Aliens What If #5

This is soooo dumb.


Not the book. This book is on the right side of good, leaning in hard towards very good. Taking the events of Aliens, turning them on their side if not their head. We learn that Burke, Carter Burke, back stabbing, attempted child killer Carter Burke, is sort of a mixed bag of emotions. He's just trying to get home to see his daughter again. Surviving an alien attack, he stowed away back to the Sulaco.

He then goes through decades of trying to make things right, like, say, directly causing Alien 3 to happen while trying to be a good guy.

Little touches like that, wry corporate bashing humor, and some insight from Paul Reiser, Burke himself, elevate this to fully readable. The art by Guiu Villanova does a fine job presenting boardrooms and alien hives in equal proportion.

So, what's dumb then?
What's dumb is that this is EASILY Marvel's best Alien title in the years that they've had it, the only one remotely worth reading, while every Predator story including Predator vs Wolverine has been passable to pretty great. It's just not that hard, people. It makes me wish that the team that did Secret Wars in 2015 would do an alien story.


Wait, Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribic are doing Aliens vs Avengers? But THEY did Secret Wars...