Alien #4

Alien #4

Marvel Comics 2021

Written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson

Illustrated by Salvador Larroca

Coloured by Guru-eFX

Lettered by VC’s Clayton Cowles

A BISHOP MAKES HIS MOVE. Will Gabe find his son? And if so…what will be left of him? The clock is ticking. The odds are long. The worst is coming.

Part of me loves the fact that the Bishop is still around and has a myriad of uses as a Synthetic and another part of me wishes we’d see more of Ash though he was an inferior model. I mean Bishop is cool and all but we only ever see Ash once so I personally wouldn’t mind seeing another Ash model out there trying to find an Alien to bring back to Earth. Still that I think about this is why I’m in love with this series because Phillip manages to make you think beyond what’s on the page and into the history of the franchise. Still we’ve seen him from Earth being Gabe’s shrink and now here he is being a cold analytical science officer so that he’s very much a different person when in different roles is utterly fascinating to me.

I am loving the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is impeccably rendered. The character development is bloody brilliant thanks to how we see the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter. I will say for a minute there I thought Hamilton an awful lot like Hudson and that made me giggle. The pacing here is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story it really becomes an edge of your seat nail biting experience.

I am very much enjoying the way that this is being structured and how the layers within the story continue to grow, evolve, strengthen and newly emerge depending on what avenues the story takes. There are some that are magnificent in how they add extra layers of depth and complexity to the story keeping the rich tapestry alive and thriving. How everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is achieved exceptionally well.

The interiors here are bloody mindbogglingly gorgeous! The linework is exquisite and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create this level of quality in the detail work we see is astonishing. That pinup style page with facehugger and that blue sticky stuff surrounding him is one of the single most powerful images we’re going to see in comics right now, it’s just that damn good. How backgrounds are bing utilised to enhance the moments, bring us that cramped space feeling as well as providing depth perception, a sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the book is bloody brilliant work. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show such a masterful eye for storytelling. The colour work is equally as brilliant. How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show a master colourist at work. I mean these blues throughout just pop and it’s sensation to see how they cast the hues from them on the faces and bodies of the characters we see.

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This is an amazing book and it just showcases how integral to pop culture and modern life this iconic franchise has become. We want to see these stories and these creators want to tell them and so long as we get this calibre of storytelling we’ll keep coming back for more time and time again.