Alien3: Alone is a trading card-format comic that was published by Dark Horse Comics as part of the Alien3 trading card set from Star Pics in May 1992. It was written by Jerry Prosser, pencilled by Hoang Nguyen, inked by Paul Guinan, colored by Chris Chalenor, lettered by Cary Grazzini, and edited by Ted Adams.[1]
In Dark Horse's Aliens comics line, Alien3: Alone was preceded by Aliens: Tribes, published concurrently with Aliens: Harvest, and was followed by the movie adaptations Aliens: Newt's Tale and Alien3.
Overview[]
The comic consists of 9 trading cards (#71-79 of 80), each with original artwork by various artists on the front side and a single comic panel on the rear, with artwork by Hoang Nguyen. Together the comic panels form a short story set within the Alien universe.
Plot[]
On a quarantined planet, a man sits alone in a sanitarium, abandoned due to the illness from which he suffers.
In flashback, he tells of how he and the other patients quarantined with him — a father and daughter named Roger and Anne — discovered a ship that had crashed on the planet. Hoping the craft may still be capable of flying them off-world, the group investigated, only to find a single Xenomorph Egg on board. After bringing the strange object back to the sanitarium, Roger mysteriously disappeared. The narrator later found his body in a decrepit corridor, his chest burst open. Soon afterwards, Anne also disappeared, leaving behind only her treasured teddy bear, lying on the floor, soaked in blood.
As his story catches up to real time, the narrator, lamenting that he is now alone on the planet, is discovered by the full-grown Xenomorph in his room, the final panel showing a glaring closeup of the creature's salivating jaws as it prepares to headbite him.
Reprint History[]
For many years, Alien3: Alone was never collected or reissued. However, following Marvel Comics' acquisition of the rights to Alien comic books, it was included as part of Marvel's Aliens: The Original Years Volume 1 collection, alongside many other early Dark Horse stories. This marked the first time the previously rare trading card comic had ever been reissued in a mass market format. The collection was released in May 2021.
Behind the Scenes[]
Alien3: Alone is one of two Aliens stories from Dark Horse Comics that was released exclusively as part of a trading card set, the other being Operation: Aliens, included with the Aliens/Predator Universe set from Topps. However, it has since been collected by Marvel.