If you've recently stepped out of a showing of Predator: Badlands or finished the final episode in FX/Hulu's Alien: Earth, it might feel like you're in for an interminable wait for the next installments in these two beloved sci-fi, horror franchises. Film and television aren't the only mediums the Yautja and Xenomorphs stalk, though. They also have a long history with comics that continues to this day.
What's especially exciting about that is comics are a budget-free medium of boundless imagination. Comics can tell stories with the Aliens and Predators that film and television couldn't at the time, and still can't. Stories like the Xenomorphs establishing a hive on Earth, a Predator hunting aquatic life, and even tales that pit the iconic alien killers against famous pop culture characters like Batman, the Avengers and the Terminator.
Let's delve into the long history of Predator and Alien comics, examine some of the notable past and present storylines, and look at some of the other comic characters they've run afoul of. We'll also offer up some of the best ways to start reading these comics.
Alien Comics: The Beginning
The history of Alien comics begins in 1979 with the release of Alien: The Illustrated Story by Archie Goodwin (Manhunter) and Walt Simonson (Thor); a graphic novel adaptation of Ridley Scott's titular film published by Heavy Metal magazine. It was one of the first comics to hit the New York Times Best Sellers List. It's also still in print. Titan Books publishes a trade paperback edition.
Dark Horse Comics obtained the rights to the Alien franchise in 1988 and published comics with the Xenomorphs until 1999, and again in 2009 until the beginning of the current decade, when the rights moved to Marvel Comics after Disney purchased Fox. Dark Horse never published one ongoing Alien comic. Instead, they released multiple miniseries featuring original stories and occasionally adapted films like Alien 3 into comics.
Dark Horse's first Alien miniseries was meant to be a sequel to James Cameron's Aliens. It plunges a Colonial Marine expedition into the machinations of a spy agency, Weyland-Yutani, and a Xenomorph-worshipping cult. It ends with an Alien infestation and decimation of Earth
These comics would usually feature brand new characters created for the story, but occasionally, favorites from the films did show up, like Ellen Ripley in 1992's Alien: Female War. Newt and Hicks even made appearances in several original stories set after Aliens, but after the release of Alien 3, Dark Horse went back and changed their names in collected editions of those stories to Wilks and Billie. Their names were changed back to Hicks and Newt in the most recent collected editions, and comic stories featuring them are now viewed as alternate sequels to Aliens.
Dark Horse: Predator Comics
Dark Horse began publishing Predator comics in 1989. Like their Aliens line, they published multiple Predator miniseries rather than a single ongoing book. Most books were original stories, but they did adapt 1990's Predator 2 and they published a prequel series to the 2010 film Predators.
Their first comic series featured NYPD Detective John Schaefer (Brother to Dutch, the character Arnold Schwarzenegger portrayed in the original film), who becomes embroiled in the world of the Yautja after a heatwave hits New York. Schaefer would return in Dark Horse's Predator line, but most of the miniseries featured new protagonists.
Dark Horse also took advantage of the freedom of the comics medium to give their Predator stories a multitude of unique settings. 1991's Predator Cold War took place in Siberia. In 1997's Predator: Hell and Hot Water, a team of mercenaries on a river in Chile runs afoul of a Yautja that hunts aquatic prey. These comics were often set in interesting times as well. 1997's Predator: Nemesis unfolded in Victorian London, and 1998's Predator: Hell Come A-Walkin' was set on a battlefield of the American Civil War.
Alien Vs Predator Vs…
The original Alien Vs Predator film was released in 2004, but the initial idea of pitting the two titular killers against each other was born in a brainstorming session between the creators and executives of Dark Horse. It became a serialized short story published in the comics anthology Dark Horse Presents in 1989 before graduating into its own line of comics in 1990.
In 2015, Dark Horse weaved together elements from their Aliens, Predator, and AvP comics lines with the 2012 film Prometheus for a crossover tale that spanned four miniseries (one for each of the crossover elements) and one bookend special. It was called Fire and Stone.
The Predator and the Alien clashed multiple times through 2020, but Dark Horse also had them battle other iconic pop culture characters. The 2000s Aliens vs. Predator vs. Terminator brought together all three of the big sci-fi franchises Dark Horse had licenses for in a story set after the events of 1997's Alien Resurrection. It's a wild tale that teams the clone of Ellen Ripley, synth Annalee Call (Played by Winona Ryder in Alien Resurrection) and the Yautja against a Skynet plot to create cybernetic super soldiers using Xenomorph DNA.
Between 1995 and 2018, the Xenomorphs would battle some of DC Comics' most famous superheroes. They fought Batman in a 1995 miniseries and again in a 2003 sequel. They menaced Superman in a 1995 miniseries and again in a 2002 follow-up. Green Lantern would shine his emerald light on the Aliens in a 2004 miniseries.
All of those titles were co-published by Dark Horse and DC. Dark Horse would also team up with Image Comics for the one-shot WildC.A.T.S./Aliens, British publisher 2000 AD for a 2003 Judge Dredd Vs Aliens miniseries, and Dynamite Entertainment for the 2015-2016 Aliens/Vampirella miniseries.
The Yautja also battled DC Comics' most iconic superheroes and Judge Dredd. There were three separate Batman Versus Predator minis (in 1992, 1994 and 1998), one Superman Vs Predator, and one Predator Vs. Judge Dredd miniseries. In 1992, Dark Horse partnered with Valiant Comics for a miniseries that pitted the Yautja against the fan favorite, futuristic, martial-artist known as Magnus Robot Fighter.
Dark Horse also held the publishing rights to comics based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' jungle lord character, Tarzan. So, in 1996, he faced off with the Yautja in a miniseries titled Tarzan Vs Predator: At the Earth's Core.
Some of those crossovers may sound wild, but Dark Horse truly saved their most bizarre intracompany crossover for last. Just before they stopped publishing Predator comics, there were not one but TWO Archie Vs. Predator minis! The first was in 2015, and the second kicked off in the fall of 2019.
Marvel's Alien And Predator Comics
When the publishing rights moved from Dark Horse to Marvel, many older Alien and Predator comics became much harder to read because the Dark Horse collected editions went out of print. Fortunately, Marvel has since rereleased many of the original Alien and Predator comics in omnibus collections. There are four volumes of Aliens: The Original Years and two volumes of Predator: The Original Years.
Unfortunately, Marvel has yet to release any reprint volumes of the Aliens Vs Predator comics or the various miniseries that pitted the Xenomorphs and Yautja against other characters. However, as of this writing, the trade paperback collection of Archie Vs Predator II is still available.
Marvel began publishing new Xenomorph comics in 2021 with the release of their first monthly Alien comic. It ran for 12 issues and two story arcs. The first arc follows a retired Weyland-Yutani military operative who's drawn into a Xenomorph conflict on a space station in order to save his son. The second arc involved Xenomorphs crashing into a rural, terraformed colony.
The second volume of Alien launched in 2022. It lasted six issues and chronicled the story of a legendary, all-synth, special forces team sent on a recovery mission to a Xenomorph-contaminated planet. The third volume followed in 2023 and was about a team of scientists on an Arctic planet caught between Xenomorphs and a Weyland-Yutani team trying to seize their research. A sequel followed a few months after that, starring one of the survivors of the previous story and involving a new strain of Xenomorphs that had infected a monstrous alien lifeform. The most recent series, Alien: Paradiso, which wrapped earlier this year, was about a Xenomorph outbreak at an ultra-wealthy resort planet.
Marvel's Alien comics mostly feature original characters, but they did publish a unique miniseries featuring one of the franchise's most infamous villains, Carter Burke. The series titled Aliens: What If? was published in the spring of last year and was a dark comedy that imagined what would have happened if Burke survived Hadley's Hope instead of Ellen Ripley. What made the series especially interesting is that it was co-written by the actor who portrayed Burke, Paul Reiser.
Writer Ed Brisson (Ghost Rider) penned all three of Marvel's Predator comics as of this writing. Those stories are set in the future and star a young woman named Theta whose parents were murdered by a Predator. She traveled the Yautja's interstellar “hunting routes” on a starship, killing any of their kind who crossed her path. The first series unfolded in 2022's Predator. A second volume followed in 2023. The final miniseries, Predator: The Last Hunt, was published in 2024.
Theta's second and third stories involve Yautja hunting preserves like the one seen in the film Predators, but what's exciting about those stories is that they're populated by humans from a wide variety of time periods. The Last Hunt also features a surprise appearance by a character from Dark Horse's Predator comics.
In addition to full-length Predator and Alien tales, Marvel has published two anthology series. Alien: Black, White and Blood was released last year, and Predator: Black, White, and Blood wrapped up last month. Each issue of those books featured short stories that often embroiled their titular characters in strange and visceral situations.
Marvel also revived the tradition of pitting the Xenomorphs and Yautja against superheroes. They kicked things off in the fall of 2023 with Predator Vs. Wolverine. Next was 2024's Predator Vs Black Panther. 2024 also saw the release of Aliens Vs Avengers. This year, they've released Predator Vs Spider-Man and the currently unfolding Predator Kills the Marvel Universe.
All of Marvel's Predator Vs. comics published so far have been written by Ben Percy . They're designed to be accessible, self-contained, and tell a larger narrative. You can pick up any of these without knowledge of a Marvel character's history and get a complete story. If you read all of them in order, though, you're treated to a larger tale that culminates with the Yautja launching a full-scale invasion of Marvel Earth.
Writer Jonathan Hickman (X-Men) and artist Esad Ribic's (Thor) Aliens Vs Avengers is set in a dystopian future where Weyland-Yutani is a power in the Marvel Universe and a cabal of space and dimension-traveling synths seeds worlds with Xenomorph lifeforms. The series begins with a decimated Earth, and it's up to Marvel's last remaining heroes to find a safe place in the universe for humanity to resettle and survive.
Since Marvel's original Alien and Predator comics are all rather recent, most of them are readily available in collected editions. Alien: Galaxy of Nightmares collects the first two volumes of the series. The next two volumes are Alien by Shalvey and Broccardo Vol. 1: Thaw and Alien by Shalvey and Broccardo Vol. 2: Descendant. Aliens: What If and the most recent series, Alien: Paradiso, are also available in collected graphic novel form. Predator: The Theta Saga collects all three of the title characters' comic adventures in one volume. There's also a collection of Alien: Black, White & Blood and the one for Predator: Black, White & Blood is scheduled for next year.
All of Marvel's comics that pit the Predators and Aliens against their heroes are currently available in collected editions, except for Predator Kills the Marvel Universe, which hasn't finished yet. A trade paperback graphic novel is slotted to hit in April 2026.
Marvel's growing library of Alien and Predator Comics and the decades' worth of material published by Dark Horse means I've really only scratched the surface of the wealth of comics available to fans of these iconic franchises. If you find yourself hungry for Yautja hunts or bursting with excitement for Xenomorph stories, there's plenty of exciting tales waiting to be discovered at your local comic shop, bookstore, or library.
