Written by: Christopher Sebela
Art by: Ariel Olivetti
Publisher: Dark Horse
Of all the Fire and Stone comics, the Aliens vs. Predator series has been the strangest. The first issue had little plot and tons of action, and I loved it for that, but as the series continued, it tried to find some kind of depth about what it means to be alive. I appreciate the effort, but as I finish Issue 4 and reflect on Issues 1 through 3, I can only see bad execution.
The biggest problem is one of dialogue, which has been mostly terrible all the way through. Issue 4 is no exception, and the first half is crawling with ham-fisted speech that made me cringe. Now that Francis is mutating, he gets his own share of poorly worded phrasing, such as, “It’s all alive. Even me!” as he punches a foe.
Meanwhile, Elden spends the first half of the comic begging a predator to explain his motives, asking the creature if they are any better than the Xenomorphs roaming the halls.
Some of this could work, truly, if the characters weren’t all terrible and not worth rooting for. These aren’t likeable villains, and their opinions mean little to me.
Francis mutating into some kind of Hulk-creature honestly feels unnecessary, like a last-ditch effort at being shocking. He’s not someone I’ve ever felt sorry for, yet his mutation isn’t played off as a vindicated comeuppance. When he screams out in pain, I feel like I’m supposed to care. I don’t.
When the monsters are attacking each other, I still can’t really find happiness. The artwork here isn’t as strong as it used to be, and the fight sequences just don’t have that savage fullness that the previous comics employed. There are one or two nice panels, but on the whole, I wasn’t impressed this time around.
The comic shines during its last four pages, when Elden and Francis get to have their final conversation. It’s not a perfect conversation, but the writing is much better here than it has been, and the ideas present—what it means to be alive, why do people live when life is so painful and hard to endure, etc—actually kind of work.
But I also feel like it’s too little too late, not when the past issues have primarily focused on Elden being an insane entity and Francis being a sociopath. To see both switch gears and wax poetic about philosophy is just out of place, even if the conversation is a good one.
The final panel, too, is also good. I just wish this level of thought had been present throughout the series and not at the very end.
