Script: James Woodring
Artist: Kilian Plunkett
Inker: Monty Sheldon
Colorist: Matt Hollingsworth
Awesome! Just awesome! I’m definitely excited after reading this series. I think part of this excitement is because I wasn’t really expecting the way this story would turn out. It seemingly starts off with the cliché mad scientist experimenting on Aliens. While that’s a major theme of the overall story, the way it’s executed is so different from what we’ve witnessed thus far. I was hoping something like this would come along in the Aliens series to show that they really can have unpredictable and great writing, because I was starting to think they were feeling a little “safe” with the tried and true themes. The tried and true are good, but they’re just average, not outstanding… then came “Labyrinth”.
Welcome to the world of one of the best mad scientist characters I think I’ve ever come across, Dr. Church. Not that I know that many mad scientists, mind you. Dr. Church is special though, his motivations are unlike any we’ve really seen before. Sure his morals are questionable, but he’s also quite the philosophical fellow and getting to know his unorthodox story in issue three is a god send to Aliens fans around the world. His character is so vibrant, so methodical, and so dark, that you can’t help but get into him. Nothing compared to what we saw in “Rogue”, Church rarely makes any mistakes in his judgments.
The comic kicks off with the arrival of Colonel Dr. Crespi to a far off research facility in space. As usual in the Aliens series, it’s all very classified stuff, but we the readers get to go inside and see what’s going on. Crespi is there to replace the second in command. As usual things seem a bit off when Crespi finds out about the strange death of the man he’s replacing. He makes contact with a soldier named Sharon McGuiness Together they attempt to find out what’s really going on in the facility, if there is anything strange that is. With a character like Dr. Church wandering around you can’t help but feel something is off. James Woodring’s script is so expertly executed that you simply can’t put the issues down once you get into them. I loved a lot of the scientific aspects when Church explains the internal workings of the Aliens, I think it truly added to the atmosphere of the series. The only question now is who is going to survive this little game…
Kilian Plunkett’s art was superb for this series. The Aliens were drawn to move in beautifully fluid motions. The stress and emotion on each characters face were also captured perfectly, in my opinion. Combined with the superb color work of Matt Hollingsworth, this made for a very visually pleasing book. The colors are very dark when needed, but can also take on a brighter tinge in the highly lighted areas making one realize that Matt knows how to consider how each scene would be portrayed if it was happening in real life.
Overall, I highly recommend this series. It’s definitely one of the best story lines I’ve come across in a while for Aliens. I’ve enjoyed all the Aliens comics in some respects, but very few have really stood out. At first I was very concerned about reading yet another mad scientist tale right after they just put out “Rogue”, but I’m really glad I read this one. I would just suggest switching off between the mad scientist and action comics, because I think that changes things off enough in the series instead of getting overly boring.
Overall Rating: 4.7 out of 5