Aliens: Colonial Marines - Rising Threat

Aliens: Colonial Marines - Rising Threat was a cancelled eight-issue limited comic book series that was to be published by Dark Horse Comics from September 2019-April 2020. It was to have been written by Brian Wood, illustrated by Werther Dell'Edera, and colored by Michael Atiyeh, with cover art by Tristan Jones. Variant cover art would have been provided by Evan Cagle and Kyle Lambert.

The comic would have served as a tie-in to the upcoming video game being developed by Cold Iron Studios, and also featured the character Olivia Shipp from the novel Alien: Echo.^[1] However, the series was cancelled following accusations of sexual misconduct levied against Wood, leading to his dismissal from Dark Horse and the cancellation of the comic.^[2]

Had it been published, Aliens: Colonial Marines - Rising Threat would have been preceded by Aliens: Rescue.

Publisher's Summary

#1: Tying into the events from the upcoming Cold Iron Studios video game, this series delves into the formative years of the Colonial Marines. Introducing Olivia Shipp, leader of a squad of battle-weary Marines who have defied orders to rescue the survivors of a refinery under siege.

#2: Olivia Shipp and the Colonial Marines of the Typhoon find themselves fighting for their lives as they make their way toward a trapped engineer in a rescue operation that's starting to look more and more like a suicide mission.

#3: Given the lucky break of finding a mobile water drill rig, Olivia and the marines make their way through the alien-infested Katanga refinery toward the Xenomorphs' nest. Yet how long can their luck last when faced with the onslaught of the perfect killing machine?

#4: Having flushed the saboteur Wilkins out of his panic room, Olivia Shipp and her squad of Marines set about hunting him down. But the Alien nest has been awakened, and the Xenomorphs outnumber the humans one hundred to one. Add to that an unknown force taking control of their only way back home. It's looking more than a little FUBAR!

Behind the Scenes

Aliens: Colonial Marines - Rising Threat is one of a limited number of Aliens comics that have never been released anywhere; others include Aliens: Matrix, Aliens: Hive Wars and the final two chapters of Aliens: Crusade.

Trivia

Rising Threat would have been the third comic book to bear the Aliens: Colonial Marines title, after the original Aliens: Colonial Marines series from 1993/1994 and the one-shot Aliens: Colonial Marines - No Man Left Behind from 2012. It would also have been the second such comic to serve as a tie-in to a video game — Leave No Man Behind was a limited edition tie-in for the video game also called Aliens: Colonial Marines.
Following Wood's dismissal and the comic's cancellation, it is unclear if the series will be resurrected or reworked in some form under a different writing team.