“What if that ship didn’t even exist, huh? Did you ever think about that?” So questioned Carter Burke (Paul Reiser) of Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in 1986’s Aliens, when it was discovered that the Weyland-Yutani Corp. executive caused the deaths of 158 colonists of Hadley’s Hope on LV-426. The saboteur ultimately met his end when he was attacked by a Xenomorph… but what if Carter Burke had lived? That’s the question in Aliens: What If…?, a new comic inspired by the series that puts a twist on classic Marvel Comics stories.
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Reiser and his son, Leon Reiser, have teamed with Adam F. Goldberg (The Goldbergs, The Muppets Mayhem), Brian Volk-Weiss (The Toys That Made Us, Voices From Krypton) and Hans Rodionoff (Marvel’s Damage Control, Man-Thing) to write the five-issue limited series, which features art by Guiu Vilanova (Eternals, Cosmic Ghost Rider) and covers by Phil Noto (X-Men, Star Wars: The High Republic).
“For years, people have asked me about Burke, what it was like to playsuch a ‘bad guy,’ to which my response was always ‘You say ‘bad,’ I say’misunderstood,’” Reiser said in a statement. “Now the world will find out!”
Aliens: What If…? is a “pulse-pounding journey back to Hadley’s Hope and the twisted escape of a man who should have died,” the synopsis reads. “For years, fans of James Cameron’s legendary Aliensquestioned whether Carter Burke, a company man more hateable than theXenos themselves, had actually survived the traumatic events on theterraforming colony Hadley’s Hope. Thirty-five years later, Burke iseeking out a cursed existence on a backwater asteroid. With hisonce-promising career in the toilet, Burke’s only remaining purpose inlife is to care for his daughter, Brie. She hates him, probably forbeing a horrible person. And when she finds out what he’s up to now?It’s not going to be a friendly reunion. Has Burke learned his lesson,or is he about to get all of his companions killed again?”ย
Marvel’s 20th Century Studios imprint, which also publishes Marvel’s Planet of the Apes and Alien comics, will release the first issue on March 6.
