Clash Of The Titans-Ultimate Edition.
Written: Sep 26 '03 (Updated Sep 30 '03)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: The Title
Cons: I'm gonna need more space than this offers
The Bottom Line: It's not a story that will please fans of the films. Nor is it a story to please fans of crossovers, and it certainly wont please fans of comics.
|
|
|
| carl_lazarevic's Full Review: Aliens versus Predator versus Terminator Books |
The Story
The story starts after the events of the last Alien movie, Alien Resurrection, and sees the Alien Ripley hybrid hiding out on Earth from the governments that want to experiment on her. She's tracked down by Call, the android played by Winona Ryder, now going by the name Analee, who is still up to her old games of saving mankind from themselves. She tells her that the government is once again doing experiments with the Aliens and she forces Ripley to accompany them. On tracking down the scientist doing the research though, they find that things may not be quite as easy as they had expected. The Scientist is some form of android with both advanced and redundant technology and is very difficult to kill. Eventually a Predator shows up with it's stealth suite and is able to destroy the machine by catching it off guard. The Predator is then attacked by another of these strange machines and gets killed, leaving the party with one option. To destroy the entire station.
Having escaped the station Call links up with he head of the scientist in an attempt to hack it's memories. She accidentally awakens some form of Virus though, and a hologram appears. It's a man named John Connor who informs her that in the 21'st century mankind was nearly destroyed by machines called Terminators, but that when the central computer Skynet recognized defeat; it sent out a group of Terminators so lifelike they could go unnoticed for centuries. The scientist killed was one of these Terminators who had discovered the research on aliens and was attempting to create a new Alien Terminator; in order to build an unstoppable army that could recreate Skynet. Then Ripley is kidnapped by the Predators who have decided Alien Terminators would be a threat to their position as ultimate beings in the universe. Sensing Ripley's Alien DNA they decide she could be useful in locating the Aliens.
The Look
I'm going to have to ask you to bare with me here. This is my first review of a graphic novel and my experience in the area of comics is not as vast as it could be, so I'm not really aware of what the standard is for the artwork. However from my childhood experience when I used to read Marvel comics I remember some wonderful artwork, with detail going into the look of every story. After all isn't the whole point of a comic, or graphic novel, supposed to be it's look. Having one look ugly is like having a singer with a cold, whatever else you do is not going to be able to fix it.
However ugly is the only fair way for me to describe the look of Aliens Vs Predator Vs The Terminator. This is seen in both the location and character designs. All of the other comics that I've read have had some serious work put into the backgrounds. They design shots perfectly for creating the atmosphere of the story, and then fill them in with vibrant colours. Yet in this story we have all these different locations (cities, ships and space stations) that all look the same. Grey. As for the characters, well the easiest way for me to describe them will be to list the different species together and describe them individually.
Humanoids
I know, technically humanoids is a representation of various species, as well as 3 of the creatures in this story, it's just Call isn't technically human but there's never anything of note to separate her from the humans. The problem with her is that her wide eyed scream is so exaggerated it looks like her eyes are about to explode. Similarly Ripley's angular facial expressions are so sketchily drawn then her face begins to look like it's melting.
Terminators
One word will describe the Terminators and that word is not big, it's huge! The first time a Terminator is really seen it's arms take up a few windows as it transcends Schwarzenegger and reaches a size to make Juggernaut (X-Men) proud. Needless to say, this wouldn't really be a good idea for a stealth Terminator.
Predators
I don't know about anyone else but I've always considered the Predators to be ugly. Here though they're a mess because they're not ugly enough. All the little details, such as warts and slime, have been ignored for a basic sketch of the Predators general shape.
Aliens
Disappointingly the Aliens are barely in the story, and when they are they can barely be seen. Whenever a large number of Aliens are in the same picture they merge together into a big blob that resembles an oil slick.
As for the Alien Terminators, well I saw the original sketch idea's and they did look kind of cool. The ones actually used can only be described in one way though. Odd!
Review
The important thing when reviewing a crossover title such as this is accepting that the concept will usually be inherently silly. It worked surprisingly well in the Aliens Vs Predator franchise, but there is a world of crossover opportunities out there and most are going to be dead cheesy. However cheesy or not doesn't always prevent them from being enjoyable, or even well made stories. Sadly the Aliens Vs predator Vs The Terminator crossover is a bad case of rushing out a bad crossover of some classic franchises for the sake of a quick buck.
Now I accepted going in that the story was going to be a little contrived in order to get these 3 creatures into the same story, but there was still less convoluted ways it could have been done. Why use Ripley, why stealth Terminators in the future? The writers would have made it a lot easier on themselves if they had simply had The Predators come to Earth to hunt Aliens in the middle of the Skynet war. However accepting the story as it is means that it needs to be judged by how it develops it's own concept; and how successfully it tells the story it offers.
Thereby lies the problem with Aliens Vs Predator Vs The Terminator. It doesn't develop the concept beyond placing the Aliens, The Predators and The Terminators in one big battle royale, supposedly. It never actually tells it's reader a story, but just sort of presents them with a concept and then ends.
If I didn't already know about the characters from the films, then I wouldn't have known about the characters here, and even with my knowledge of them from the films I still couldn't care less. Ripley was always a woman haunted by her past battles with the aliens, and is now supposed to be suffering an inner struggle with the Alien part of her DNA. Yet in this story she just stands around doing nothing.
Though she was everything compared to Call who simply brought a tearful face to the story. Ok so she was played by Winona Ryder in the film, but even Ryder has her limits. The call in the comic isn't content at simply looking Sullen; and needs to scream out names at random opportunities.
Those were the only 2 characters given any development though, and that development was in a different story anyway. I counted about 5 members to Calls crew, and only one was seen after the first page so I'm unsure as to what exactly happened to them. It is possible that they died in the first battle, but the story was too rushed for me to see. There's never any explanations as to the routes the story is taken in, but it does change routes more often than socks. Just take a look at the plot synopsis I wrote at the top. In comparison to the story mine was well structured and very detailed. I couldn't make it any better though because of just how bad the story is written, with the characters going from A-Z in huge bounds. At the start Call tells Ripley that they have to stop the experiments, and the next page they're on the space station about to do battle. John Connor left a message inside The Terminators, but he never found them. If he could use Skynet's link to them then did he even try and find them that way, and worst of all how was it that Call figured out what The Predators were without any information beyond them beaming aboard and taking Ripley. These are extremely obvious points that should have been addressed straight away, but because of the rush of getting from A-Z they are never answered.
That would have been forgivable had the story been jumping too and fro from action scenes. It would still have been a rubbish story, but the potential for enjoyment would have been there. The trouble is that throughout the story there's only the 2 moments of action, and they have been horribly rushed too. I was looking forward to seeing the experienced, determined Predator against the unstoppable Terminator and the unrelenting Aliens, but the story never draws out these scenes. It just takes the competitors says "These are the competitors, that one's the winner. Now let's move on!" which in my opinion was the worst way to approach such a badly written story.
That's all I really have to say on the matter, if you're a fan of any of the films then bare in mind that the humans get more time then the other creatures combined. It's not a story that will please fans of the films. Nor is it a story to please fans of crossovers, and it certainly wont please fans of comics. The only people who will be pleased with this mess are the people who make money out of the sales. Yes I'm an idiot for pleasing them, please don't make the same mistake.
Related Articles
Aliens Vs Predator: Prey
Aliens Vs Predator: Hunters Planet
Recommended:
No
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
carl_lazarevic
|
 - Top 1000 |
|
Member: Carl Lazarevic
Location: UK-(pure blood Brummie)
Reviews written: 226
Trusted by: 209 members
About Me:
Walk down the right back alley in Sin City and you can find anything.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.