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Batman/Aliens II, originally titled Batman/Aliens Two, is a three-issue limited crossover comic book series that was first published by DC Comics and Dark Horse Comics from December 2002-February 2003. It was written by Ian Edginton, pencilled by Staz Johnson, inked by James Hodgkins, colored by Gregory Wright, lettered by John Workman, and edited by Michael Wright, with cover art by Johnson and Hodgkins.
Batman/Aliens II was a sequel to 1997's Batman/Aliens.
In the overall Dark Horse crossover comics line, Batman/Aliens II was preceded by Superman vs. Aliens II: God War, published concurrently with Judge Dredd versus Aliens: Incubus, and was followed by Superman and Batman vs. Aliens and Predator.
Publisher's Summary[]
#1: A Gotham City construction crew uncovers a sealed vault housing an unspeakable horror! Eighty years ago, an expedition to the South Pole uncovered a crashed spaceship, a spaceship containing the bloodthirsty Aliens. Now, after years in hibernation, a nearly desiccated Alien is unleashed upon the modern world. And it's very, very hungry! Only one man has a chance of stopping this murderous beast... the Dark Knight Detective known as Batman!
#2: A black-ops government agency has taken over the Aliens case! But there's still at least one very fierce, very hungry Alien on the loose in Gotham City! Can Batman stop it from wreaking havoc in Arkham Asylum?
#3: The thrilling conclusion to the 3-issue Prestige Format series! Batman's been imprisoned in a secret government base... but even if he escapes to face his mysterious abductor, he'll have to battle a fearsome cadre of super-soldiers biologically engineered from the DNA of captured Aliens and Arkham's most notorious psychopaths!
Plot[]
Mount Erebus, Antarctica, 1928. Two men, each fighting for their survival, were attacked by a horde of Alien creatures before a timed explosion seemingly destroyed them all.
Gotham City, seventy years later. During a routine excavation, workers at a DeCristo Construction site uncovered a brick structure with one point of entry that had been vaulted shut. Following a preliminary investigation by Mr DeCristo himself, the decision was made to make a forced entry into the vault where a cache of decades-old scientific machinery was discovered alongside a desiccated corpse with a hole in its chest. Before the workers had time to react, an Alien creature, completely white in color, violently escaped from the vault, leaving a trail of human corpses in its wake.
While conducting a crime scene investigation of the buried structure with Commissioner Jim Gordon, Batman discovered an Alien hive within. Fearing the worst, the events detailed in a handwritten journal left behind by the deceased scientist confirmed Batman's suspicions. The alien creatures he once encountered in Central America were presently terrorizing Gotham. When the Commissioner is finally briefed on the true nature of the creature they're dealing with, he decides to call in federal authorities. Soon after, Batman discovered four cocooned human bodies above a number of opened and dispensed Alien eggs in an abandoned subway platform, one of which had already birthed an Alien organism that soon attacked the masked vigilante.
While Batman squared off against the two fully grown creatures, the three remaining victims with creatures still attached to their faces were quickly taken by federal agents.
Reprint History[]
Cover to Batman/Aliens II trade paperback by Johnson.
After its initial publication under the original title Batman/Aliens Two, the series received its current title, Batman/Aliens II, when it was collected in trade paperback form, released in September 2003, featuring a modified version of Staz Johnson's cover to issue 2 that repeated the circular Batman-fighting-an-Alien motif.
Batman/Aliens II was collected again, alongside the other crossover stories that pit Batman against the Xenomorphs, in the DC Comics/Dark Horse Comics: Aliens trade paperback, released in April 2016. The release used a modified version of Staz Johnson's cover to Batman vs. Aliens II #2.
Behind the Scenes[]
United Kingdom-based writer Ian Edginton worked on a number of Aliens, Predator and Aliens vs. Predator comics for Dark Horse over the years, perhaps most notably Aliens: Rogue and Aliens vs. Predator: Eternal.
The circular Batman-fighting-an-Alien motif featured on the cover of issue 2 and later repeated against a black background for the trade paperback would become the most common cover motifs for Aliens and Aliens vs. Predator comics in the 2000s, being adapted/repeated on the covers of the Aliens versus Predator versus The Terminator trade paperback edition (showing all three movie monsters fighting) and Alien vs. Predator: Civilized Beasts (showing an Alien and a Predator locked in combat).
Batman/Aliens II is notable as one of the few Aliens stories to depict the scientific procedure of gene-splicing to create Spliced Xenomorphs, which are bred for sole purpose of being more obedient and controllable. Gene-splicing is also a plot device in another Aliens crossover story, Predator vs. Judge Dredd vs. Aliens: Splice and Dice, as well as Aliens: Rogue and Operation: Aliens.
Goofs[]
- While the solicitation for issue #1 states the ill-fated arctic expedition seen in the stories prologue took place eighty years earlier, it was stated within the comic itself that only seventy years have since passed.
- During a flashback sequence, it was mentioned that the events of Batman/Aliens took place in South America, while the story actually took place in the North American countries of Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize.
Gallery[]
Issue covers[]
