Comic Book Review - Alien #3

The sins of the past reign supreme on the frozen world of LV-695…

We’re heading into the third act of Declan Shalvey’s Alien, and the tension is really ramping up to a fever pitch. As the salvage of the U.S.C.S.S. Boreas gets underway within the frozen waters of LV-695, Zasha comes face to face with a face from her past - Dayton. Their reunion is short lived as Jun Yutani makes a confession of his own. 

The narrative mystery starts to unravel during this issue as each sub-plot makes headway to their conclusions. Chief amongst this is why Jun Yutani is interested in salvaging the Boreas, and why we keep getting flashbacks to a past encounter with the Xenomorph. It’s a very clever reveal and it’s one that I didn’t predict way back in issue #1. While it doesn’t necessarily tie into Zasha’s own reasonings, it’ll certainly make re-reading Thaw extremely interesting. 

Anyway, while the family reunion is cut short, the remaining salvage team get ready to hoist the stricken Boreas back into orbit. This then sets off a chain reaction as the new white Xenomorph (as seen in the Alien Annual) makes its presence known to the salvage team - and the traditional Xenomorph.

But that’s not all! Not by a long shot! 

Underneath the ice, something much larger has awoken. And it’s pissed! 

Alien #3 packs quite a punch within its 23-pages. Declan Shalvey captures the popcorn munching action of Aliens, while keeping the creeping dark of Alien in the spotlight. Yun Yutani also gets more building as we find out his reasonings for heading out into the dark. While he’s been portrayed as a baseball bat wielding brat, this issue shows he’s got more than just his corporate issues at hand. The real mystery still surrounds Zasha. Just why she’s on LV-695 is a mystery, even if it’s eluded that she’s wanting answers to past events, I don’t think that’s all, but hey, I could be wrong. 

As Shalvey continues his narrative tour de force, Andrea Broccardo and Ruth Redmond keep up pace with plenty of great art and colouring. I’ve admired the more anime style that the last two arcs have taken, and it makes a refreshing change to the hyper-realistic (and often unrealistic) style seen by Salvador Lorocca and Julius Ohta. Broccardo’s style perfectly captures the contours and elegance of the Xenomorph, while retaining its hyper-lethality. The same can also be say to Dayton. The Synthetic has been to Hell and back and each broken cable and flap of skin oozes with a nightmare look of man and machine. 

Shalvey then lends his own talents in developing the flashback scenes. The two contrasting art styles play off each other well with Shalvey opting for a more personal perspective as we follow the Synthetics on Cloughleigh. This is then backed with a gorgeous muted colour palette that bathes everything in the glow of computer monitors and laboratory machinery. 

Overall, Alien #3 continues to build its mystery on LV-695 while adding new elements to keep us guessing. The introduction to the new look Xenomorph is a great addition and highlights how the creature can evolve its physiology to adapt to any climate it finds itself on. With a couple more issues to go, it’s going to be very interesting to see where Declan Shalvey takes Zasha and Dayton. But with more questions that need answering, they’re certainly facing an up hill battle. And that’s before they get off world!

Rating: 9/10 

Rob Lake - For more comic book and video game chat why not follow us on X/Facebook @GeekCultureRev, TikTok/YouTube @Geekculturereviews, and BlueSky @geekculturereviews.bsky.social