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Cover to Fire and Stone digital sampler by David Palumbo.

Fire and Stone is a comic book crossover event created by Dark Horse Comics in late 2014/early 2015. It consists of four separate 4-issue limited comic book series — one each for the Aliens, Predator, Aliens vs. Predator and Prometheus lines — plus the tie-in short story Aliens: Field Report and a one-shot finale, titled Prometheus: Fire and Stone - Omega. All four series and the one-shot finale, with the exception of the Aliens: Field Report, take place roughly around the same time and feature the same characters.

The crossover was launched on September 10, 2014, with the release of Prometheus: Fire and Stone #1, and continued with bi-monthly releases through to January 28, 2015, with the release Predator: Fire and Stone #4. Prometheus: Fire and Stone - Omega was subsequently released on February 11, 2015, wrapping up the event and the story. In addition to these principle releases, a short story set during the events of the film Aliens that ties into the events of Aliens: Fire and Stone, titled Aliens: Field Report, was published in Dark Horse Presents, Vol. 3 #2 in September 2014. Each of the comics in the event was also released simultaneously in the digital format through Dark Horse Digital.

Fire and Stone was followed by the similar Life and Death crossover event in 2016/2017, which followed a similar pattern of four connected 4-issue series, one from each comic line in the AVP universe, followed by a one-shot conclusion. The story of Life and Death in fact forms a sequel to Fire and Stone.

Overview

The events of Fire and Stone take place predominantly on LV-223, the same moon seen in the film Prometheus. Following the crash of the Juggernaut in the film, the black liquid (referred to as the "accelerant") it was carrying has since spread around the wreckage and has brought a burgeoning ecosystem of flora and fauna to the previously barren moon, and the atmosphere is now breathable. Much of the animal life on the planet in most cases closely resembles the Xenomorph and Deacon, with many creatures having secondary jaws as well as the trademark biomechanical exoskeletal appearance — such as the Deacon Shark. Two separate landings on LV-223 are chronicled in the various Fire and Stone series.

The first of these landings — as depicted in Aliens: Fire and Stone — is the Onager, which flees from Hadley's Hope on LV-426 just as the Xenomorph outbreak depicted in the film Aliens takes hold. Several Xenomorphs stow away aboard the Onager and immediately dispatch several colonists upon landing, forcing the survivors to venture away from the ship. LV-223 is discovered by the Onager's remaining crew to be habitable, despite having been told by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation that it was a barren, lifeless rock like their own LV-426. One of the crewmembers, terraforming engineer Derrick Russell, also discovers a living Engineer still in stasis on LV-223 and awakens the creature.

The remaining comic series and the one shot follow the crew of a second vessel that sets down on LV-223 later, the Kadmos, which carries a salvage crew as well as a documentary film crew chronicling the trip, however there is an ulterior motive at hand — team leader Angela Foster is in fact searching for the wreck of the USCSS Prometheus, hoping to discover the true fate of Sir Peter Weyland. The series also introduce the Yautja species to the planet.

The story also reveals more about the black liquid's mutatagenic properties, primarily seen when Francis Lane injects the substance into the construct crewmember Elden, causing the latter to become some form of construct/Engineer hybrid. Unlike Fifield in Prometheus, Elden retains his sentience, although he likewise becomes highly aggressive and seems to be largely ignored or even accepted by the Xenomorphs. The Yautja are shown to be susceptible to the accelerant's effects as well, as one of their member is bitten by an infected individual and subsequently transforms into a ferocious mutant creature that immediately begins killing other Yautja.

Fire and Stone Comics

Reprint History

The four individual Fire and Stone series were collected as four separate trade paperback releases (one for each series). The Prometheus: Fire and Stone, Aliens: Fire and Stone, Aliens vs. Predator: Fire and Stone and Predator: Fire and Stone trade paperbacks were released in April, May, June and July 2015, respectively.

All four individual series were collected again, along with the short story Aliens: Field Report and the one-shot finale Prometheus: Fire and Stone - Omega, in a single "oversized" (8 × 12) format trade paperback titled Prometheus: The Complete Fire and Stone, released in October 2015.

Trivia

  • In Prometheus: Fire and Stone, there is an artistic error: a facehugger that attacks a crew member is first shown to be drawn right; however, when it is shown for the third time it has five fingers in one side with no air sac there.
  • Engineers are still in existence, as there is one wandering around LV-223 and has killed numerous Xenomorphs, seemingly with his bare hands.
  • Said Engineer is also in possession of an extremely powerful weapon that can disintegrate Xenomorphs and humans alike, it uses this weapon in Prometheus issue four against both species.
  • Elden, a construct, is infected with the black liquid indicating either that some synthetics have true organics in them or that there are nanobots within the black liquid which may be possible as in Prometheus, a close-up of a drop of the substance on David's finger, shows the liquid has tiny particles moving in them. However, those could simply be some type of cells.
    • Its revealed that a Construct is a "meat robot", basically a more organic version of synthetic.
  • In Aliens: Fire and Stone #1, it is shown that in the early stages of the colony attack the Warriors had smooth heads, further cementing the fact that Warriors are mature Drones.
  • Xenomorphs themselves are not immune to the mutagenic effects of the black liquid despite there being an obvious connection between them, one issue has a Xenomorph and a man fall into a lake, which like the trees, exists because of the accelerant, the xenomorph emerges from the lake merged with the man in a manner similiar to John Carpenter's The Thing (1982).
  • The mutated Predator is larger and far stronger than normal; its appearance is very unsettling as it has jet black eyes and having no less than 14 mandables and a tiny arm growing out of its left shoulder. It is also cannibalistic, eating the Yautja it killed as well as humans.
  • The black liquid seems to have beneficial properties to go with its negative ones; not only was it responsible for creating a habitable planet, but infected individuals can regrow limbs.
  • Engineers are far stronger than Predators, and their suit can withstand a plasma blast.
  • In Predator: Fire and Stone #1, a typo in the foreword states that the events within take place after Prometheus: Fire and Stone #4 and Predator: Fire and Stone #1.

References

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