by Patrick Ehlers
This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!
Ridley Scott’s 1977 Sci-Fi Horror Masterpiece Foreign It works because it’s slow, atmospheric, and truly terrifying. Much of that terror comes from watching the various forms of an unknown alien species wreak havoc on the crew of the Nostromo, who are, by all accounts, a group of blue-collar workers simply trying to make their way in a world ruled by huge corporations. These workers would have survived their encounter just fine if not for the dispassionate, often robotic, interference of The Company. It is the Weyland-Yutani plant, Ash, who breaks protocol and allows Kane and the Facehugger onto the ship, despite high-ranking officer Ripley denying them access. The first number of Alien 3 by William GibsonDarkhorse Comic adaptation of Gibson’s unproduced script for the 1986 sequel aliens, revisits a very similar point of first contact with the alien, this time without a company puppet to spoil it.
Artist Johnnie Christmas, who is also credited with adapting Gibson’s script for comics, emulates the rhythm of ForeignIt opens with dark shots that are still establishing themselves.
This is franchise standard, especially considering the imaginary context that this would have existed in a world with only two others. Foreign cinema. The visual language of spatial solitude is the same as what we have seen in the previous films. After establishing this tone, Gibson and Christmas introduce us to the three-man crew of the UPP Interceptor with alarming efficiency. They are Juanito, Chang and Captain Kurtz. These guys represent a sector of the space that belongs to “The Union of Progressive Peoples.” Juanito jokes that Chang might meet “a rich and handsome capitalist” aboard the Sulaco, further implying that the Union of Progressive Peoples are communists by another name. Gibson would have been writing this in the middle of the Cold War, so this would have been even more obvious at the time. It’s also worth noting that there are no secret interests among this team – there’s no room for backstabbing and keeping secrets like we see with Ash in Foreign or Burke in Foreigners. Nobody makes compromised decisions to achieve the final result. The evils of capitalism have always been a theme of the Alien films, with Ripley stating outright in the second film: “I don’t know which species is worse. You don’t see them fucking each other for a fucking percentage.”
Of course, it’s not like the socialist values of the Interceptor crew save them in their only encounter with the alien. An egg hatches, a facehugger hugs a face, and horror ensues. Juanito and Chang are concerned about Kurtz’s well-being, but Chang flatly says, “Kurtz wouldn’t approve of quarantine.” […] with that thing on top.” This draws immediate parallels to the quarantine Ripley was trying to impose on Foreign. In the absence of a greed-driven Company, Juanito and Chang escape and live to fight another day.
Meanwhile, the Sulaco returns to Weyland-Yutani space and the alien on board demands the attention of multiple special interests. The Weapons Division, the Military Sciences Division and the UPP diplomats have an interest in controlling the narrative and material of what is on that ship. That’s what the rest of the matter ends up being: a bureaucratic Gordian knot. You know, people trying to screw each other for a fucking percentage. This is the first time I have seen a Foreign story that actually presents a social solution to the franchise’s unsung big evil. It’s probably too early to posit that the space communists could be the heroes of this story, but we know they’re there and we know they’re the exact opposite of Weyland-Yutani.
The conversation doesn’t end there. What do you want to talk about this number?