Russ Jorden

"Folks, we have scored big this time!"

―Russ (from Aliens Special Edition)

Russell "Russ" Jorden^[3] was a colonist and prospector living at Hadley's Hope on Acheron. He was the husband of Anne Jorden and father to Timmy and Rebecca Jorden. In 2179 Russ, along with his family, was one of the first people to rediscover the derelict ship on the moon.

While Russ was the first colonist to become impregnated by a Facehugger, it remains unclear whether it was he who triggered the Xenomorph infestation that destroyed the colony.

Biography

"Shouldn't we call in?"
"Let's wait until we know what to call it in as..."

―Anne Jorden to Russ, regarding the derelict (from Aliens Special Edition)

Following purposely vague orders from Carter Burke back on Earth, operations manager Simpson sent Russ and Anne Jorden to investigate a set of coordinates out beyond the colony. After ensuring anything they found was theirs to salvage, Russ, Anne and their children Timmy and Newt discovered a derelict ship had crashed on the moon's surface. Eager to investigate what they had found, Russ and Anne went inside the derelict spacecraft while their children remained on board their tractor outside. Within the ship, the Jordens discovered the ship's cargo hold filled with Xenomorph Eggs. Russ was attacked and subdued by a Facehugger before being dragged back to the tractor by Anne who frantically radioed for help.

Legacy

Aliens: Newt's Tale

After Russ was subdued by a Facehugger, his terrified wife dragged him back to their vehicle and radioed for help before being taken to the med lab at Hadley's Hope.^[4] Once the Facehugger had implanted its embryo and died, Russ was confined to the medical facility out of fears for his health, while the Facehugger itself was studied by the colony's medical staff.^[4] 24 hours after he was first attacked, the Chestburster inside Russ hatched, brutally killing him in front of his wife, and also his children, who were secretly watching from a nearby ventilation shaft.^[4]

Alien: River of Pain

After Russ was subdued by a Facehugger, he was rushed back to the colony and placed under supervision in the medical bay, while Brackett quarantined the derelict and places several Marine guards there to prevent anyone else entering the ship. Even so, several members of an investigative team are also attacked by Facehuggers. Twenty-four hours later, the Chestburster inside Russ emerges, killing him, before escaping into the colony's ventilation system.

Aliens: Aftermath

"Subject Zero is one of the original colonists of Hadley's Hope. And the first known infection."

―Ms. Yutani (from Aliens: Aftermath)

After Russ was subdued by a Facehugger and rushed back to the colony, orders were sent by Carter Burke to quarantine and preserve the threat by freezing Russ, aka "Subject Zero," in a hypersleep chamber and secreting it away deep down in sublevel F where it remained for thirty-five years.

In 2214, Cutter Vasquez, a member of a anti-Weyland-Yutani terrorist organization named Renegade XM, was approached by the Extrasolar Colonization Administration to retrieve Subject Zero for their own purposes. Following his encounter with Subject Zero, Cutter is suddenly approached by a hologram with a female likeness who tells Vasquez that if he instead delivers Subject Zero to Wey-Yu, they will double his pay and wipe his criminal record. When Cutter is attacked and killed by a glowing Xenomorph, stray gunfire from his Pulse Rifle severs the chamber's harness, causing Subject Zero's stasis program to terminate and triggers the Chestburster to suddenly erupt from within.

Behind the Scenes

Original comic book appearance

Following Aliens, the character of Russ went on to appear (in flashback) in the first Aliens comic series published from 1988-1989 by Dark Horse Comics, which continued the story of his daughter Newt as she and Hicks traveled to the theorized Xenomorph home world in order to combat an infestation that has taken over the entire Earth.

However, following the release of Alien³ in 1992, in which Newt perished, the identities of several characters in the comics were altered to keep the stories congruous with the film franchise. While many of these characters also changed their names to differentiate them from the characters in the film continuity, Russ did not, simply becoming a different individual called Russ. The change first appeared in the novel Aliens: Earth Hive, an adaptation of the first Aliens comic series, released several months after Alien³. Subsequent reprints of the early comics have also used these altered names. Despite these changes, the characters' back stories were not altered (beyond the names of people and places), and so both Russ characters share remarkably similar experiences — both were deep-space colonists, both stumbled upon a derelict alien spacecraft containing Xenomorph Eggs with their family, both were impregnated by Facehuggers, and the subsequent Xenomorph infestation they unwittingly unleashed claimed the lives of every inhabitant at the colony with the exception of their daughter.

Trivia

Russ Jorden and the rest of his family (excluding Newt) were cut from the theatrical release of Aliens when the studio complained that the film was too long. The scene featuring him was later reinstated for the extended Special Edition.
Russ was originally to appear in flashbacks in Mark Verheiden's Aliens comic series that dealt with his daughter, but when Newt was scripted to die in Alien³ Jorden's character was retconned into a different Russ.
As Russ was the first colonist to be impregnated, it has been theorized by some that he may have given birth to the Queen on LV-426.