Comic Book Review - Alien: Black, White & Blood #1

Three spine-chilling tales, eight creators, and a whole lot of blood…

Marvel seem to be on a “thing” at the moment with their ‘Black, White &…” series of comics. From Darth Vader, to Wolverine, it seems that no franchise is safe from getting the black and white treatment. The latest star to feature is the ominous Xenomorph whose horror themed ascetic perfectly goes with the Black, White & Blood style.

Much in the same vein as previous outings, Alien: Black, White & Blood #1 features three self contained stories that’s each been created by a different creative team - with one single narrative taking place across each of the respective issues. For the Xenomorph this cross-issue strip comes from Colin Kelly, Jackson Lanzig who along with Michael Dowling and Chris Sotomayor bring us ‘Uptopia’.

Taking place in the far reaches of space, “Utopia” follows a group of ordinary folks who’ve renounced war and violence for a more peaceful way of life. As their vessel (which resembles a Halo) drifts through the dark this group comes across a seemingly derelict space craft with one faint life sign on board. As the rescue party breach the ship all hell breaks loose as the life sign ends up being the Xenomorph. With no conventional weapons on board, it comes to unconventional methods to protect the many lives on board.

Michael Dowling’s hyper realistic art style perfectly grabs the horror and emotions that are unfolding within the vast spacecrafts docking bay. Chris Sotomayor further extenuates these emotions with a great use of the available colours. More interesting is the use of red which is used for shadow work. This then gives the Xenomorph a great contrast which makes it even more monstrous.

With more parts to Utopia coming in future issues, Kelly and Lanzig have the openings of very interesting tale.

Next up we have “The Hunt” which is brought to life by Stephanie Phillips and Marcelo Ferreira. Here we follow a group of wealthy individuals as they participate in hunting the Xenomorph. It’s all made out to be incredibly safe with no real threat involved for the human hunters. Of course things don’t stay that way for long and soon the wealthy become the bottom of the food chain.

While the story is a little predictable it’s more than made up for by Ferreira’s art and Peter Pantazi’ colours. Here the “blood” aspect is switched up for a shade of green that works wonders in portraying the Xenomorph’s classic acid blood, and the dull hue of safety holograms. Meanwhile Ferreira switches to the classic ‘Alien’ design to portray the Xenomorph.

Rounding off this trio of terror is “Maternal Instinct”. Here the narrative is very different as writer, Ryan Cady places us in the circuits of a MU-TH-UR unit. Here we follow the computer unit as it attempts to save the life of a young boy trapped alone with the Xenomorph. It’s quite a harrowing tale as Cady uses the computers internal processing as its dialogue as we understand its motives in rescuing the child.

Devmalya Pramanik capitalises on letting his illustrations do the talking with a great looking Xenomorph and claustrophobic corridors. It’s a nice and simple chase story that shows that at least some Alien stories do have a “happy ending”

Overall and Alien: Black, White & Blood #1 sets the mini series off to a great start. The medium is s superb way to highlight the lethality of the creature, while keeping the sci-fi drenched in gut wrenching horror. While ‘Utopia’ is the story that’ll get expanded upon as the series continues - and I’m fully looking forward to seeing what direction it goes - the other two self-contained strips add plenty of more mystery to the wider Alien universe.

Rating: 8.5/10

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

Crafting the Apocalypse with Kek-W

Rob takes a trip to Deadworld with 2000 AD writer Kek-W… ‘ The Fall of Deadworld: Redemption ’ made its return to the 2000 AD Prog this week. While the battle for Sector 13 and the wider city rumbles on, I spoke to curator of chaos, Kek-W about Deadworld past, and more importantly, its future. Looking back, what first attracted you to writing what’s essentially the Dark Judges origin story? KW - Well, the first four DREAMS OF DEADWORLD stories that Dave and I did were well received, so rather than just doing more of the same - stories that showcased the individual Dark Judges - I pitched the idea of telling the back-story of how the four of them destroyed an entire world. How did that happen, how might it work? I figured it was a landscape ripe with dramatic story-telling potential. 'Ripe' being the operative word! (laughs) I also thought it might be interesting to focus in on a ordinary family, to see and experience the collapse of civilization from their point of view and

Rogue Trooper - Blighty Valley TPB Announced

Garth Ennis takes a journey back to NU-Earth… Today, August 29th marks a pivotal moment in 2000 AD history. Back in 1981, Gerry Findley-Day and Dave Gibbons introduced GI Rogue Trooper. As a Genetic Infantry, Rogue is bred to survive the harsh war-torn environment of NU-Earth. Soon betrayed by his superiors, Rogue is forced to seek his revenge while traversing the dangerous battlefield that NU-Earth has become. With the bio-chip personalities of his former comrades as his only allies, Rogue spent the next few years tracking down the Traitor General. Fast-forward to today, and 2000 AD have announced that ‘Blighty Valley’ , Garth Ennis and Patrick Goddard’s recent foray into NU-Earth is being released in a trade paperback collection. ‘ Blighty Valley is Rogue’s first regular appearance in 2000 AD in a number of years – a thirteen-part story set at 'Night’s Horizon', the annual event where Nu Earth’s orbit carries it closest to a nearby black hole. The Norts call it Zvartchvinte

Comic Book Review - The Best of 2000 AD Vol. 3

Rob reviews The Best of 2000 AD Vol.3… The ‘Ultimate Mix-Tape’ of 2000 AD’s greatest hits is back for its third volume. Packed with an array of specially curated strips, The Best of 2000 AD series does its very best in introducing you to the world of Tharg, and his Thrillverse. Much like its predecessors, this volume offers up an enticing mixture of strips and feature that draw across all corners of the wider 2000 AD mythos. While we do get a couple of standard trips to Mega-City 1 with Judge Dredd, series Editor Owen Johnson shows us the anthologies more “Tales of the Unexplained” side as things get a little bizarre. Personally, this third volume has been my favourite out of the series so far. Not only does it feature a Judge Dredd written by Michael Carroll, we also have the debut of Ian Edginton and D’Israeli. While you’d think that Johnson would of opted to include the duo’s phenomenal Scarlet Traces, he’s instead swapped the Earth/Mars war for the Atlantic Ocean, as we get a mu

Geek Culture Reviews

Search This Blog