The Creators – Jonathan Hickman – Writer, Esad Ribić – Artist, Ive Svorcina – Colours, Letters – VC’s Cory Petit

The Players – Black Panther, Incredible Hulk, Miles Morales, Captain Marvel, Valeria Richards

The Story – The Shi’ar have been experimenting with a new weapon. It has always been successful. They have now sent that weapon to Earth.

The Take – In what would seem just another commercial crossover to milk readers for their money, writer Jonathan Hickman and artist Esad Ribić take these two properties and create a frightening vision of the Marvel Universe in the years to come. It is a future more desperate than the Wastelands where Old Man Logan came from, more hopeless than that Marvel U that was overrun with zombies and one where the Maestro might be welcomed with open arms if simply to pit one evil with another and hoping he might come out on top. Hickman begins with the Shi’ar who are looking to expand their rule and eliminate a few enemies in the process. Thankfully Black Panther, his son and his Hatut Zeraze are there to stop it. As it is, they are far too late for the Shi’ar have sent their ultimate weapon to Earth, one which contains four Xenomorph queen eggs along with twelve infected hosts. Dropped near high-density population centers on the planet, they soon hatch and do what they do best: infect and kill everything everywhere. The planet has no chance. Hickman and the creative team take the audience through that, showing them what has happened until at last, years later there is only one human city left, one stronghold that still stands though its time has come and the days are winding down on its existence. The cast of characters chosen to head up this story is quite interesting, two of them are no surprise while the second two are. The Hulk and Captain Marvel, both quite old, are still around and fighting for humanity as are Miles Morales, otherwise known as Spider-Man and Valeria Richards who readers will recognize as the last member of the Richards family to walk among the living. Also present is an old man who is more than likely Charles Bishop Weyland though he is not necessarily named within. There is a fair bit of action and more than enough horror for those looking to enter a darker corner of the Marvel U and it is just as tense and suspenseful as the films that were the origin for this comic. Ribić does an exceptional job with the artwork, his pencils looking better than ever and he makes the horror of the Aliens, the setting and the general atmosphere of hopelessness come alive. Hickman does such a good job here that it makes readers wonder what an Alien movie might look like with him guiding the ship.  In a land of crossovers between properties from different mediums, this is one of the best yet even if it is just the first issue.  The book is left on a cliffhanger, one where Valeria has come up with a Hail Mary cure to the Alien epidemic and it is a fascinating bit that will leave readers wondering and clamouring for more.

Worth It? – Yes.