While the Predators aren’t exactly known for making friends wherever they go as they primarily just kill any new person/creature they meet, there is one person close to the Predator species who is by far their worst enemy (and it’s not who current fans might think).
The Predator comic book franchise has recently been given new life within the pages of Marvel Comics, and in those pages is an all-new character named Theta who has proven herself to be a major thorn in the Yautja’s side. When Theta was a girl, her peaceful off-world colony was attacked by Predators, with one in particular murdering her parents right in front of her. Theta was the only survivor of the assault, so she used one of the colony’s ships to take to the stars in search of the Predator that killed her parents–all the while killing any Yautja she encountered along the way. By the time she was an adult, Theta had murdered over twenty Predators, and most of those kills were accomplished due to the stolen Yautja tech she acquired from her first few victims. Theta effectively flipped the Predators’ cosmic purpose against them, making them the prey in the hunts she initiated–but even though Theta definitely became public enemy number one for the Predators, she didn’t hold a candle to the Yautja’s real ultimate enemy.
Machiko Noguchi is the Predators’ Arch Rival, Not Theta
In Aliens vs Predator: War #3 by Randy Stradley and Jim Hall, Machiko Noguchi betrays the trust of the Predators she hunted alongside for the past year, killing them all in the most dishonorable way imaginable. This storyline takes place after the events of the first AvP comic series, in which Machiko Noguchi is a businesswoman on assignment at an off-world colony owned by the company she worked for. Unexpectedly, that colony is attacked by both Predators and Xenomorphs–though Machiko manages to survive the encounter. Not only that, but she proves that she has what it takes to be a Predator herself after she kills a number of Xenomorphs (including a Queen) while also saving the life of the Predator she made her ally. When another ship of Predators came to this world to see the progress of their brethren, only Machiko was left, and she bore the mark of their clan. So, Machiko was invited to hunt alongside these Predators, and she did so for an entire year. However, things quickly went south when Machiko couldn’t get behind the hunting of one particular prey: humans.
In this AvP story, Machiko is forced to choose between the Predators she decided to call family, or her own species. In the end, she chose the humans, which led to her sabotaging the Predators’ ship before taking it down to the hunting grounds herself and killing the Yautja below before they had the chance to kill those people. To pull this off single-handedly, Machiko had to resort to surprise attacks against the Predators who decided to trust her–murdering them while they didn’t wield any weapons or armor. Not only did Machiko kill Predators, but she also broke the Predators’ code of honor–which is a far worse crime.
When Theta kills Predators, she does so while they are already on a hunt, and in doing so, presents herself as a worthy and honorable challenger to the Predator she is fighting. Machiko, on the other hand, gained the Predators’ trust then turned on them while breaking their sacred code, resulting in an entire ship of Yautja being killed in the process as well. Machiko proves to be just as deadly as Theta, but infinitely more offensive to the Predator species due to how she went about killing them, and for this reason, Machiko Noguchi is the Predators’ worst enemy, not Theta.
