Aliens: Salvation and Sacrifice

Rating:
Summary: The Best Aliens Comic EVER!
Review: Aliens: Salvation and Sacrifice collects two one-shots by Dark Horse Comics that coincidentally deal with not only the marauding Alien "Bugs", but also with Religious faith being tested under extreme conditions....

Part one, Salvation, by Dave Gibbons, Mike Mignola, and Kevin Nowlan revolves around a marooned duo, trapped on a planet with the Alien cargo their ship was carrying. As if the Aliens weren't bad enough, one of the men is stone-cold crazy, while the other clings to his religious beliefs for justification of the things he must do to survive. Mignola and Nowlan's art is gorgeous, and I've never been a fan of Dave Gibbons' writing, but his story is gripping, and the feeling of impending doom he creates is palpable.

Part II, Sacrifice, deals with another marooned shipwreck survivor, this time a woman, who stumbles across another group of survivors, who have a faustian pact with the lone Alien who haunts the jungle outside their crude compound. Did I mention that the woman, Ann, is a Priest? She's been dealing with memories of seeing her mother murdered by an Alien over 20 years ago, and she sees this as her chance at redemption. Writer Peter Milligan does a great job, and the art, by painter Paul Johnson, is staggeringly beautiful. I've never seen the Aliens so well-depicted! You truly get a sense of the awe and fear that these creatures could inspire.

All in all, Salvation and Sacrifice is an amazing example of what could be done with these creatures in the Comic format. (Try reading it while listening to Elliot Goldenthal's score for Alien 3- It'll crank the creepy factor up to 11!)

Rating:
Summary: a truly great aliens book
Review: This is the Aliens book with a good balance of action and a different kind of drama: religion. Both parts of the book involve a character isolated from their friends and left to fend themselves from the Alien menace. The art is both unique. In Aliens salvation we get a simple yet stylish art technique, involving lots of shadows much like AvP Eternal. In Aliens sacrifice the art is cover art quality, and this is an entire comic we're talking about! Its rare to find such good quality art in comics, but Aliens Sacrifice has it. Salvation is the more action oriented of the two, and the dialogue style and the character of Selkirk mold it into something that will leave you completely awed at the very end, it also has an alien 3 feel to it but not in that bad way. Sacrifice is the more drama oriented one, dealing with human spirituality and its will to survive. The ending is something different, considering this is a book with religion in it, I was glad it had a twist that nobody could imagine the main character would do. Overall, both stories are great and I promise that their endings will move you in one way or another. Highly recommended.