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A relative of a fan-favorite character from the film Aliens is trying to uncover what happened to his family and could unleash hell in the process.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Aliens: Aftermath #1 by Benjamin Percy, Dave Wachter, Christopher Sotomayor & VC’s Ariana Maher
The current Alien comics have, like the Star Wars series produced by Marvel before them, been largely removed from previous attempts to bring these sci-fi franchises to comics. Instead, they utilize the original films as their only true guiding star, with new connections being discovered between this fresh timeline and the films at the heart of the franchise.
The new Marvel Aliens line just featured one such deep-cut connection– with the nephew of the fan-favorite Colonial Marine Vasquez’s from Aliens being at the heart of Aliens: Aftermath, scouring the galaxy in search for information on her fate.
Jenette Vazquez was one of the primary side-characters the film Aliens, directed by James Cameron. She was one of the Colonial Marines tasked with investigating the mining colony of Hadley’s Hope, which had lost contact with the rest of the universe. A snarky but loyal soldier, Vasquez was one of the few Marines to survive their initial encounter with the Xenomorphs in the ruins of the colony. Her skills with weaponry made her crucial in the attempted escape of the remaining survivors, with the group trying to abandon the planet and the Xenomorphs before a local nuclear reactor could be set to explode.
However, during the escape attempt, Vasquez was seriously wounded by a splash of acidic Xenomorph blood. The mission’s inexperienced commander, Gorman, returned to try and assist her — and when the pair were cornered and surrounded, pulled a grenade out, allowing the pair to go out on their own terms and take some of the ferocious aliens with them. Vasquez’s history and family relations were explored in tie-in material (such as a sister, Carmer, who appeared in the Dark Horse comic series Aliens: Colonial Marines). But it seems that a new family connection and history has been established for the character in Aliens: Aftermath — which takes place in the newly created Marvel Alien timeline.
Taking place in the year 2214 — thirty-five years after the conclusion of Aliens — Aliens: Aftermath largely focuses on a rebellious man named Cutter, who works as a part of Renegade XM, an illegal stream that has been branded a terrorist by the governments of the world. Broadcasting live across the galaxy as he and his allies target Weyland-Yutani Fueling Stations, Cutter is eventually revealed to be the nephew of Vasquez. As he reveals to his audience once back on his ship, he only has a handful of memories of his aunt before she disappeared on her mission — but he retains her motto of “the risk always lives” as the personal code for Renegade XM.
Only a few years later, Cutter lost his parents when a transport ship they were on cut the power to save funds — resulting in their cryo-freeze sleep becoming a lethal one, and giving him additional reasons to hate the company. It’s a heavy origin for the character and ties him closer to one of the original series’ most memorable characters. It also gives him plenty of reason to search for the remains of Hadley’s Hope to find out more and complete a job he’s been hired for — resulting in him and his team finding the moon, hidden by Weyland-Yutani Corporation. Setting down and seeking answers to the mystery of what happened to Vasquez, Cutter even gets to find her distinct shotgun amongst the nuclear fallout-ravaged rubble of the world.
But he and his crew also end up both confronting a newly evolved Xenomorph — who Cutter is last seen engaging in a fight — and accidentally discovering a person in cryo-sleep who has been infected by a Xenomorph. The new Vasquez’s journey to the world his family suffered on ends up exposing the human back to life — resulting in a baby Xenomorph breaking free while the fully grown one slaughters all of Cutter’s crewmates before attacking him. In essence, this second Vasquez ends up accidentally leading Weyland-Yutani directly to the goal they wanted at the climax of Aliens — and potentially making a mistake that could spread the Xenomorph back into the galaxy despite the sacrifice of his aunt and her friends.
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