Alien: Revival

Alien: Revival, originally titled Alien, also known as Alien Vol. 2: Revival, is a six-issue comic book series first published by Marvel Comics from September 2021-June 2022. The story was written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson, illustrated by Salvador Larroca, colored by GURU-eFX, lettered by VC's Clayton Cowles, and edited by Jake Thomas, Darren Shan, and Sarah Brunstad. Cover art was provided by Marc Aspinall while variant cover art was provided by various artists.

Alien: Revival serves as the second installment of a multi-arc storyline that began with Alien: Bloodlines and continued with Alien: Icarus.

In Marvel's Alien comics line, Alien: Revival was preceded by Alien: Bloodlines and Aliens: Aftermath, and was followed by Alien: Annual #1.

Publisher's Summary

Original release

#7: THE SEARCH FOR SANCTUARY BEGINS! A small colony of “Spinners,” looking to lead a simpler life, have nearly completed terraforming a moon. A ship crashes into their Eden from the heavens. A terror is unleashed.

#8: BLOOD HARVEST! The Xenomorphs overtake the settlement. A last stand is made. A terrible truth is learned.

#9: THE FALL OF THE GARDEN! Carnage consumes the settlement. Who will survive the night? Where is sanctuary? And how will they get there?

#10: The Spinners community has been decimated by the Xenomorphs. There's only a handful of survivors left. Will they make it to sanctuary? And what new terrifying type of Xenomorph awaits them?

#11: SANCTUARY IS NO MORE! Jane and the remaining Spinners are running out of ways to escape. And hope is getting slimmer as each station they reach is decimated by the Xenomorphs. Will help reach the colony in time? Or will the true intents of the colony destroy all hope?

#12: THE END OF PARADISE! Jane and her people have been imprisoned with a group of facehuggers! Jane has one last chance to escape, but will her disease be her doom?

Alien Vol. 2: Revival TPB

Fresh horror from a galaxy full of nightmares! An off-world terraforming station manned by an Appalachian religious sect has been beset by an outbreak of Xenomorphs! Now, a brave woman dying from a rare disease must defend her flock against the most perfect killing organisms in the cosmos! Jane may be facing her last days trapped inside a failing body, but she has already given her all to keep the colony together — and she doesn't intend to stop now. But as the Alien menace spreads, secrets about Jane's fellow Spinners are revealed and the once tight-knit community is torn apart. Can the survivors find a sanctuary that hasn't yet been overrun? Will help arrive in time? Or will the true purpose behind the isolated colony destroy all hope?

Plot

Revival

2202. Two years after the Epsilon incident, on the United American-owned moon of Euridice, colonists Jane and Ambrose, members of the religious sect known as the 'Spinners', return from a hunting trip to their local church. Euridice was colonized using the UA-owned terraforming stations Alpha, Beta and Gamma, but soon, the stations would be shut down, and Euridice would belong to the Spinners, as contractually obligated. Jane was largely responsible for convincing the members to embark on the expedition twenty years ago, and has since been revered by members. Jane herself at some point considered abandoning the colony, the "Garden of Adeline", after contracting an unknown illness which could be treated back on Earth, however she was obliged to stay, lest the deal between the Spinners and UA would deteriorate. She has since become embittered by her responsibility of staying on Euridice, and intends to return to Earth the moment the Spinners have the legal ownership over their planet.

Suddenly, scanners detect the United American Extrasolar vessel UAS Heraclides plummeting from orbit. Unbeknownst to the colonists, the ship had recently been subject to a Xenomorph infestation. The ship subsequently crashes into the Garden of Adeline, and sets the colony ablaze. Whilst attempting to fight the fire with the others, Jane enters the ruins of the Heraclides and encounters a Xenomorph egg chamber. A female colonist suddenly pounces on her, before having a chestburster erupt from inside of her. The chestburster briefly acknowledges Jane, before fleeing. After Ambrose caught up to her, she exclaimed to him that she saw the "dogs of perdition" that had been preached about.

Judas

After the Spinner's put out the fire and quell the chaos, a funeral is held for those killed in the crash. Panic erupts between the colonists, and they anxiously discuss their next approach. Jane is adamant on the creature she saw from the Heraclides, though everyone, including Ambrose, is skeptical due to her deteriorating condition.

The next day, the Spinners find the horribly mutilated corpse of Gunnar, with fellow colonist Becca missing. They conduct a search, with them eventually finding a small hive underneath the greenery. The Spinners are horrified to see Becca cocooned, before a Xenomorph emerges and attacks them. Jane retreats to Ambrose's house, intent on finding his shotgun he erroneously forgot to take with him. Upon accessing his bedroom, she sees several Xenomorph eggs laying by his bedside. Suddenly, Ambrose appears from behind and attacks Jane, revealing himself to be a Synthetic. He overpowers her and pins her down as a nearby egg begins to hatch.

Devil in the Garden

After the facehugger successfully subdues Jane, a distracted Ambrose is suddenly destroyed from behind by colonist Leo, who bludgeons Ambrose with a bat. Jane suddenly reawakens, the facehugger having detached itself from her face within a suspiciously short timespan. Leaving Leo behind to dissect Ambrose's databanks for information, Jane eventually arrives at the church, finding a scattered few cultists taking refuge. Leo also arrives, presenting the mangled head of Ambrose, who reveals that after deeming the colonization of Euridice problematic to their interests, Ambrose was sent by Weyland-Yutani as a spy, and the Company had deliberately infested the Heraclides as a foil to the UA.

Leo subsequently details that there may be ships still available at the Beta and Gamma stations and that the remaining Spinners should promptly migrate. However, senior member Gertrude objects, deeming the entire incident a mere test of faith - she and several other members ultimately opt to stay inside the church.

As Jane, Leo, Bowie and several other members distance themselves from the Garden of Adeline and sever the bridge they had just crossed, they look on to witness several Xenomorphs invade the church, slaughtering those inside, all the while Ambrose taunts them.

The Mines of Jonah

Three weeks after their initial departure, Jane and the remaining Spinners eventually arrive at a dilapidated mining site. Traversing the area, the group eventually come across an Alphatech Multirole Lightweight Transport, its battery still at full charge. Intending to use it to travel the remainder of the journey to Gamma Station, Simon is reluctant to join, believing that a Gamma colonist named Sophie he had grown infatuated with may still be alive in the mines. He suddenly holds the group at gunpoint, before fleeing into the mines.

Forced to pursue Simon, the group enter the mines, now a Xenomorph hive full of human corpses. Exploring deeper into the nest, the group are suddenly attacked by the Aliens, accompanied by Xenomorphs born from local fauna known as Tubers, and Tabby is killed in the ambush.

The Last Days of Eden

With Sophie in Simon's arms, the group ultimately escaped the mines and drove together in the Alphatech Transport until they finally reached Gamma Station, where they were immediately ambushed by another horde of Xenomorphs before being saved by an old acquaintance named Gregory, operating a military style armored vehicle. While Jane and Gregory get reacquainted, she quickly loses her trust in him when she comes to the realization that he, too, is a synthetic working for the U.A., and cuts him with her knife, causing him to secrete white fluid. In an act of retaliation, Gregory and his cadre of U.A. Colonial Troops leave Jane and her group them for dead in a locked cell that has become a Xenomorph egg chamber, along with an untold number of cocooned victims.

Book of Revelation

While the group fights for their lives, they take advantage of the fact that the Alien's blood is burning through the floor to escape. Jane's suspicions are confirmed when she comes to the realization that the disease she carries has made her an unviable target for the Aliens, before escaping from the hive unscathed.

Meanwhile, a Weyland-Yutani defense spacecraft lands nearby where Gregory meets with Doctor Palmer and his team, led by Sergeant Major Rodinski, who start asking direct questions about hosts for the "arthropod hybrids" to which Gregory responds to by leading them into the egg chamber where they find their hosts have unexpectedly escaped. With Xenomorphs loose within the facility, Palmer and Rodinski start their retreat before both being attacked and killed by both arthropod hybrids and humanoid Xenomorphs.

As Gregory sets out on a search for Jane and the others, he is ambushed by the group, then shot, and destroyed by Jane. As they make their way out of the facility, they hijack the Weyland-Yutani spacecraft and depart Euridice to return to Earth, leaving the ship's original crew behind. Some time after, Weyland-Yutani's Earth Orbital Station Reynolds picks up and tracks the stolen ship's path toward Earth, expressing their interest in intercepting it to study Jane's unique disease before they get too far.

Reprint History

Issues 7-12 of the series were collected in a trade paperback titled Alien Vol. 2: Revival, and was release on August 23, 2022. The collection reused Marc Aspinall's cover artwork from issue 9.

Trivia

While the story of Alien: Revival and its preceding story arc Alien: Bloodlines follow the events of the 1986 film Aliens, references to a number of Dark Horse's Aliens comics are made throughout the series, such as Grant Corporation, which first appeared in Aliens: Genocide, and Alphatech, which first appeared in Aliens: Colonial Marines, both of which reemerged years later in Free League Publishing's Alien: The Roleplaying Game.
Alien: Revival is the first Aliens story to feature more than one Synthetic Sleeper Agent.