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1994’s Aliens: Music of the Spears had a team of highly trained Ninjas go toe-to-toe with the most horrifying creatures on this or any other planet.
Between Marvel’s Alien series and the new video game Aliens: Fireteam Elite, there’s no shortage of exciting new stories for fans of the terrifying Xenomorphs to explore. But in the 42 years since the release of Ridley Scott’s Alien, there have been countless sagas in various mediums that merit revisiting. An oft-forgotten classic, 1994’s Aliens: Music of the Spears by Chet Williamson, Tim Hamilton, TImothy Bradstreet, Matt Webb and Clem Robins published by Dark Horse Comics, pits the monstrous aliens against some of their most formidable opponents of all time: Ninjas.
Told in four compelling issues, Aliens: Music of the Spears explores the madness of an avant-garde musician named Damon Eddington. Eddington is tired of the computer-generated music that dominates the art form he loves. A monopolistic record label called Synsound controls and publishes almost all contemporary music, much of which is just performed by android replicas of rockstars from bygone eras, but Damon is determined to make something utterly new and original. He approaches the higher-ups at Synsound with his idea for a new musical project designed to center around the screams of xenomorphs.
Damon’s bosses at Synsound are intrigued by his idea, but they don’t want to spend too much money on it. If he were a bigger star, they could easily justify bribing the military for access to an alien, but as it is, budgetary restrictions will require a more clandestine approach. Synsound hires a ninja named Ahiro to break into a military facility and steal an egg for Eddington.
Ahiro assembles a team of other ninjas and they stealthily venture into an underground military base that contains a nest of Xenomorphs. They are surprised to find the basement completely unguarded, but when the first xenomorph lunges towards them, they understand that no human guards could survive down there for long. Despite their training, many of the ninjas fall to the aliens’ strength. Others are horribly burned by the creatures’ acidic blood, but the Ninjas are able to hack away at their enemies and manage to make it into the heavily guarded nest, where they successfully retrieve an egg before making a hasty retreat. Three of Ahiro’s Ninjas died in the battle and several were badly injured, but considering the fact that they were fighting xenomorphs armed only with swords and their wits, they were much more successful than many who have gone toe-to-toe with the aliens.
Once in possession of the egg, Eddington and a team of scientists find a cultist willing to become a host for the monster. Shortly after that, a ferocious xenomorph is born. Damon names it Mozart and records it attacking various animals before realizing that his music needs the sound of an alien attacking a human being to be complete, so he once again hires Ahiro to round up an assortment of vagrants and criminals to sacrifice to Mozart.
As Aliens: Music of the Spears progresses, Eddington begins using a drug made from xenomorph pheromones and demanding that more and more people be fed to his pet monster. His descent into madness is a haunting addition to the Alien canon that illustrates the pervasive nature of the danger xenomorphs represent. But the series also illustrates that a team of Ninjas can be just as effective against the monsters from space as any high-tech military operation or even Predators.
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