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

Private Trevor Wierzbowski was a United States Colonial Marine rifleman on the USS Sulaco in Aliens, service number A14/TQ8.0.20034E7. He dropped on LV-426 with Apone's squad, carried an M240 into the processor, and was wounded when Frost's confiscated magazines cooked off. Hicks pulled him clear, then lost him in the hive. Aliens: Bug Hunt put him on the toxic moon Clytemnestra with that same squad.

Earlier Bug Hunts

Trevor Wierzbowski at the Sulaco mess table with Drake, Vasquez, Frost, and Hicks in Aliens

In Christopher Golden's Blowback, from the Aliens: Bug Hunt anthology, Wierzbowski was on Clytemnestra with Apone's later Sulaco people, under Lieutenant Emma Paulson. Weyland-Yutani sent them to clear glassy black fliers so a science team could take an atmospheric gas meant to stabilize a new fuel mix. Pulse rounds detonated the fliers because their body solvent was propane, a risk the company already knew about. Hicks repaired Wierzbowski's broken motion scanner during the surface fight. Stenbeck and Zeller died in that first engagement.

Alan Dean Foster's Aliens novelization put him at the Sulaco mess table with more talk than the film ever gave him. He guessed the yellow slab was cornbread, asked about an Arcturian liberty, and watched Ripley knock Bishop's plate away after the android offered her more of it. Hicks sat on his right, next to Vasquez. When Lieutenant Gorman used the word xenomorph in the briefing, Wierzbowski did not know it, and Hicks translated it as a bug hunt.

Drop On LV-426

Wierzbowski on the Sulaco hangar deck with Vasquez during dropship loading in Aliens

The Sulaco unit dropped to check the lost colony at Hadley's Hope. Wierzbowski shared First Squad's rifle team with Private Tim Crowe. In Foster's book he drove the APC with Bishop and braked across from the processor door. Hicks then put him on Ripley's right as a guard through the wrecked rooms. On film Frost drove that hull, and Wierzbowski stayed in the rifle line in M3 armor and an M10 helmet.

Hive Ambush

Private Wierzbowski holding an M240 flamethrower in the Hadley's Hope hive as flame lights the corridor

Gorman ordered the guns cold near the reactor, so Apone pulled the magazines and grenades and gave that bag to Frost. The three Marines with incinerators switched to flame, and Wierzbowski was one of them. In Foster's book he asked if Gorman was crazy when the rifles went dead. The floor opened into resin and cocooned colonists. When a living colonist birthed a Chestburster, Apone grabbed an incinerator and burned it, the only clear Xenomorph kill among the ground team before the ambush. Minutes later the Warriors came off the walls. Dietrich fired in the scramble, lit Frost and the bag, and was dragged up into the hive as a host.

Death

Hicks holding wounded Wierzbowski after the magazine cook-off in the Hadley's Hope hive in Aliens

Wierzbowski and Crowe ran toward that fire without seeing the magazines cooking off. Hicks yanked Wierzbowski clear a beat too late for Crowe. The blast threw Crowe into a wall and killed him. Footage trimmed from many releases showed Hicks propping Wierzbowski against a hive wall before the cut jumped to the shout. Hicks called "Wierzbowski?", not "Where's Bowski?". Cameron's script and Foster's book write the name the same way. A scream followed. Hudson later marked Apone and Dietrich as living on the board and did not list Wierzbowski with them.

Wierzbowski In The Comics

A Marine with an M240 flamethrower among the Sulaco team in Aliens: 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. It retold the fall of Hadley's Hope from Newt's side of the vents, including the processor sweep. Bolton painted two Marines with M240 units in that hive line. Wierzbowski was one of those background flame carriers, and the comic did not show his death. He did not appear in the other Alien comics.

Weapons And Equipment

Wierzbowski walking a Hadley's Hope corridor with an M240 flamethrower in Aliens

Wierzbowski went into the processor with an M240 incinerator, the same flame unit Frost carried on that sweep. He was the only incinerator Marine without a Heckler & Koch VP70 in the holster. The chest plate was stenciled WIERZBOWSKI and carried a painted pair of dice, with a TNR lamp on the shoulder and red-tipped shells clipped on the strap. The back plate read SPAM IN A CAN over a drawn can, the helmet had SKI above the name, and the codpiece said Spare Weapon with an arrow.

Merchandise

Diamond Select Aliens Minimate of Private Wierzbowski with a pulse rifle, helmet, and armor

NECA never shipped a movie-likeness Wierzbowski the way it did Hudson, Hicks, Frost, and Vasquez. Kenner's 1990s Aliens Series and Space Marines line also skipped him. The figure that did reach shelves is a Diamond Select 2-inch Minimate from the Aliens vs Marines Army Dump, designed by Art Asylum and released in October 2014 as item FEB142058. The window box packed a pulse rifle, removable armor with WIERZBOWSKI on the plate, a helmet, an alternate hair piece, and a stand, with 14 points of articulation. He used an M240 in the film, not that M41A Pulse Rifle. Gale Force Nine later put him in the 15-figure Heroes of Hadley's Hope set for Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps, item GF9ALIENS16, as a 30 mm hard-plastic miniature.

Behind The Scenes

Trevor Steedman was a British stuntman on the British Stunt Register when he read for Wierzbowski in a London hotel room James Cameron booked for the night. Most hopefuls got five minutes, but Steedman stayed about thirty-five, picked up a bit of wood as a gun, and came through a door onto the floor. Derek Cracknell, the first AD, called about five or six weeks later and told him to start the next Monday. He trained with the marine cast at Pinewood.

Cameron wanted a stuntman who could act rather than an actor who needed a double, and Steedman did his own cook-off gag across about a day and a half of shooting. A bone marrow transplant pulled him off the rain landing days, which is why the finished film first finds him inside the complex. The shooting script gave him the mess-table and briefing lines, and Frost spoke them on film. Cameron let the marine actors mark their own armor, which is how the dice, the spam can, SKI, and Spare Weapon landed on the kit. Steedman died of complications from a stroke on 25 June 2016.

Famous Quotes

Foster's novelization and Cameron's shooting script gave Wierzbowski lines that Frost spoke on film.

  • "Cornbread, I think."
  • "She don't like the cornbread either."
  • "A what?"
  • "Last stand."
  • "Is he crazy?"

Conclusion

Trevor Wierzbowski was the quiet Sulaco rifleman who went into the Hadley's Hope hive with an M240 and did not come back. Foster gave him the mess-table talk and the APC driver's seat. Bug Hunt put him on Clytemnestra with Apone's people. Hicks pulled him out of Frost's cook-off, then the hive took him off camera.

Appearances

Tag Categories: Alien Universe Characters | Colonial Marine Characters | Colonial Marine Lore | Alien Lore