Aliens: Resistance No. 2 review: Nuclear fail-safes and big secrets

The intrigue mounts in the latest issue of Aliens: Resistance.

Any true horror fan appreciates the terror inspired by the Aliens franchise, with the classic tagline “in space, no one can hear you scream” perfectly embodying the isolation and helplessness that has kept fans riveted for forty years this May. There’s just something about greedy super-corporations and acid-blooded aliens that keeps fans coming back. From writer Brian Wood, artist Robert Carey, colorist Dan Jackson, and letterer Nate Piekos, with a cover from Roberto De La Torre, this latest installment of Aliens: Resistance follows Amanda Ripley, daughter of Ellen Ripley, and Zula Hendricks, a Colonial Marine, during the time that Ripley is in stasis after the events of the first film.

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Aliens: Resistance has experiments and synthetics and nukes, oh my!

Last issue, Ripley and Hendricks, united in their goal to take down Weyland-Yutani and stop whatever experiments are being performed with the xenomorphs, ended up at an isolated research facility manned by a new kind of synthetic, with a curiously benevolent older synthetic named Davis assisting the two heroes. A colony ship, the Gaspar, has been hijacked and the hundreds of passengers brought onto the station, forced to inhale some kind of something, clearly intimated to be not healthy for them.

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As Ripley and Hendricks arrive at the Gaspar, they notice acid damage to the hull, letting them know the xenomorphs have made it onto the ship. They infiltrate the vessel, with Davis, now lacking a body, loaded into Zula’s smart-rifle, providing environmental and navigational data. They decide to don pressure suits and quickly come across one of the new synthetics, alone in a tunnel. They kill it, but not before it cracks Ripley’s faceplate. The synthetics load the gassed passengers back on the colony ship, and Davis discovers that the station has a nuclear fail-safe onboard.

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“Don’t become adrift in the cold emptiness of space” is good logic

Davis acknowledges that taking control of the nuclear device would be a good tactical move, and our heroes discover that the Gaspar has been rerouted to come down to the surface of the closest moon. Zula plugs Davis into the station’s electronics, and during a firefight on the hull, Zula gets shot and floats away from Ripley, who launches herself after Hendricks, disregarding common sense like any good hero would do. With Davis connected to the nuclear device, Ripley catches up to Hendricks and puts pressure on her wound, as the two float away from the station and closer to the moon.

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The art and colors are top-notch; the bleakness of space and the utilitarian ships, suits, and weapons are all perfectly depicted in muted greys and blacks. Watching Zula lose Davis, who is maybe her closest friend besides Ripley, is a touching portrayal of the future of relationships, where an artificial lifeform and a human can share such a close bond, and the loss that comes with losing that bond is palpable. This is definitely one of the best Aliens comics to ever be published, and the series definitely has a lot more action and suspense to come. 9/10, highly recommended. Let us know what you thought of Aliens: Resistance in the comments section below.

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