager and the giant warrior Jigundus fled deeper through the Bug tunnels with the Aliens close behind, as the creatures squeezed through every crack in the rock after them. Jigundus held up a collapsing section of roof long enough for the others to get through, then followed them out of the falling debris. Barda's group knew that they could not outrun the creatures forever in the dark, and Forager began working on a plan of his own that relied on the strange creatures of the Bug warrens.
The Feeding Fields
Superman and Orion arrived in Armagetto, where the slums were deserted and the ground was littered with bones and the shells of the creatures, and the place had become the hive's feeding fields. Superman joked that it was like Smallville on a Saturday night, but the joke died when hundreds of Facehuggers came skittering toward them across the ground. He told Orion to stand back and froze the leaping creatures with his super-breath, then smashed the frozen bodies as the rest of the swarm hurled itself against them.
Superman told Orion that the creatures were a disease that existed only for annihilation, with no purpose but to breed and to kill, and that he had seen what they did to a world once they took hold. Following the trail of the swarm, they found an opening into a huge hive built beneath the slums of Armagetto, its walls lined with cocooned citizens of Apokolips. Superman wanted to free the victims, but Orion knew that nothing could be done for them, since every one of them already carried an embryo.
Darkseid watched their arrival from his tower, welcoming his son home, while Desaad and Kalibak waited at his side, sure that his son had come back to the planet of his birth. When Kalibak grew restless, Darkseid struck him down and said that he intended to win a war, not a battle. Superman himself was already feeling the drain of the heavy clouds over Apokolips, which kept the light of any sun from reaching him and slowly sapped his strength.
Orion's Rage
Inside the hive, Superman wanted to find the Hivequeen and end the threat, but Orion turned on the Aliens and began slaughtering them with the blasts of his Astro-Harness. Superman called the killing pointless slaughter, and Orion answered that these were the creatures that had doomed him and that he would spend his rage on them as he pleased. When Superman reminded him of their mission, Orion said he was not so certain the Queen was the one they should be seeking, since the real source of the horror was Darkseid.
The two heroes fought through tunnels full of Aliens and fire, and as the swarm closed around Superman, he began to tire under the weight of the creatures piling onto him with no sunlight to restore him. Orion's beams tore through the hive around them, and the two of them pushed toward its core even as more of the creatures dropped from the walls. Back on New Genesis, Highfather and Lightray spoke of Orion's fate, unable to do anything but wait for word of what their champion would choose.
Forager's Beetles
Under New Genesis, Forager summoned a swarm of giant green beetles that sprayed the approaches to the burrow with a fluid that dried instantly to a frictionless surface. The Aliens that tried to climb after Barda's group slid back helplessly into the pit, and one of the survivors said it was as though the pit had been rimmed with ice. Barda praised Forager for his work, but Jigundus shouted that it was not quite done and pushed his way to the edge of the pit.
Jigundus brought down the walls of the pit with his strength, burying the creatures trapped at its bottom under tons of rock, and declared that now it was done. The victory gave the defenders of New Genesis a moment to breathe, but it did nothing about the hive on Apokolips or the embryo growing in Orion's chest. It also showed what the Bugs could do when the gods of New Genesis, who often looked down on them, finally accepted their help.
The Hive Queen
Deep in the hive, Superman was too weak to fly, and he made Orion promise not to kill the Queen but only to incapacitate her, because he had promised Highfather to bring Orion home. Orion said that the parasite was already wrapped around his heart, and the two of them shared a grim laugh before they entered the last chamber. There they found the Queen towering over a carpet of eggs, and Orion called her the mother of miseries while Superman said that this was the main event.
Orion broke his promise and attacked, but his blasts did not kill the Queen, and she seized him and taunted that if he killed her, he would kill one of his own, since he carried her offspring. Then Darkseid appeared in the chamber and fired his Omega Beams at the Queen, burning her away before turning the same power on Orion. He told his son that he was condemned to die from the creature in his chest, that this was not a warrior's death, and that he would not watch Orion become a husk for a lesser order of being.
Orion screamed as the Omega Beams struck him, but he woke to find himself still alive, and he asked his father why he had saved him, since Darkseid spoke as though he had never sinned against his son. Darkseid answered that Orion was his enemy but also his son, and he opened a Boom Tube and told him to return to his adopted home. Superman helped the weakened Orion through, telling Darkseid that they would meet again, and Darkseid replied that on that day Superman would regret this moment of compassion.
A Secondary Tactic
Superman and Orion returned to a heroes' welcome on New Genesis, and the people celebrated in the belief that the horror was over and that they had sidestepped fate once again. Only Highfather saw the lie and suspected a darker truth, and on Apokolips, Darkseid said that his son's discomfort was nectar to him. He explained to Desaad that Orion had a warrior's heart that knew only loyalty where there should be love, and that by saving his life, he had planted a seed of doubt that might one day grow into betrayal.
Desaad praised his master's mastery of deceit, but Darkseid added that every strategy needed to account for many eventualities. Should Orion's loyalty to New Genesis prove stronger than his kinship to his father, he would hold a secondary tactic in reserve, and the final page revealed row after row of tanks holding hybrids of Parademons and Xenomorphs. Darkseid said that he could unleash hell on New Genesis once again whenever he chose, and the story ended on that promise of another war.
Key Characters
- Superman was visiting New Genesis when the Parademons attacked, recognized the Xenomorphs from his earlier fight with them and followed Orion into the hive on Apokolips.
- Orion was the warrior son of Darkseid raised on New Genesis, who was implanted by a Facehugger and went to Apokolips to choose his own death.
- Darkseid was the ruler of Apokolips, who used the creatures from the crashed craft as a weapon and finally burned the Queen with his Omega Beams.
- Big Barda led the warriors of New Genesis against the Aliens in the tunnels beneath the planet.
- Highfather was the leader of New Genesis, who received the Source's prophecy and later realized that the stranger in it was Orion.
- Forager was a warrior of the Bugs, who sheltered the survivors in his tunnels and stopped the Aliens with frictionless beetle fluid.
- Dr. Jinn was the Apokoliptian scientist who brought down the craft and became the first host on Apokolips.
- The Xenomorph Queen built her hive under the slums of Armagetto until Darkseid destroyed her.
Editions
The four issues came out in May, July, September and November 2002 under a joint DC Comics and Dark Horse indicia, priced at $2.99 each, with Jon Bogdanove and Kevin Nowlan drawing every cover. The first cover shows Superman standing in front of a Xenomorph with the face of Darkseid rising over the horizon, and the later covers put Superman and Orion in the middle of the swarm. Dark Horse collected the series as the Superman/Aliens II: Godwar trade paperback in July 2003, a 96-page book that spells the subtitle as a single word.
The story picks up from the first series, with Superman telling Barda that he had fought the creatures before and calling his knowledge of them bitter experience, though it never mentions Kara or Argo City by name. His other meetings with the franchise came in Superman vs. Predator in 2000 and Superman and Batman vs. Aliens and Predator in 2007, and together they form a long history with both species. Darkseid's hybrid tanks set up a third war with the creatures, but the series ended there and left that threat hanging over New Genesis.
Behind The Scenes
Chuck Dixon was best known for his long runs on Batman titles such as Nightwing and Robin, and he built God War around the characters of Jack Kirby's Fourth World rather than Superman's own supporting cast. Moving the story to New Genesis and Apokolips gave the Aliens a world of gods to infest, and it let Dixon use the creatures as a weapon in the old war between Darkseid and Highfather. The book's emotional center is Orion, a warrior who learns that his own death is growing inside him, rather than Superman himself.
Jon Bogdanove had drawn Superman: The Man of Steel through much of the 1990s, and his heavy, blocky style fits the Kirby designs of the New Gods. Kevin Nowlan, who had inked the first series, returned as inker and cover artist, which gives the two books a shared look in the slime and texture of the hive. The story also adds ideas of its own to the creatures' lore, such as Chestbursters erupting from thousands of Parademons at once and Darkseid breeding hybrids from his own soldiers.
Conclusion
Superman vs. Aliens II: God War is Chuck Dixon, Jon Bogdanove and Kevin Nowlan's 2002 sequel that sent the Xenomorphs into the war between New Genesis and Apokolips. It moved from a derelict craft crashing on Armagetto to an invasion of Parademon hosts, an infected Orion and a hive full of eggs beneath the slums of Apokolips. Its ending, with Darkseid burning the Queen and sparing his infected son, turns the creatures into another of his schemes. It is less personal than the first series, but it is a strange and memorable meeting between the Aliens and the gods of the DC universe.
External Sources
- Superman/Aliens II: Godwar TPB on Dark Horse
- Superman/Aliens II: God War on the DCU Guide
- Superman/Aliens 2: God War on the Grand Comics Database
Tag Categories: Alien Comics | Alien And Predator Crossovers
