Aliens (2009 short story)

Aliens is a comic book short story that was first published by Dark Horse Comics in Free Comic Book Day: Aliens/Predator in May 2009. It was written by John Arcudi, pencilled by Zach Howard, inked by Howard and Mark Irwin, colored by Brad Anderson, lettered by Nate Piekos, and edited by Chris Warner and Samantha Robertson. The story served to relaunch the Aliens comics lines after a ten-year hiatus and was a prequel to the four-issue series Aliens: More Than Human, produced by the same creative team.

Plot[]

The short story presents a recap of events in the Aliens line up to this point, from the Xenomorph infestation of Earth to their extermination and Earth's recovery from these events, when we are introduced to the lead characters of the 2009 Aliens limited series.

Reprint History[]

Dark Horse Comics[]

A second version of Free Comic Book Day: Aliens/Predator was published shortly after the initial release, as part of Aliens Day, featuring an Aliens variant cover by Chris Warner.

The story was later included in the trade paperback release of Aliens: More Than Human series, released in April 2010.

The Aliens story was released digitally through Dark Horse Digital on October 12, 2012.

Marvel Comics[]

Following Marvel Comics' acquisition of the rights to Alien comic books, the comic was collected as part of Marvel's Aliens: The Original Years Volume 3 collection, alongside many other later Dark Horse stories. The collection was released on November 22, 2022.

Behind the Scenes[]

This short story establishes that the events of the following series take place around the same time as 1991's Aliens: Genocide, which also illustrates Earth's recovery from the Xenomorph infestation seen in Aliens: Outbreak, while the events of Three World War also connect the story to the continuity of the existing Aliens vs. Predator comics from the 1990s.

Trivia[]

Aliens (2009 short story) is one of the few Aliens comics — along with Aliens: The Alien, Aliens: Genocide, Aliens: Music of the Spears and Aliens: Crusade — that illustrates developments on Earth after its infestation by Xenomorphs and thereby explains how the planet was able to recover from such a devastating event.