Another 31 Days, Another 31 Screams: Day 4 (Aliens: Dead Orbit)

TH-THMP is pretty good, but it's no K-KLAK!

I was going to watch a movie tonight, but... well. I did a lot of errands and carpentry assistance today, and also my friend's belated birthday gift of Mega Man 11 came in. So, you know, I want to play the holy hell out of that and maybe review it. More writing to come in the future. I really do pile the shit up on my plate, don't we? So, until I get the energy and time to want to sit down and analyze a two-hour movie, let's go to something related to that two-hour movie. Did I just give away what the next entry will be? Oops. We won't be here long. Aliens: Dead Orbit is a very interesting little comic book miniseries written and drawn by one James Stokoe. It's... well, quite traditional as far as stories about Xenomorphs go. A spaceship out in the vast unknown finds another spaceship drifting aimlessly, investigates, there's survivors, they have baby Xenomorphs inside them that hatch, all hell breaks loose. So yeah. It's not really punching above its weight or anything, but I'm not looking down on it either. Sometimes you just want a bit of a trad story based on your favorite science fiction horror movie franchise, and I'm sure Mr. Stokoe is a big fan who was happy to get to play with 20th Century Fox's toys. Being as I'm exhausted, I welcome a bit of traditional spooky Xenomorph action in comic book form. Let's see what I can pick at to make things interesting.


The nearly silent opening is wonderful, showing the sort of empty mundanity of working in deep space. I'm reminded of the opening shots of Alien, of course, when I read through them. I quite like how harsh the art style and text is in this comic; Stokoe is using his medium to help set the tone, and the tone of Dead Orbit is definitely very harsh. The scene where the crew of the spaceship attempt to revive the three survivors of the derelict spaceship, only to have their cryopods fuck up and horribly disfigure them, is genuinely shocking. Looking stuff up, I gather this reflects something that happened in Alien Covenant. I literally do not remember this happening, and Ridley Scott's return to his Alien franchise is not something I'll be pecking at this year. Pray for me when I do. Anyway, the most clever thing Dead Orbit does is in issue 1, with something that feels both cinematic and fitting within the medium of the comic book. We see something in a hole in the wall that looks like a Xenomorph, we zoom in closer and closer as a crew member is terrified, and... Oh, it's just a mess of tech. Phew. Thank goodness for that. Then BOOM, HERE'S A XENOMORPH! Fake scare and then real scare. It's a classic trick, but seeing it played out in this medium gives it a sort of freshness.


Beyond that, Dead Orbit plays things fairly straight. There's some playing with nonlinear narrative and flashback, of course, but I don't really have too much more to say about it. Did you enjoy the thrills and chills of Alien? You'll like Dead Orbit, as it's the same sort of story. Its ending isn't as hopeful as Alien's, of course, but it still hits those same beats of panic and terror and being hunted by spooky aliens who want you dead. I really don't have anything more substansial  to say about it, as it plays things so straight and I'm quite drained. I'll give you something better next time, I swear. My goal here is to post an entry a day. Sometimes it's creative genius, and sometimes meandering nonsense. Tonight's the latter. We'll play more tomorrow. Promise.