Review: ‘Aliens Vs. Avengers’ Issue 1 – More Bark Than Bite

As a kid one of the movies to leave the biggest impact on my life was the original Alien directed by Ridley Scott. As I got older I grew a major attachment to Marvel heroes, more specifically The Avengers and their plethora of iconic characters that populate the roster. In 2012, getting an Alien prequel (Prometheus) and a major Avengers movie that changed blockbusters forever made my younger brain jump for joy and wonder: what if they had a crossover? Finally all these years later it happened in the form of a comic – Aliens vs Avengers – a childhood dream come to life.

Did issue one live up to the hype?

The plot to Aliens vs Avengers starts a little weird, with experiments on a Kree soldier by two unidentified characters, however it gets serious fast. Earth (and many other iconic planets in the Marvel universe) has been overrun with xenomorphs. The story gives brief explanations of how each major marvel location, such as Wakanda and Atlantis, fell to the xenomorphs despite the heroes protecting them. This bit of the comic gives such a fantastic sense of dread worthy of the Alien franchise. 

The heroes of Earth lost. That’s a strong statement, but the book still feels lacking. The Xenomorphs are fantastically characterized as being terrifying but any major character deaths happen off page. It’s a bit disappointing seeing an already fallen world of Marvel – sure it establishes the xenomorphs as a threat, but wouldn’t it be so much stronger to see specific heroes falling to them?  It feels like the book needs to play itself too safely to keep its younger audience. This is extra disappointing given the gross gore and shocking deaths we get in the famous Marvel Zombies series that was released almost twenty years ago, setting the standard for what limits can be pushed in a Marvel limited run. There is also the Marvel MAX series of comic books that demonstrated Marvel’s ability to bring the iconic body horror of Alien to the wider Marvel Universe. Despite this, the stakes are still high, and the story is well written around these issues. 

 One of the biggest selling points for this series is the team behind it. This isn’t a clear cash grab to market off of both franchises. The team behind it are some of the best Marvel has, including Jonathan Hickman as writer (known for the current ongoing ‘Ultimate Spider-Man’ and his beloved ‘Fantastic Four’ run) and Esad Ribić as artist (famous for ‘Thor: God of Thunder’ and ‘King Thor’) who bring their signature styles to this comic. These are two of the best creators Marvel has right now, and to give them “Aliens vs Avengers” was an amazing idea. This comic feels good to read. 

There are a lot of fun twists as the story progresses and some great world building. The hope the Avengers gain by the end is an amazing way to end the first issue. I’m very excited for more, but I hope the comic gets some more bite as it progresses. It’s really fun to finally get a childhood crossover, it has the potential to live up to the hype, but it needs more bite.