Alien: Thaw, originally titled Alien, also known as Alien Vol. 1: Thaw, is a five-issue comic book series that was published by Marvel Comics. It was written by Declan Shalvey, drawn by Andrea Broccardo, colored by Tríona Farrell (issue #1-4) and Ruth Redmond (issue #4-5), lettered by VC's Clayton Cowles, and edited by Sarah Brunstad. Cover art was provided by Dike Ruan, while variant cover art was provided by Gabriele Dell'Otto, Alex Maleev, and Declan Shalvey. It was released on April 26, 2023 to coincide with Alien Day. The series was followed by a one-shot, tie-in prequel comic titled Alien: Annual #1.
Alien: Thaw serves as the first installment of a multi-arc storyline that will continue with Alien: Descendant.
In Marvel's Alien comics line, Alien: Thaw was preceded by Alien: Icarus and was followed by Alien: Annual #1.
Publisher's summary
#1: Scientist Batya Zahn will do just about anything to get her family off the icy moon where they've been conducting research on water conservation. But there's more than glacial springs to find in this forgotten corner of the galaxy. When they discover an extraordinary organism buried in the ice, it won't take long for tensions to heat up. What is hidden in the snow comes forth in the thaw…and no one will be welcoming this spring. A new era of Alien starts here!
#2: BETTER OFF BURIED! Talbot Engineering Inc. is under new management, but the organization's brilliant chief scientist, Batya Zhan, is not willing to give up her coded work to this unexpected threat without a fight. Over at Zhan's dig site, the intruders drill into the ice of the moon colony's surface only to discover hundreds of dark, black, frozen bodies. With daylight quickly dwindling away, it's anyone's guess what horrors will emerge in the black of night and from the cold of the ice.
#3: SOMETHING WICKED IS COMING THEIR WAY... The USCSS Boreas has been infiltrated! A chest-burster is wreaking havoc on base, leaving a trail of gore and eviscerated bodies in its wake. With their numbers dwindling, will the Weyland-Yutani security team be able to track the alien down before it becomes something even more deadly? And even if they do, how will they manage the horrors lurking just outside their walls beyond the ice?
#4: HOW FAR WOULD YOU SINK, TO SURVIVE? All hell has broken loose on base. As Xenomorphs swarm the rig - massacring any Weyland-Yutani personnel in sight - Batya makes a plan for an escape. With her research and family at risk, Batya must take a gamble and pursue her last option for salvation.
#5: ONE LAST CHANCE TO ESCAPETHE THAW! With secrets revealed, loved ones lost and Xenomorphs engulfing the base – for a moment, Zasha thought all hope was gone. However, when a familiar face arrives in the form of a savior, the two set off for one last-ditch effort to escape the moon. The foes they will face – human and alien – might be their end, but just because the moon's ice has thawed to reveal the horrors beneath doesn't mean Zasha will let herself sink without a fight!
Plot
As human colonization efforts expanded exponentially throughout the universe, the demand for quality sources of water became critical. Companies across the board jumped at the opportunity to take advantage of the monetary profit such an industry could produce. This is when Talbot Engineering Inc. secured exclusive water rights to the ice moon LV-695. If successful, Talbot Engineering Inc. could provide water to numerous terraforming projects across the stars.
2195. Chief Scientist Batya Zahn was stationed at Glacier Base VI on the ice moon LV-695 with her partner Dayton and her daughter Zasha to research water resources for Talbot Engineering Inc. During a routine excavation trip, Zasha extracted an specimen of unknown origin from the ice, completely white in color, which they stored away in Batya's lab. Convinced it's the same highly-adaptive Xenomorph species she'd read about in classified documents from Epsilon known as Alpha, Batya decided to transmit her findings to Talbot's head office. Believing Batya's been conducting illicit experiments with the species on her own, Weyland-Yutani, who intercepted the transmission, were on their way to collect Batya's research by any means necessary. Within two weeks, the USCSS Boreas made planetfall, bringing with it a WY representative named Wendell Theen, a group of scientists, and a security unit. While Wendell claimed Weyland-Yutani purchased Talbot Engineering Inc. only weeks before their arrival, the validity of his claim had not been officially confirmed. Following a verbal altercation over the recent takeover that ultimately turned physical, Zasha inconspicuously escaped into the facilities ventilation system to secure the specimen while Byron had been detained and held in the Boreas' brig.
Meanwhile, two miles away at an excavation site, a group of Weyland-Yutani engineers started Talbot's mining drill in hopes of uncovering something of value, only to be swallowed up into a cavern beneath the ice where a nest of fully-grown Xenomorphs laid dormant before they thawed out and escaped to the moon's surface where they destroyed a caravan of hoppers, and killed the engineers within. Back at the the Keg, Wendell interrogated Batya for information related to her research and findings while two security agents used hand welders to break into Batya's lab in search of alien specimens. Zasha, who successfully secured the oddly colored Alien specimen in her backpack, was then caught by a Weyland-Yutani security agent named Earl. As Zasha struggled to release herself from his grip, the thawed, discolored facehugger leapt from her backpack and attached itself to Earl's face to subdue and impregnate him. When his unconscious body was ultimately discovered by security agents Harrison and his colleague while on patrol, a white-colored chestburster violently erupted from within, instantly killing its host and attacked both agents on its way out. In an effort to kill the alien creature, their pulse rifle fire accidentally struck fuel containers, that resulted in a devastating explosion.
Having survived the explosion, Harrison enlisted agents James and Cleary for a search and destroy mission, intent on killing the creature running loose in the Keg. Back on the Boreas, Byron took down a security agent in the brig before making his way to the ship's communication deck to contact and rendezvous with Batya. Just before they would reunite aboard the Boreas, the layer of ice supporting the ship cracked open, causing the ship to sink deep into a watery grave beneath the moon's surface.
Reprint history
The five-issue comic book series Alien was collected as a trade paperback titled Alien Vol. 1: Thaw and was released on November 14, 2023.
Trivia
- With the exception of the one-shot comic book Aliens: Aftermath, Alien was the first series in Marvel's Alien comics line to be written by someone other than Phillip Kennedy Johnson, who wrote the three previous story arcs.
- Issue #1 was the first release in Marvel's Alien comics line to feature the publisher's new 20th Century Studios imprint.
Goofs
- While the story took place in the year 2195, a number of computer screens in issue #5, specifically at the emergency escape platform, displayed the year 2194.
Gallery
Issue covers
Variant covers
