Marvel’s annual line of Predator comic story arcs has made no secret that it is set in the same universe as the films – in fact, the issues open with a timeline clearly denoting each Predator film (Predator, Predator 2, Predators, The Predator) and the comic story arcs. However, even though the current story is set in the year 2068, it turns out that it is tied directly to the first film in the series – and its main character!
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(WARNING SPOILERS FOLLOW!)
Predator: The Last Hunt is a sequel story to the 2022 and 2023 comic story arcs, which were centered around the characters of Theta Berwick. Theta was a young girl whose parents were slaughtered in a Predator attack; Theta grew up training and collecting the armor and tech of the Predator race (the “Yautja”), becoming her own kind of anti-Predator hunter. After killing the Predator that murdered her parents, Theta recruited her friend Paolo as another hunter and helped free captives from a Predator stasis farm, used to hold specimens in stasis, to use for hunting events (as seen in Predators).
When The Last Hunt begins, Theta has tracked a Predator cargo ship to the planet Mabou, where she thinks she can finally get intel on where the Predators store their captive specimens between hunts. However, Theta and Paolo discover that humans are living on the planet – with a mysterious man called John Schaefer leading the group.
In Predator: The Last Hunt #2, it’s revealed who John Schaefer really is: the brother of Dutch Schaefer, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character from the original Predator (1987) movie. According to John’s monologues throughout the issue, Dutch went missing after encountering a Predator in 1987 during his mission in the Guatemalan jungle; John skeptically checked into the unbelievable rumors of the alien encounter until he finally encountered a Predator in NYC. After realizing the aliens were real, John began tracking them – a hunt into a Thai jungle, where the Predators turned the tables and abducted him instead. The ship where they were holding him in stasis crashed, and John woke prematurely from stasis and was able to kill the injured Predator piloting the ship. After freeing the other humans (and regrettably some deadly aliens) also in stasis, the survivors established a camp on Mabou, waiting for rescue.
John Schaefer’s main goal in “The Main Hunt” is still chasing the hope that Dutch was also abducted, to be used as a prime specimen in the Predators’ hunts. Of course, by the end of the issue that hope starts to get dashed: John joins Theta on a mission to research a Predator stasis farm, only for the group to realize that it was all a trap set by the best of the Predators, the “Nightmare Hunter.”
Predator: The Last Hunt comics are on sale at Marvel.
