Aliens vs Avengers #1: The Best Crossover You Didn’t Know You Needed
Joe Meola ‘25 / Emertainment Monthly Staff Writer
This article contains spoilers.
In the grand scheme of popular culture, nothing tickles the fancy of audiences quite like crossovers. In the present day, fans have been blessed with big-budget blockbuster films like Avengers: Endgame and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, but the idea of crossovers long predates these films. This phenomenon ranges from classic movies like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein to television specials like Scooby Doo Meets Batman and Robin to—perhaps most frequently—the pages of American comic books. One prominent subject of comic book crossovers is the iconic Alien franchise. Beginning with Ridley Scott’s 1979 film Alien, this franchise has become a pop culture giant, spanning nine films, several video games, beloved toy lines, an upcoming streaming series, and various comic book series. The Alien comic books, published by Dark Horse Comics, have encaptivated fans and included crossovers with franchises ranging from the obvious like Predator to the more surprising like Judge Dredd and Batman. There was no shortage of incredible comic book crossovers!
All of this changed, however, when Walt Disney purchased 20th Century Fox, the company in possession of the Alien and Predator franchises, in 2019. As a result of this buyout, the comic book licenses for Alien and Predator were taken from Dark Horse and given to Marvel Comics, also owned by Disney. This shift left fans in distress. Not only did Dark Horse produce incredible standalone Alien and Predator stories that would become more difficult to purchase without buying them in expensive omnibus collections, but it was also likely that fans may never again see the beloved properties participate in crossovers with other franchises, given how Disney is infamously possessive of its properties and unwilling to produce crossovers. Fans were pleasantly surprised upon the announcement and release of Predator vs Wolverine, the first time one of these franchises has ever crossed paths with the Marvel Universe. This was followed by Predator vs Black Panther, and most recently, Aliens vs Avengers. Announced in April 2024, this mini series was perhaps the most exciting out of the recent Marvel crossovers, due to hype surrounding the then-upcoming release of the August 2024 film Alien: Romulus in addition to the all-star creative team behind the book. The series is penned by Jonathan Hickman, famous for expansive runs on The Fantastic Four, The Avengers, and X-Men. On art duty is Esad Ribić, known for his work on Thor, Conan the Barbarian, and Secret Wars, also written by Hickman. Due to the monumental status of this creative team, fans knew they were in for far more than a cross-promotional tie-in comic or soulless cash grab.
The debut issue, released on August 28, less than two weeks after the release of Romulus, does not open with the first meeting between the classic Avengers and the Xenomorph alien race, but rather it throws readers into a grim future in which Earth has already been almost completely overrun by Xenomorph invaders. Despite “Avengers” being in the title, this story touches on all corners of the Marvel Universe, which illustrates the larger scope of this story. Xenomorphs have been unleashed upon various alien species from the Marvel Universe—such as the Kree, Skrulls, and Shi’ar. Black Panther and his son, Azari—the child of T’Challa and Storm created for the Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow animated movie—are investigating the spread of the Xenomorphs throughout the galaxy in an attempt to preserve the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda. All of Earth’s mutant population has relocated to Mars, while Apocalypse remained on the mutant island of Krakoa for a final stand against the invaders. The surviving Avengers are joined by the Miles Morales incarnation of Spider-Man and Valeria Richards, the daughter of the Fantastic Four’s Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman. In addition to Miles and Valeria, the Avengers featured in this issue are Captain Marvel and Bruce Banner, inhabiting the last surviving city on Earth alongside “Old Man Weyland” from the Alien films—although it is not yet made clear which of the series’ two Weylands he is or if he is a new member of the Weyland family entirely. The use of this future time period and the inclusion of Weyland make this story feel as if it is the Marvel library of characters being placed in the Alien universe, while prior crossovers often threw the Xenomorphs into the universe of the other property being crossed over with it.
Moreover, this story feels thematically like an Alien story, depicting a small group of heroes struggling to survive in a hopeless situation and taking incredible risks in order to survive. This is demonstrated when Valeria brings a Xenomorph egg from outside the city in order for her and Bruce to run experiments on it. What follows is a series of events that hits many of the same story beats that an Alien film does. Valeria locks herself in her lab, revealing in a prerecorded message to Bruce that while infiltrating a Xenomorph hive to acquire the egg, she was attacked by a facehugger. Xenomorph facehuggers hatch from the eggs and latch onto the face of a host in order to plant seeds in the host body. These seeds develop into a wormlike creature called a chestburster, which quite literally bursts out of the chest of a host before becoming a fully-grown Xenomorph warrior. Keeping that in mind, Valeria’s message means that she’s out of time, and she warns Bruce not to unlock the lab. Bruce, of course, transforms into the Hulk and tears the door down before combating the fully-grown Xenomorph that had burst from Valeria. In the fight, the Hulk causes the alien to bleed, discovering that its blood is in fact acidic. Of course, another trope from the films is a struggle causing a character to discover the Xenomorphs’ acid blood.
The multitude of Alien tropes does not mean that this issue is without its fair share of Marvel Comics twists. The placing of the title heroes in a seemingly hopeless situation is not unlike many stories in both mainstream and alternative continuities featuring Marvel heroes, for example, and the story ends with the exciting reveal that Miles Morales is in possession of a Klyntar symbiote—it is unclear whether or not this symbiote is Venom, but it’s incredibly likely.
Esad Ribić’s art in this issue is nothing short of stellar. His characters and settings look like they’re straight out of a Renaissance painting—as his distinct use of shadow gives the work a hand-painted quality—while his action sequences are depicted in a gorgeously cinematic manner.
Aliens vs Avengers #1 is a thrilling start to what is sure to be an incredible crossover comic series. Even for those who are not familiar with either the Alien franchise or Marvel Comics lore, this issue still tells an enthralling story. This is an issue that demands to be read and reread as soon as possible and cements itself as one of the best #1 issues of this year, which itself has already given readers several incredible #1s.