Aliens Vs. Avengers #1 pits a dystopian version of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes against an overwhelming horde of Xenomorphs with little chance of survival.
But the answer to humanity’s prayers may come from one of the weirdest places of all – another kind of alien parasite, the Venom symbiote.
Spoilers ahead for Aliens Vs. Avengers #1
Aliens Vs. Avengers #1 by writer Jonathan Hickman, artist Esad Ribić, colorist Ive Svorcina, and letterer Cory Petit presents an alt-reality in which not only the Xenomorphs but also the Weyland Corporation of Aliens film lore exist in the Marvel Universe. Set in the future, the story shows what happens when Weyland synths masquerading as Shi’ar scientists launch a coordinated Xenomorph attack on Earth, designed to wipe out humanity in the name of turning the entire planet into a weaponized Xenomorph hive.
Earth quickly falls, with the Inhuman city of Attilan, the nation of Wakanda, and even the underwater kingdom of Atlantis are all overtaken by Xenomorphs, while the island of Krakoa is abandoned, with the mutants all fleeing to planet Arakko/Mars. This leaves just one last human city standing, though the Xenomorphs are encroaching further every day.
(Image credit: Marvel Comics)
Fortunately, there are a few Avengers left standing to help combat the Xenomorphs, but they’re all getting old, and their chances are dwindling. They’re all holed up in the Weyland Corporation building – an appropriate setting for an Aliens story if there ever was one.
There’s Carol Danvers, aging but still cosmically powerful. There’s Bruce Banner, whose human body is starting to fail, but who can transform into a fully intelligent Hulk apparently at will. And there’s Miles Morales, who seems to be the same old Spider-Man, all grown up. And there’s someone named only “the old man of Weyland,” but who is vaguely hinted to potentially be an elderly Tony Stark. There’s still time for this to be proven very wrong, but both Iron Man and Captain America are shown on the issue’s cover, so it’s likely we’ll see them in some form or another.
Finally, there’s Valeria Richards, now in her 40s, the last of the Richards family, who has left the safety of their stronghold on a mission to recover a Xenomorph egg in the hopes of creating a virus that can destroy every Xenomorph egg on the planet – which she succeeds, with a little bit of last minute help from Hulk and Miles.
(Image credit: Marvel Comics)
However, when Bruce goes to her lab to check on her, he discovers he’s locked out, with even his override codes prevented from allowing him to open the lab. Instead, a video message from Valeria plays, confessing that while she was on her mission, she was infected by a Xenomorph parasite, and has likely now succumbed to the Xenomorph lifecycle. Her message begs Bruce to leave the lab locked, but he breaks inside to find a fully grown Xenomorph along with Valeria’s corpse.
Hulk dispatches the Xenomorph, though its acid blood is shown to be able burn his skin – showing why heroes like the Hulk who could normally smash through a whole horde of alien monsters aren’t able to do more to individually repel the encroaching Xenomorphs. But even worse than the Xenomorph which burst from Valeria’s chest, the egg she was using for her experiment has hatched, meaning there’s a facehugger in the room somewhere, capable of implanting another Xenomorph egg and continuing the cycle of carnage.
Just as Captain Marvel tries to warn everyone about the facehugger, it pops out and latches onto the face of Miles Morales, attempting to implant its egg right through his mask. The heroes attempt to get it off, but Hulk explains that not even magic or psionics have been able to effectively remove a facehugger.
But as it turns out, it doesn’t actually matter – Miles’ suit isn’t any ordinary spider-suit. It’s a symbiote (maybe even the Venom symbiote), which not only repels the facehugger, but also subsumes it into a new symbiotic relationship.
(Image credit: Marvel Comics)
With the symbiote apparently in control of the facehugger, it jumps back on to Miles, creating a new kind of Xeno-Venom symbiote, which may even provide some kind of window into how to defeat the Xenomorph scourge – though we’ll have to wait and see if the symbiote is able to keep the facehugger at bay indefinitely, or if it becomes something even worse.
Aliens Vs. Avengers #2 goes on sale November 6.
Check out the best Avengers stories of all time.
