Aliens vs. Avengers Just Unleashed the Craziest Weapon Ever (And We Need it in the Movies ASAP)

Aliens vs. Avengers continues to be a wild synthesis of both the Marvel and Alien movie mythologies – and issue #3 of the comic series just took it to another level. The Alien films have a long and celebrated history of introducing fans to some iconic sci-fi weaponry – namely James Cameron’s Aliens, which gave fans the M41A Pulse Rifle used by the Colonia Marines, as well as the P-5000 Powered Work Loader that Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley used to battle the Xenomorph Queen. That all said, in Aliens vs. Avengers #3 writer Jonathan Hickman and aritst Esad Ribic debut a new kind of weapon that would add new levels of terror in the live-action Alien movies – and we need to see it onscreen ASAP.

WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW!

In Aliens vs. Avengers #3, the suriving Avengers (Carol Danvers, Tony Stark, Miles Morales) have successfully escaped Earth with a final surviving colony of humans. Tony’s massive Avengers Tower spaceship suffered damage during the getaway, forcing the Avengers to make a pit-stop on Mars, the new mutant homeworld, to seek some repairs. However, it turns out that a lot has changed in the decades since anyone last visited Mars – and not in a good way for mutants.

Mutants ended up fundamentally regretting allowing Mister Sinister to be a member of their Mars colony. Sinister didn’t see the xenomorph species as a nightmarish threat: to the mad geneticist, the xenomorphs represented the ultimate genetic vessel: able to force any form of sentient life to mutate and evolve into its optimum form, while also retaining the traces of the orignal host organism’s DNA. Like so many other non-human (read: synthetic) characters in the Alien franchise, Sinister decided to use his comrades as cannon fodder for his xenomorph experiments – quite literally.

Mister Sinister Invents Alien‘s First Facehugger Gun

When Tony, Carol, and Miles get off the ship and seek out the X-Men, the find Sinister waiting for them instead. Sinister reveals that it’s a trap: he lured the Avengers away from the ship so that the human colonists onboard are left unprotected. Sinister takes that opportunity to have his clones ambush the ship, and turn the people onboard into unwitting xenomorph hosts, using his own self-made ‘facehugger gun.’

That’s right: Mister Sinister has officially weaponized the facehugger parasites by turning them into projectiles shot out of a cannon-style gun. Using the facehugger gun the Sinister clones are able to infect the entire ship of humans in mintues.

Using the xenomorphs as bio-weapons has been a major subplot of the Alien franchise since Ridley Scott’s original film in 1979. However, it’s been in latter installments like Alien: Resurrection, Alien: Covenant, and Alien: Romulus where that subplot has gotten a lot more development. However, a gun that actually shoots facehuggers is something that could only be dreamed up in a comic book – but now that it’s been manifested, it’s something that needs to be incorporated into the live-action franchises, ASAP.

…And there are several opportunities to do so. Alien‘s first TV series Alien: Earth is about to premiere this year. While plot details are being kept under wraps, it’s suspected that showrunner Noah Hawley could lean more into the Weyland-Yutani corporation and its involvement with pushing the xenomorph agenda (as it always has in the films). In that sense, the development of different bio-weapons based on xenomorphs could well be part of that show. On the other end of the franchise, Alien: Romulus dierctor Fede Álvarez has a sequel film that he’s teasing will take the franchise to bold new places, while he’s also earned a rep for being the ultimate Alien Easter egg collector. Getting the facehugger gun from the comics into his next film would be crazy fan-service.

[RELATED: Everything We Know About Alien: Earth]

Aliens vs. Avengers is available to read at Marvel. The films can be streamed on Hulu-Disney+.