Marvel has recently become the new home for Alien and Predator comics, and while Marvel’s creative teams have done an outstanding job so far with crafting original and captivating stories for both series, the current Predator run seems to have taken a bit of inspiration from the past, as it has perfectly flipped the plotline of Alien vs Predator’s most iconic story (whether it meant to or not).
Alien vs Predator was introduced in the comic Dark Horse Presents #36 back when Dark Horse Comics held the publishing rights to the iconic Sci-Fi franchises. This issue was released in 1990, so both Alien and Predator had their own separate series well established at that point, as Predator was on its way to releasing a sequel later that same year while Alien was gearing up for its third movie (which would be released two years later in 1992). In the landscape of the films (aside from a brief Xenomorph-skull cameo in Predator 2) there was never a hint of an Alien/Predator crossover–so, the comic creators with Dark Horse took it upon themselves to make it a reality. After the profoundly positive fan reaction to the initial crossover, Dark Horse greenlit a legitimate AvP comic series titled Aliens vs Predator–the first, and most iconic, AvP storyline to date.
The New Predator Book is the Perfect Opposite of AvP’s First Story in EVERY Way
In Aliens vs Predator by Randy Stradley and Phill Norwood, a team of Predators descends upon a peaceful off-world human settlement and kills practically everyone who lives there (either themselves or as a result of them seeding the planet with Xenomorphs). One survivor, Machiko Noguchi, teams up with the Predators to take down the Xenomorphs, despite the fact that the Yautja were responsible for everything bad that has happened. Not only that, but she becomes close with one Predator in particular, even going so far as to save his life on more than one occasion–a Predator with a broken tusk.
In Marvel Comics’ 2022 Predator series, readers are introduced to a woman named Theta who has traveled the cosmos for years hunting and killing any Predator she could find, though she was really looking for one specific Yautja in her quest for vengeance. When she was a child, Theta’s peaceful off-world colony was attacked by Predators, and her entire family was slaughtered right in front of her, including her mother, who managed to injure the Predator that took her life–an injury that resulted in the Predator having one broken tusk. The parallels here are clear, but more than that, they are perfectly opposite. Noguchi teams up with a Predator with a broken tusk who killed her people while Theta has made it her mission to kill a Predator with that same physical characteristic, and who was guilty of the same murderous crime.
Not only are their respective missions the inverse of one another, but their entire lives are charted on the same course, yet in opposite directions. Both Theta and Machiko end up traveling the cosmos with their own authentic Predator armor and tech, but Machiko earned this title and position within Predator ranks and started hunting alongside them, while Theta stole her tech off the corpses of Predators whose lives she had taken. While the parallels here are doubtfully deliberate, the similarities speak for themselves, making it safe to say that Marvel’s Predator series has perfectly flipped the first (and most iconic) Alien vs Predator story.
