Aliens: Defiance

Aliens: Defiance is a 12-issue^[1] limited comic book series that was first published by Dark Horse Comics from April 2016-June 2017. It was also published simultaneously in the digital format via Dark Horse Digital. The story was written by Brian Wood, illustrated and inked by Tristan Jones, Riccardo Burchielli, Tony Brescini and Stephen Thompson, colored by Dan Jackson, lettered by Nate Piekos and edited by Spencer Cushing and Kevin Burkhalter, with cover art by Massimo Carnevale and Stephanie Hans. Hans, Sachin Teng and Mark A. Nelson also provided variant covers for the first issue. The series was released alongside the tie-in short story Aliens: Defiance - Extravehicular, produced by the same creative team.

The comic, set between Alien and Aliens, tells the story of Private Zula Hendricks, a rookie Colonial Marine who goes A.W.O.L. to defend Earth from the Xenomorphs. She is aided by Davis One, a Weyland-Yutani synthetic who has broken his programming and developed his own personal mission to stop the company from acquiring the creatures for research.

In the Aliens comics line, Aliens: Defiance was preceded by Aliens 30th Anniversary: The Original Comics Series, is being published concurrently with Aliens: Defiance - Extravehicular and Aliens: Life and Death, and was followed by Aliens: The Original Comics Series Volume 2.

Publisher's Summary

#1: Colonial Marines aren't trained for this...

Battling demons from her past while fighting for her life, Colonial Marine Private First Class Zula Hendricks, in the company of Weyland-Yutani synthetics, is forced to question her strength and loyalty when the discovery of an insidious alien species on a derelict hauler sends her on a dangerous journey across the stars.

#2: Colonial Marine Hendricks and the Weyland-Yutani synthetic Davis break protocol, navigating the Europa to a distant science station discovered in the once-derelict ship's data records — a station that recently went dark. Following the trail of the alien species, they dive deeper into a conspiracy, uncovering just how much is riding on their choices.

#3: Mutiny aboard the Europa. After accessing a Weyland-Yutani network buoy which reprograms their directives, several Davis synthetics seek to take down the mysterious Davis 01 unit and take the ship back to Earth. Colonial Marine Zula Hendricks and Davis 01 must survive an organized tactical assault in deep space.

#4: Colonial Marine Private Zula Hendricks is AWOL deep in space along with the combat synthetic Davis 01, chasing the trail of the Xenomorph threat. But in the eerie quiet of a space graveyard the ghosts of her past are catching up with her, and Weyland-Yutani isn't far behind.

#5: Zula Hendricks and Davis are about to take on the Xenomorph threat as well as a squad of hardened Colonial Marines intent on capturing a specimen in a large midspace fueling station. How far is Zula willing to go to stop her fellow combatants?

#6: When Zula and Davis's plan to deny the Colonial Marines a Xenomorph sample hits a snag, their only remaining course of action may be something they can never come back from.

#7: In the aftermath of the intense battle against the Colonial Marines, Zula Hendricks and Davis have gone from being merely AWOL to full-blown traitors. As they drift into a quiet part of space to recover and regroup, new crew member Dr. Hollis discovers something in the medical bay that changes everything. Sometimes evil comes from within.

#8: Keeping a baby Xenomorph alive, even in a frozen state, contradicts all the survival instincts that Zula and Hollis have. But by studying the alien in cryostasis, Davis believes he can discover how to exterminate it and the rest of its forsaken, vile race permanently. Is he dooming the mission in the name of science?

#9: A fledgling Alien, kept alive in a deep freeze for the purpose of learning its weaknesses, wages a psychological war on Zula, Davis, and Hollis. They try to keep it together, but an attack on the Europa by space pirates forces the trio to weaponize what they seek to destroy.

#10: An attack on the Europa by space pirates leaves Zula, Davis, and Hollis on a barely functional ship. They now must return to Earth, where the Weyland-Yutani corporation is waiting and ready to put an end to their rogue mission.

#11: The mangled Europa is in a state of free fall in Earth’s atmosphere with Zula, Davis, Hollis, and a previously frozen xenomorph onboard. Davis battles the alien threat while Hollis and Zula scramble to the escape hatch. Impact is unavoidable; survival is doubtful.

#12: After her return to Earth, Zula Hendricks fully expects to answer for her defiance. But instead of military tribunals, what she experiences is a chilling look into the future of warfare, courtesy of Weyland-Yutani's R&D labs. Her mission may not be over just yet.

Plot

When the Seegson commercial cargo hauler Europa was found adrift in space, colonial marine Zula Hendricks was assigned as military liaison to a squad of Weyland-Yutani corporate security drones sent aboard to claim the vessel for salvage. However, after boarding the ship, the team are ambushed by a horde of Xenomorphs, and in the ensuing chaos Hendricks' compression suit was compromised and she blacked out.

When she awoke in the ship's medical bay, she was informed by the synthetic in charge, Davis One, that she had in fact been in hypersleep for almost a month whilst the surviving synthetics had dealt with the Xenomorphs and sterilized the ship. To her shock, Davis One also informed her that he had broken his programming, contravened his orders to return to Luna, and hijacked the Europa to hunt down the origin of the Xenomorphs on board, recognizing the threat they posed to mankind. Although initially troubled by the revelation that Davis One had developed free will, Hendricks agreed to help him when she learned that Weyland-Yutani had known about the Xenomorphs in advance, and in fact sought to capture live specimens for research.^[2]

Characters

Development

The series is described by writer Brian Wood as being a stand-alone horror-survival story in the vein of the films Alien and Aliens, unrelated to other Aliens/Predator/Aliens vs. Predator titles being published by Dark Horse Comics.^[3] During an interview with Newsarama, Wood also stated that Alien: Isolation protagonist Amanda Ripley would be making a cameo at the beginning of the comic.^[3]

Reprint History

Aliens Defiance TPB Vol1 — Cover to *Aliens: Defiance Volume 1* trade paperback by Carnevale.

Issues 1-6 of the series were collected, alongside the tie-in short Aliens: Defiance - Extravehicular, in a trade paperback titled Aliens: Defiance Volume 1, released on January 25, 2017. The collection reused Massimo Carnevale's cover artwork from issue 1.

Issues 7-12 will be collected in a trade paperback titled Aliens: Defiance Volume 2, to be released on September 27, 2017. The second collection will reuse Carnevale's cover artwork from issue 3.

Behind the Scenes

Defiance was one of the comics selected to be a part of Dark Horse Comics' 30th anniversary variant cover program — issue 1 received a special Dark Horse Presents-styled variant cover by Mark A. Nelson, based on Matt Wagner's cover for DHP #40.^[4]

Aliens: Defiance #11 was released on April 26, 2017, alongside Aliens: Dead Orbit #1 and Prometheus: Life and Death - Final Conflict, as part of Alien Day.

Trivia

With 12 issues, Aliens: Defiance is the longest ever Aliens comic series, ahead of Aliens: Colonial Marines, which ran for 10 issues (although that series was also originally planned to run for 12 issues, before this was reduced during its run). The only other comic of comparable length in the Aliens/Predator/Aliens vs. Predator universe is Aliens vs. Predator: Deadliest of the Species, which likewise ran for 12 issues.
This series' story takes place simultaneously with the video game Alien: Isolation.