Marvel's New Aliens What If Comic Will Bring Back Major Franchise Character
Marvel is launching a new sort of What If? ... series, in the Aliens Universe.
The Marvel What If...? line of comics has always offered fun opportunities for creative divergences in Marvel Comics lore – and now that opportunity is being extended to Marvel's line of Alien comics, as well!
New Marvel solicitations reveal that Aliens: What If? is headed our way in March 2024. Not only will the Alien franchise be getting it's own set of "What If?... tales – the first issue will actually bring back a major franchise character – and the actor who played him – for a story that will answer decades of debate within the fandom!
What Ever Happened to Burke?
In James Cameron's Aliens we met Carter J. Burke (Paul Reiser), the smarmy corporate shark from Weyland-Yutani. When the company discovered Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in stasis after half a century, they were skeptical about her report of the Xenomorph attack on her ship; Burke was secretly acting on behalf of Weyland-Yutani, steering Ripely back to the exomoon LV-426 in hopes of discovering the Xenomorphs and extracting samples of their genetic material from the colonists they infected.
When the mission at the Hadley's Hope colony went south, Burke tried to betray the Colonial Marines and Ripley. He was last seen been ambushed by a Xenomorph in a corridor, while trying to escape a last-stand ambush – but his ultimate fate was never actually shown. Since the Xenomorphs were actually using the colonists as breeding fodder, there's been a lot of speculation that Burke could've survived – at least for longer than Aliens suggests.
Now, actor Paul Reisner (The Boys) is teaming up with his son and a promising creative team to do a little bit of fanciful thinking about what ultimately happened to Carter Burke:
ALIENS: WHAT IF?… #1 Preview
![aliens-what-if-carter-burke-paul-reisner.jpg aliens-what-if-carter-burke-paul-reisner.jpg](https://sportshub.cbsistatic.com/i/2023/12/22/5061e46a-be00-4f57-9b10-21deafe8b3f6/aliens-what-if-carter-burke-paul-reisner.jpg?auto=webp&width=1200&height=1820&crop=0.659:1,smart)
- Paul Reiser, Leon Reiser, Adam F. Goldberg, Hans Rodionoff & Brian Volk-Weiss (W)
- Guiu Vilanova (A) • Cover by Phil Noto • VARIANT COVER BY ADI GRANOV
- VIRGIN VARIANT COVER BY ADI GRANOV
- VARIANT COVER BY PEACH MOMOKO • VARIANT COVER BY LUCIO PARRILLO
- VARIANT COVER BY SKOTTIE YOUNG • VARIANT COVER BY SKAN
WHAT IF…CARTER BURKE HAD LIVED?
For years, fans of James Cameron's legendary Aliens questioned whether Carter Burke, a company man more hateable than the Xenos themselves, had actually survived the traumatic events on the terraforming colony Hadley's Hope. Now the actor behind the beloved villain, Paul Reiser, joins his son Leon and the star-studded team of writers and producers Adam F. Goldberg, Brian Volk-Weiss and Hans Rodionoff for a journey back to Hadley's Hope and the twisted escape of a man who should have died.
40 PGS./Parental Advisory
$5.99