The Alien franchise is known for its destructive aliens, but a comic sequel to Aliens brought a romantic relationship between a human and an android (also called a synthetic) into the equation. Aliens: Outbreak and Aliens: Nightmare Asylum bring together Newt and a synthetic, creating a bizarre and bittersweet romance plot. This just proves that there is nothing Xenomorphs won’t destroy. Not even love is an exception.
The 1988 Dark Horse Comics miniseries Aliens: Outbreak has the creative team of Mark Verheiden, Mark A. Nelson, Dark Horse Digital, and Willie Schubert. This limited series was followed the next year by Aliens: Nightmare Asylum, which has the creative team of Mark Verheiden, Den Beauvais, and Willie Schubert. These comics are a direct continuation of Aliens (1986). In these two comics, Newt and Corporal Hicks survived, though thanks to Aliens 3‘s release and the deaths of the two characters, subsequent reprints renamed the characters to Billie and Sgt. Wilks, respectively.
Set many years after the events of Aliens, the story sees Newt reunited with Hicks, who saves her from a mental hospital. The two find themselves facing off against Xenomorphs once again. During a marine mission to the Xenomorphs’ home world, Newt begins an affair with a marine named Bueller. However, once the marines are in a Xenomorph hive and hell breaks loose as usual. When one of the creatures manages to slice Bueller in half during the fight, a secret unknown to all but Hicks comes to light: Bueller is a synthetic.
The Alien franchise is no stranger to romance, considering there have been a few couples who have met tragic ends in the films. However, a synthetic and human romance has been unheard of, because synthetics are not programmed with romance in mind. They are most often used for corporate sabotage plots and specimen acquisition. In this instance, Bueller and the other “marines” do not know that they are synthetics since their programming was designed to make them act, feel, and appear as human as possible. This naturally puts a big wrench into Newt and Bueller’s relationship since neither knows how it actually happened. This also puts some reservation into Newt’s mind as she questions their relationship’s validity.
Ultimately it doesn’t quite matter how Bueller and Newt fell in love. Despite having only half his body left, the synthetic crawls past Xenomorphs and saves Newt and Hicks, allowing them to leave the station they’re on while he remains behind. The moment is bittersweet, as Bueller realizes that he will always love Newt and her safety is all that matters, even if he has to stay behind in a Xenomorph-infested area. After all, the aliens don’t pay much mind to non-organics. While this is an unconventional Aliens story in terms of the romance, it is an intriguing exploration of the many roles synthetics can play. From secret saboteur to ally and now even lover, Aliens‘ synthetics are full of surprises .
