Following their battles with the Avengers and Captain America, those pesky xenomorphs from the Alien franchise have their sights set on the X-Men.
Marvel and 20th Century Studios have announced Alien vs. X-Men, a four-issue series written by Die and The Power Fantasy writer Kieron Gillen with art by Alias: Red Band artist Geraldo Borges, which begins in September.
“Alien was the first R-rated movie I ever saw,” Gillem said. “Aliens is one of the four founding teenage films that I built my understanding of story structure upon. As a hormonal teen, I had a looming Alien poster hung over my bed. I love Aliens so much that I am unhelpfully explaining beats to Geraldo by referencing two-second sequences featuring tertiary characters, as if he cares about Ferro and Dietrich as much as I do. So, yes, this is some prime-grade bucket list stuff for me, and I’m highly enjoying taking the X-Men on an X-press elevator to hell.”
Gillen’s story follows the X-Men returning to Earth from a mission to retrieve a Phoenix egg, only to bring back something far more dangerous, igniting a battle between mutants and Xenomorphs.
The miniseries also includes a four-part back-up story written by Chris Claremont that pits a young Kitty Pryde against both the Xenomorphs and the Brood, the parasitic alien species he created during his original Uncanny X-Men run.
“For me, the coolest aspect here is returning to a universe where I can pit my deadliest alien predators against their movie counter-parts, with Kitty caught in the middle,” Claremont said. “Kitty brings a hero’s perspective to the challenge that embraces the heart and soul of the X-Men. This story is cram-packed with adventure – plus some crazy surprises along the way.”
The main cover is by Ryan Stegman, shown above, and there’s also a variant by Ivan Shavrin:
Alien vs. X-Men #1 goes on sale Sept. 16.