Aliens: Hive, also known as Aliens, Vol. 5: Harvest and more recently Aliens: Harvest, is a 4-issue limited comic book series that was first published by Dark Horse Comics from February-May 1992. It was written by Jerry Prosser, illustrated by Kelley Jones, lettered by Clem Robins, colored by Les Dorscheid and edited by Barbara Kesel, with cover art by Jones. The comic was later adapted as the novel Aliens: Alien Harvest by Robert Sheckley.
In the Aliens comics line, Aliens: Hive was preceded by Aliens: Genocide, published concurrently with Dark Horse Presents: Aliens Platinum Edition and Aliens: Tribes, and was followed by the movie adaptations Aliens: Newt's Tale and Alien3.
Overview
The release of Hive was preceded by the release of Cyberantics by Dark Horse Books, an in-universe book "written by" Hive's lead character Stanislaw Mayakovsky, which is referenced in the story. The book was actually written by Jerry Prosser
Hive takes place after the Grant Corporation's first mission to the Alien homeworld, as detailed in Aliens: Genocide. It features the first appearance of a synthetic Alien, in the form of Mayakovsky's creation Norbert.
Publisher's Summary
#1: Stanislaw Mayakovsky once wrote a book about the cybernetic ant he designed to infiltrate a hive in order to gain precious knowledge about the species. Now, a beautiful young thief named Gill has approached Mayakovsky to recreate his experiment to infiltrate an Alien hive to gain something else precious...She wants to use his experience and expertise -- not in the pursuit of scientific knowledge, but in the pursuit of the Alien Queen Mother's royal jelly, the galaxy's most valuable commodity. The mission is a perilous one, but the motives are compelling...
#2: Stanislaw Mayakovsky and his new "partner" have designed a cyberantic Alien to steal the Alien Queen Mother's royal jelly, the galaxy's most valuable commodity. But a powerful corporation wants what they have, and Stan and Gill find their options pared away until there seems to be only one way out. This issue the cyberantic Alien's big test comes as "Norbert" is sent deep into the heart of an Alien hive.
#3: Stranded on the hive world's surface with a storm coming, Stan, Julie and Gill have only one path to safety — though the Alien's hive.
#4: Surrounded by Aliens and a hostile Grant Corporation ship, Stan, Julie and Gill are running low on options. When there seems to be no possible means of escape, Stan discovers that there's always one more way out.
Appearances
| Characters | Creatures | Events | Locations | |
| Organizations and titles | Sentient species | Vehicles and vessels | Weapons and technology | Miscellanea |
Reprint Histroy
Cover to Aliens: Hive trade paperback by artist Dave Dorman.
Hive was later published in tradepaperback form with a new cover by fan favorite painter Dave Dorman, edited by Kij Johnson in February 1993.
The series was again collected and republished in February 1998 under the new title Aliens, Vol. 5: Harvest. This release was part of Dark Horse's "remastered" Aliens Library Editions series — reprints that attempted to bring the content of all of Dark Horse's previously released Aliens comics in line with the updated continuity presented by Alien3. The Harvest trade paperback was edited by Lynn Adair and featured a new cover by John Bolton.
The series was collected again, under the title Aliens: Harvest, as part of Aliens Omnibus: Volume 2 in December 2007.
Behind the Scenes
Series writer Jerry Prosser, who has also written other Aliens comics, actually worked mostly as an editor of various Aliens comics for Dark Horse.
Artist Kelley Jones is known for his gothic horror-style artwork, most notably on DC Comics' Batman, with such Batman stories as Batman and Dracula: Red Rain and others. He also illustrated a number of storylines for Neil Gaiman's award-winning Sandman series also by DC/Vertigo.
Gallery
Issue covers
Other
