Written by Phillip K. Johnson
Art by Salvador Larroca
Published by Marvel Comics
What do Xenomorphs eat?
For real. What do they eat? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one eat anything. Do they eat at all, or do they process nutrition in other ways, like plants or something?
I don’t know. But the first panel in Alien #4 is a Xeno making crunch-slurp-shrrippp sounds into a body with its mouth. So maybe they do eat people, sometimes?
Not that it matters, really. But it would be comforting to some degree if they killed people in order to eat them. Instead of killing people for what appears to be the enjoyment of it because they are living killing machines.
It also doesn’t matter in the story because the Xeno is set on fire by Bishop, the loyal synthetic android whose face will forever be Lance Henrikson’s.
Bishop saved Cruz and fellow soldier Hamilton’s bacon at the end of the previous issue, and he’s still here trying to save whoever’s still alive on Epsilon Station.
Cruz’s mission for Weyland-Yutani Corp. remains: to bag a Xenomorph for the company. But his personal mission is still intact as well: to find his son Danny and get him home safe despite his participation in an anti-WY group whose violence unleashed this slice of hell in space.
And so now we’re at the point in an Alien story where the gauntlet must be run. Similar to the James Cameron classic Aliens, the space is crawling with Xenos that can drop down from the ceiling, rip their way through the floor, or bang through any doors. They’re silent and deadly, ready to snuff all hope.
Cruz also confirms those flashbacks we saw of him in a hypersleep pod, the words “Alien Inside” scrawled on it. He survived having an alien implanted in him.
I guess they got the chestburster out in time, but there’s more to the story we’ve yet to hear.
“How do you think the company got these animals? Every time I close my eyes, I’m back in that goddamn hypsersleep tube,” Cruz says. “I can still feel the alien flailing around in my chest.”
Yikes! Can’t wait to get the rest of that story. Nonetheless, it’s clear this is the closest Weyland-Yutani has come to getting a live Xenomorph specimen. And it’s the closest they’ve gotten to bringing said specimen to Earth.
I mean, a Xenomorph on Earth sounds disastrous to me. Maybe even the triggering of human extinction. But what do I know?
A few more twists and turns happen during Cruz, Hamilton and Bishops’ gauntlet run that I won’t get into. But suffice to say they further deepen Cruz’s well of regrets.
Not that he may have much time to wallow in those regrets. He’s a trainer soldier, conditioned to compartmentalize and get the job done no matter what.
And add to the “no matter what” file a giant “Alpha” Xenomorph ready to hunt down the baby brother that Cruz is stealing. Uh-oh!
