Aliens: The Alien is a short comic book story that was first published by Dark Horse Comics in the anthology series Dark Horse Presents, Vol. 1 #56, in November 1991. It was written by John Arcudi, illustrated by Tony Akins, inked by Paul Guinan, lettered by Willie Schubert and edited by Randy Stradley. The issue of Dark Horse Presents also featured featured a jam cover with an Aliens segment by Guinan. The story explains how the Earth is made habitable again after the events of Aliens: Earth War, and serves as a prequel to the four-issue series Aliens: Genocide.
In the Aliens comics line, Aliens: The Alien was preceded by Aliens: Reapers, published concurrently with Aliens: Countdown, and was followed by Aliens: Genocide.
Publisher's Summary
Original release
DHP's third giant-sized annual promises to be the best one yet!...a two-part prologue to Aliens: Genocide by writer John Arcudi and artists Tony Atkins and Paul Guinan (Terminator)...This is one issue you can't afford to miss.
Dark Horse Presents: Aliens Platinum Edition
All of the stand-alone stories from the past issues of Dark Horse Presents in one volume, and in color for the first time! This package includes stories by...John Arcudi and Simon Bisley (DHP 5th Anniversary Special)... This volume is colored by Rachelle Menashe and Chris Chalenor. All wrapped up in a stunning new cover painting by Simon Bisley.
Plot
The President of the United States and his ministers are called to Gateway Station, where they are appointed to meet with the Space Jockey who is orbiting the Earth and reshaping the planet with a terraforming. The meeting is actually an assassination attempt that helps free humanity from potential subjugation.
Reprint History
Aliens: The Alien was first serialized and reprinted in the United Kingdom in 2 parts in Aliens magazine, Vol. 1 #12-13, from January-February 1992.
It was later collected alongside a number of other Dark Horse Presents Aliens stories published up until that point in a special single-issue collection titled Dark Horse Presents: Aliens Platinum Edition, released in April 1992. For this release it was colored by Rachelle Menashe and also featured a new cover by Simon Bisley.
The story was was eventually collected again as part of Aliens Omnibus: Volume 1 in July 2007.
The comic was released digitally through Dark Horse Digital on February 13, 2013, collected with Aliens: Theory of Alien Propagation and reusing John Bolton's cover art from Aliens, Vol. 2: Nightmare Asylum.
Behind the Scenes
This long unsung short story serves as an important connecting link between Aliens: Earth War and Aliens: Genocide, taking place between the two stories and explaining how the Earth became habitable again after the events at the end of Earth War, at which point the Earth was apparently left a nuclear irradiated waste with a Space Jockey vessel hovering in orbit and conducting terraforming of the whole planet via an energy beam.
The subsequent explanation allowed for the plausibility of all of the events that followed in Genocide and every other Aliens and AVP story since.
John Arcudi is a veteran Aliens and Predator writer who has worked on various stories for both series.
Tony Akins and Paul Guinan also worked on the Aliens: Colonial Marines comic that ran from 1993-1994.
UK-based artist Simon Bisley is world renown for his painted fantasy-style artwork on titles such as Judge Dredd, Lobo, and Heavy Metal Magazine.
Gallery
