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Aliens: Stronghold (Aliens Library Edition #8)

John Arcudi,

Jimmy Palmiotti

Doug Mahnke

3.6 · Rating details · 60 Ratings · 8 Reviews

Dr. Caspar Nordling is developing a micro-organism that is deadly to Aliens, but not to people. He's had a lot of luck engineering selective viruses to kill rats and weevils, but this is something altogether different. Highly speculative. Highly volatile. Just like the doctor himself. In a remote sector of the galaxy, on an isolated Grant-Corp space station, the thin line ...more

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Paperback, 117 pages

Published July 22nd 1997 by Dark Horse Comics

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Sep 13, 2012 Jean-Francois Boivin rated it liked it

Shelves: comics, aliens-predator

Second edition of the collected edition originally published as a 4-issue mini-series. This one is Volume 8, the last one of the "Aliens Library" revised editions of previous series. All previous seven have also been adapted as novels published by Bantam, but this one wasn't (curiously the series that followed, ALIENS: BERSERKER, was novelized.)

Written by John Arcudi (who previously co-wrote ALIENS: GENOCIDE), the story references previous volumes of the series in the form of Grant Corporation ( Second edition of the collected edition originally published as a 4-issue mini-series. This one is Volume 8, the last one of the "Aliens Library" revised editions of previous series. All previous seven have also been adapted as novels published by Bantam, but this one wasn't (curiously the series that followed, ALIENS: BERSERKER, was novelized.)

Written by John Arcudi (who previously co-wrote ALIENS: GENOCIDE), the story references previous volumes of the series in the form of Grant Corporation (from GENOCIDE); Jeri the synthetic alien who talks based on the prototype created by Stan Mayakovski (from ALIENS: HARVEST); and a towering acid-resistant and heavily-armed synthetic named Dean designed to eradicate aliens (from ALIENS: TRIBES.)

Much like ALIENS: ROGUE and ALIENS: LABYRINTH, it is again a story of company representatives, married couple Philip and Joy Strunk, sent to a remote research station to investigate the weird experiments of one of their scientists. This time, it is Dr. Caspar Nordling who works on virus research to eradicate aliens. Of course, there's a "controlled" hive next to it where he can get his subjects. Not surprisingly, the doctor has gone a little coucou from being alone for so long with a crew of only synthetics, and he has started to sell some alien eggs on the black market.

Despite the familiar premise, the story goes into original territory and the twists and turns of the story make for an enjoyable read. Artist Doug Mahnke previously worked with Arcudi on THE MASK and THE MASK RETURNS (and right after STRONGHOLD, they did THE MASK STRIKES BACK) so facial expressions are his specialty. The art is clean, the character designs and expressions are realistic, and the panel angles are cinematic. There is also some humor, especially with the alien robot Jeri when he is forced to smoke cigars. The final part is all-action, as the aliens are let loose in the station, and the Strunks are helped by the crew of synthetics (now armed with weapons) and Dean back to their ship.

So much like THE MASK, it's a great mix of mystery, humor and action mixed with some horror.

NOTE: the characters Dean and Jeri are more than likely a reference to the antics of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. The synthetic who is the repairman for other of his kind is named Dr. Payne, because Nordling find him a "Payne" in the butt. ...more

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Jul 11, 2016 Zane Hoffmann rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: comics, dark-horse

As some of you may know July is unofficially Aliens month and being the big fan of the Aliens franchise that I am I like to celebrate by having a readothon through some of my favorite Aliens literature.

The first Aliens comic I read to commemorate Aliens month was Aliens: Stronghold, written by John Arcudi and drawn by Doug Mahnke in the year of of lord 1994.

Aliens: Stronghold is the story of married interracial couple, Joy and Philip Strunk, as they travel to an isolated facility, ran by a hum As some of you may know July is unofficially Aliens month and being the big fan of the Aliens franchise that I am I like to celebrate by having a readothon through some of my favorite Aliens literature.

The first Aliens comic I read to commemorate Aliens month was Aliens: Stronghold, written by John Arcudi and drawn by Doug Mahnke in the year of of lord 1994.

Aliens: Stronghold is the story of married interracial couple, Joy and Philip Strunk, as they travel to an isolated facility, ran by a human scientist named Dr. Nordling and his team of synthetics. The sole purpose of this facility and the reason for Nordling and his team of synthetics to be in it is to create a virus that affects xenomorphs exclusively. Along for the ride with Nordling are Jeri, the synthetic created to mimic xenomorphs in order to infilitrate their breeding grounds, and Dean, a big robot man with gun who kill xenomorph action action shoot shoot. Is Nordling have shady ulterior motives? Find out by reading the book, it's really good!

I think it's good because subverts the typical Aliens tale by having a more diverse set of characters than we usually see with the introduction of Jeri and Dean. I also enjoyed it thoroughly because it plays around with the robot laws that Asimov pioneered in ways that not even those wacky fellas at Philip K. Dick Inc. could've thought of.

I like Blade Runner almost as much as I like Aliens. Did you know there are sequels to Blade Runner, the movie not the book it's based off of, in the form of novels?! Yeah, crazy right! There's three of them! I've never read them, but I hope to one day. For whatever reason I really get into supplementary material for franchises, even if most of it is terrible. I've pretty much read every piece of expanded Star Wars EU fiction since 1977. What kind of life am I living where I have the motivation to read like 100+ books and thousands of comics based solely on one franchise, but I still don't know what direction I want my life to take. Please help...

Anyways, for my next installment of my Aliens' MONTH readathon I'm gonna be reading the miniseries entitled 'Kidnapped' by Jim Woodring.

Thanks for reading! ...more

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Nov 17, 2013 Kaisersoze rated it really liked it

Shelves: graphic-novels-comics

One of the most entertaining entries in Dark Horse's cross-medium expansion of the Aliens universe, Stronghold offers a cast of extremely memorable characters that breathe life into what is an otherwise cliched story. Once again, a group of people stumble across a madman's attempts to use the Aliens for his personal gain under the guise of studying them in the name of science, all within the bowels of some far flung settlement where the "Company" and any futuristic police force have no idea what ...more

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May 09, 2011 Grantcorp rated it liked it

Now, here's something unusual. The Dark Horse Aliens franchise typically serves up dark and brooding stories of a dystopic future society, where life is cheap and the Alien acts as a catalyst for the evils that men do to each other. Here though the concept is turned into a mystery novel, and there's an unusual cast with unclear motives for the reader to suspect. The xenomorph itself really doesn't add that much to the storyline here, the book functions more like a whodunnit mystery paired with a ...more

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Sep 18, 2010 Rev. Nyarkoleptek rated it it was ok

Shelves: sci-fi, _comics, _-_hated_it

Pretty much built on funnybook melodrama. Really, skip this and find a copy of Aliens: Labyrinth.

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Aug 16, 2015 Richelle rated it liked it

Really enjoyed this one. One of the best and most interesting storylines so far. Very inventive. And the art was decent.

3.5 out of 5 stars.

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Mar 17, 2015 Larry Giles rated it really liked it

A creepy and entertaining Aliens tale that is somewhat reminiscent of Days of the Dead.

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About John Arcudi

John Arcudi

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John Arcudi has made a name for himself by scripting comics that manage to combine long-running subplots with impeccable characterization and action sequences, making for some of the most exciting and consistently good comics out today.

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