Alien Reveals The Creation of the First Xenomorph-Android Hybrid
The Alien franchise's core themes have always been creation and evolution – and the nightmarish ways they can go wrong. In every Alien movie there have been two main ways that humans have faced the terorror of creation: the nightmarish Xenomorph aliens, which can evolve to mimic the traits of any lifeform they infect, and "Synthetics," i.e., android lifeforms disguised as humans, who have been as much a threat in Alien lore as the Xenomorphs themselves.
Well, the latest chapter in the Alien saga ends with a startling reveal: the threats of Xenomorphs and Androids finally coming together in one hybrid lifeform that spells doom for humanity!
WARNING: Alien (2022) SPOILERS FOLLOW!
In Marvel's Alien (20222) limited series, writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson and artist Julius Ohta introduced a thrilling new story: a special-ops squad of synthetic warriors ("Steel Team") was brought out of retirement for a crucial mission in the year 2217 (nearly one-hundred years after the original film). Steel Team was sent to the plantery settlement of Tobler-9 that was decimated by the Xenomorphs, in order to recover a Xenomorph egg that Weyland-Yutani scientists experimented on, which can ensure humanity's survival. The androids were incredibly reluctant to do anything involving them with humankind again, but they went. Not surprisingly, things quickly went sideways.
The surviving human settlers on Tobler-9 betrayed Steel Team, but when the Weyland research material got loose, one of the human settlement leaders, Lee, was infected and transformed into what looks to be the first true Xenomorph-human hybrid creature, with the body and intelligence of a human, but the enhanced physiology and ferociousness of a Xenomorph, and the ability to commune with the creatures and lead them. There was a lot of speculation within the Alien fanbase that THE big plot-twist in the "Icarus" story arc would be having this human-Xenomorph creature be revealed, and pave the way for a new kind of Alien queen. The cover of Alien (2022) #6 certainly seemed to suggest as much... However, "Icarus" was always a story that put synthetics in the spotlight, so it's only fitting that the conclusion of the story has to do with that, as well.
The details are murky after the fact, but the inference is that the genetic tampering with Xenomorph DNA and eggs opened the door to the lifeform being more resiliant and versatile than ever. Lee's transformation goes to the point of revealing a synthetic body beneath her human/Xenomporph form – a queen that is part ogranic monster, and part unstoppable macine. If this hybrid can also birth more Xenomorphs, it truly is the darkest nightmare of a creation we could imagine. The story ends by reveling the new queen and her "children" in stasis, waiting for the day they awaken to threaten the entire galaxy.
Marvel's Alien comics work in an anthology format, wherein each year a new limited series is rolled out, telling a new standalone story. That's all to say: Johnson's reveal of a Xenomorph-Android hybrid isn't the beginning of a new chapter for the franchise; in fact, a voiceover from Weyland's prototype android David (seen in Prometheus and Alien: Covenant) hammers it home that this is just a dark convergence of the two ways humankind has constantly tried to destroy itself in the Alien series: through monsters, and machines.
Like everything in these various Alien comic storylines, fans are hoping that the testing ground of the comics will later be mined for ideas that upcoming next wave of Alien movies and TV shows could be made from.
Alien (2022) #6
Published: February 08, 2023
Writer: Phillip Kennedy Johnson
Penciler: Julius Ohta
Cover Artist: Bjorn BarendsDEATH IS INEVITABLE! Steel Team is in fragments. Scores of innocent humans are dead after surviving years on an irradiated rock. A new kind of Xenomorph is emerging...hunting...killing. It's all built to this. Is this the end – or beginning – of a new horror?
Alien (2022) is on sale from Marvel Comics.
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