One of the fun benefits of Disney acquiring Fox is that it’s transformed a whole new wave of comic book crossovers from fanboy dreams into reality. In 2023 we got Predator vs. Wolverine, a miniseries that explored the decades-long rivalry between the iconic X-Man and a particularly persistent Yautja hunter. But Marvel is dreaming bigger with its next epic crossover, Aliens vs. Avengers, a series that reunites the Secret Wars creative team of writer Jonathan Hickman and artist Esad Ribić.
IGN recently had the opportunity to speak with Hickman via email to learn more about this new crossover and how it melds the two franchises together. Check out an exclusive new preview of Aliens vs. Avengers in the slideshow gallery below, and then read on to learn more.
As mentioned, Aliens vs. Avengers marks the first time Hickman and Ribić have collaborated since Secret Wars wrapped in 2016. Hickman tells IGN that he signed on for Aliens vs. Avengers both as an opportunity to try his hand at a Disney multiverse crossover and because he was eager to get the band back together.
“Well, I’ve never done one of these before, and I always get excited at the idea of doing something ‘new,’” Hickman says. “I also knew that I was going to be working with Esad on it, so I immediately could envision how cool this was going to be. And, obviously, he’s cooking with fire here, so it’s even better than I first imagined.”
Hickman continues, “I’ve worked with a lot of really talented guys, a lot of them, but he’s consistently the one who surprises me the most, and I mean that in a delightful way, when the art starts rolling in.”
One of the challenges of merging the Aliens and Avengers franchises is that the two tend to be set in wildly different time periods. Most Avengers comics are set in the present-day Marvel Universe, whereas the Alien movies are generally set in the 22nd Century. Hickman’s solution with Aliens vs. Avengers was to split the difference, setting his story in the near future with an older, more grizzled team of Avengers. As he sees it, finding a logical link between the two franchises is half the fun.
“I thought the time period stuff made it more interesting and it certainly provided a larger canvas to mix and match the mythologies of both franchises on the page,” Hickman says. “I found the necessary connective tissue very quickly, so the writing really became about writing as big, and with as much velocity, as I could. This thing starts fast and only gets faster from issue to issue.”
Another key part of the challenge with a crossover like this is selecting the ideal team of Avengers to pit against the Xenomorphs. The art above gives us some clues as to which Avengers will be defending Earth. The cover to issue #1 features Captain America, Iron Man and Captain Marvel, while the interior art showcases Black Panther and his Hatut Zeraze, Hulk, Miles Morales, and Valeria Richards.
Clearly, the goal here to to hit readers with a mix of Avengers stalwarts and some less predictable choices.
“I picked a cast that had both the biggest names and some really cool surprises,” Hickman teases. “I don’t think we’ve actually said who all is in this (it’s a big cast), but I think readers will be tickled at some of the things we fit in here. We can’t wait for people to read it.”
The Alien franchise is all about pitting hapless humans against a much superior Xenomorph enemy. Sometimes that involves a handful of survivors making their stand against a lone Xenomorph enemy, as in 1979’s Alien or 2014’s Alien: Isolation. Sometimes we see an entire squad of Colonial Marines go up against an entire horde of Xenomorphs, as in 1986’s Aliens. But either way, the balance of power always tends to be tilted toward the aliens.
Is that still the case with Aliens vs. Avengers? It’s one thing for ordinary, gun-toting mortals to struggle against a superior species. But what about when your ranks include a hammer-wielding thunder god and the strongest monster in the known universe? Do Earth’s Mightiest Heroes really have that much to fear from the Xenomorphs?
For Hickman, that was another problem to solve in his scripts. And the solution involved the question of cost. What will this battle cost the Avengers, and how will they be forced to pay that toll? What happens when this invasion becomes a problem Hulk can’t simply smash into submission?
“The threat has to have a cost attached to it,” Hickman says. “And to increase tension as a story progresses you have to have an escalation in those costs. And, because it’s superheroes, you have to get creative in how those costs are paid. Which is pretty much what we’ve done.”
Aliens vs. Avengers #1 will be released on August 28, 2024.
The new series hits just a couple weeks after the August 16 release of Alien: Romulus. For more on the new movie, learn about the footage that was screened at San Diego Comic-Con and check out the terrifying Xenomorph popcorn bucket.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
