Alien: Romulus Reveals First Look at Its Marvel Prequel Comic

Get a taste of the story that led to Alien: Romulus in these preview pages of the upcoming Marvel comic.

September 13, 2024, 3:00pm

Alien: Romomulus has been a successful installment of the Alien franchise by all accounts, earning a lot of praise from critics, while also generating $315.7 million worldwide, on a budget of $80 – the second-biggest box office win for the franchise. Now Marvel Comics is giving fans the chance to expand on the story of Alien: Romulus by telling the story of what went so wrong on the two-part space station Romulus/Remus, in an upcoming prequel comic.

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Zac Thompson (Youndu, X-Men Black, Into the Unbeing) is writing Alien: Romulus. Like the film’s director (Fede Alvarez), Thompson is a major fan of the Alien franchise, and he’s bringing a lot of enthusiasm to this project:

“The Alien franchise is responsible for my lifelong love of body horror, so needless to say, I’m ecstatic to be contributing a small piece to the canon,” Thompson shared. “Working with Fede Alvarez to craft a prequel to Alien: Romulus was a genuine dream come true and a responsibility I don’t take lightly. The result is a thrilling, terrifying story that slowly gestates into something wholly unpredictable.”

(Alien: Romulus SPOILERS FOLLOW)

The storyline of Alien: Romulus is set after Alien and before Aliens. Alvarez’s film focused on a group of young adults from a mining colony, who set out for the Romulus/Remus station to heist cryo-chambers they can use to survive the years-long journey to a faraway colony. However, when they get to the station, they find it dead and desolate; when they restart the station’s computers, the kids also inadvertently start a process of reviving dormant facehuggers on the station, unleashing a new wave of Xenomorphs.

During the course of Alien: Romulus we get brushstrokes of backstory about what went so horribly wrong on the station. The film opens with the reveal that the scientist on Romulus/Remus discovered a xenomorph cocoon in the wreckage of the USCSS Nostromo (Ellen Ripley’s ship in Alien) and took it to the station. In the middle of the film, Romulus’s android science officer Rook explains that the xenomorph found in the cocoon got loose and slaughtered the crew – which is the story we will get to see play out in Marvel’s prequel comic. Also of note will be any further revelations about the “Prometheus Strain” that was being developed on Romulus/Remus, experimenting with human/xenomorph hybrid DNA to achieve ‘human perfection.’ That’s a lane of the franchise a lot fans are interested in exploring further.