Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Aliens: What If?…! While the Alien franchise famously features the dreaded Xenomorphs as the main antagonists of every story (in terms of immediate danger, anyway, not necessarily overarching), there’s one human villain that most fans will agree is just as vile, slimy, and overall repugnant as the Xenomorphs themselves: Carter Burke. Well, those fans will be happy to learn that there isn’t a universe in which Burke doesn’t get his due comeuppance (at least, for the moment).
In Aliens: What If?… #1 by Paul Reiser, Leon Reiser, Adam F. Goldberg, Hans Rodionoff, Biran Volk-Weiss, and Guiu Vilanova, readers are shown an alternate version of the 1986 film Aliens, in which Carter Burke didn’t die on LV-426, but instead made it off of Hadley’s Hope alive. The issue shows how Burke escaped the Xenomorph hive by using the chaos created by Ripley, Bishop, and Hicks to slip past the aliens and onto the Colonial Marines’ vessel.
Once the Queen Xenomorph was defeated and everyone thought they were safe, Burke made a call to Yutani. Since they didn’t have a Xenomorph specimen (which was the entire point of the Hadley’s Hope settlement), Yutani ordered Burke to kill the survivors, and then return to Earth. Burke did as he was told (sort of) for the promise of lifetime benefits from the company. Weyland-Yutani kept up its end of the bargain, though unfortunately, the life Burke was stuck with was arguably worse than the death he originally received.
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Carter Burke was Forced to Live the Rest of His Life on an Asteroid in Aliens: What If?
Burke made a deal to do the company’s dirty work in order to ensure the secrecy of what actually happened on Hadley’s Hope. Officially, all 158 colonists and the Colonial Marines that were dispatched died due to a reactor meltdown. So, Burke took care of the potential whistleblowers, and in return, he was taken care of by Weyland-Yutani. However, there was one caveat to that all-too literal deal with the devil: Burke was blamed for the whole thing.
Burke wasn’t just blamed for the meltdown, he was also the fall guy for Weyland-Yutani’s entire research into the Xenomorph. On Earth, Burke became an utter pariah, someone as universally hated as Judas himself – even in the eyes of his own daughter. To top it all off, Burke is essentially marooned on an asteroid terraformed by Weyland-Yutani, trapped in a holographic world, making it seem as though he’s still on Earth, and not the cold edge of the galaxy. However, based on how this issue ends, Burke’s luck might begin to change.
Burke May Single-Handedly Bring About an Alien Apocalypse
Burke got his hands on an Ovomorph at the end of Aliens: What If?…
One of the main reasons Burke is so reviled is that everyone thinks he tried to bring a Xenomorph to Earth from Hadley’s Hope (since that’s the misinformation Weyland-Yutani spread). That’s incredibly dangerous, since Xenomorphs can take over a planet like it’s nothing. While that was a lie spread by the company, the end of this issue shows Burke with his very own Ovomorph, and a vessel with a loyal synthetic who will presumably take him wherever he wants to go – including back to Earth.
Burke may be about to fulfill his true potential as a villain by using the Xenomorph not on behalf of the company, but to eradicate everyone who turned their backs on him, aka all of humanity. Sure, he may have suffered a cruel and disturbing fate for the last few decades after surviving the events of Aliens, but Burke may achieve a destiny far more horrific than banishment, as he may go down in history as the man who wiped out the human race in this alternate Alien canon.
Aliens: What If?… #1 by 20th Century Studios is available now.
