Category: Feature

Direct Beam Comms #75

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, Toys, TVPosted on

TV

New series and finales

Since these “Direct Beam Comms” updates have started I’ve been reviewing new and returning TV series as well as finales here. When I began I figured I’d probably review one or two shows a month and that would be it. Boy, was I wrong. Since the end of November each week I’ve reviewed at least one new show or a finale, if not more. I don’t know if that was a fluke or a sign of the times that we live in but week in and week out there was always something to write about and it just so happens that last week was the first week in nearly six months that there were now shows I wanted to review. I mean, I could review the series Master of None that debuted on Netflix, but I decided that since it’s a show I really wouldn’t watch since I didn’t enjoy or finish the first season, it really wouldn’t be fair for me to review this new season when that review would probably have been negative so why waste the time and energy?

And looking forward there are a few other new shows like Master of None that I could review but probably won’t. 12 Monkeyson Syfy that’s entering its third season but I could never get into that time traveling show based on the movie of the same name nor will I review the Netflix series Kimmy Schmidt that I thought was all right but a bit bland.

And I wonder if I should review the documentary… err… I mean Netflix drama House of Cards too? That show is entering its fifth season in a few weeks but I’ve really only watched two seasons of that series. The amount of shows I’ve watched one or two seasons of before I got bored and stopped watching is absurd.

I have a feeling that after the fall finales of this TV season taper off later this month/early next it might get even lighter in the TV review department here. There are quite a few upcoming shows that I’m interested in seeing like the third season of The Carmichael Show, the second The Tunnel and new shows like The Mist and GLOW, but those are spread out over months instead of weeks like what happened the last half-year.

The Mist TV series commercial

Movies

1987 The Running Man

The Running Man

One movie from 1987 that I always liked, but never loved, is The Running Man. That film has almost everything going for it — The Running Man stars Arnold Schwarzenegger at the start of his height of action-hero fame, it’s based on a novel by Stephen King and the film was adapted by Steven E. de Souza who’s film just before this was the insta-classic Die Hard. Unfortunately, even at the time The Running Man looked a bit cheap and flimsy, even more so today with how glossy entertainment looks, so the movie hasn’t held up well the last 30 years.

Still, when I recently rewatched it earlier this year I was stuck as to just how the dystopian future depicted in The Running Man has come true today — heck, the movie’s even partially set in 2017.

In that future the most popular show on TV is the game show The Running Man. Now we’d call it a reality show, but that term hadn’t been invented in 1987 so the tried and true “game show” term was used back then. In this game show contestants run through the earthquake leveled streets of Los Angeles trying to avoid the “stalkers” who are out to kill them with everything being broadcast on live TV with a host and studio audience. These stalkers are vaguely superhero-esque, one’s even called “Captain Freedom,” but instead of helping the runners they’re out to kill them. If the runners make it to the end of the course then they are given their freedom and spend the rest of their lives living in luxury. But no one ever really makes it till the end.

It’s interesting as to just how much our current society kind’a sort’a mirrors that of The Running Man. From reality TV being the most popular programming out there to some of the biggest celebrities in the world being stars of these programs. Here it’s Damon Killian (Richard Dawson) the host of The Running Man and a man so powerful he has a direct line to the Justice Department. Even the idea of people being more obsessed with pop-culture than what’s really going on in society is a major focus on The Running Man.

In some ways, The Running Man is a sort of anti-The Hunger Games. In that one the contestants are seen as sort of lambs being lead to the slaughter with most of the population not caring for the games. In The Running Man the population hates the runners, and it’s only when the Schwarzenegger character starts winning against the stalkers, something that’s never been done before, that the public starts siding with him.

Still, even if the story of The Running Man had nearly divined the future, there’s no getting around how cheap the whole movie comes off. The film is visually more made-for-TV 1987 than big screen looking and I think that hurts its legacy a bit. I mean, if everything were the same about The Running Man EXCEPT it looked as good as other similar films from 1987 like Predator or RoboCop do I think people would talk about The Running Man in terms of being a classic film and would be studied in universities. Instead it’s seen as a b-grade sci-fi flick that just so happened to get a few things right about our present from 30 years ago.

Blade Runner 2049 trailer

Toys

Alien: Covenant alien monster figure

NECA is set to release a figure based on the creature from the upcoming Alien: Covenant movie at the end of June for a retail price of around $30.

The Reading List

This week in pop-culture history

  • 1955: Bill Paxton of Aliens, Predator 2 and Apollo 13 is born
  • 1980: The Empire Strikes Back opens
  • 1989: Miracle Mile opens
  • 1996: The TV movie Doctor Who airs
  • 1998: Godzilla permiers
  • 1999: Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace premiers
  • 2002: The last episode of the TV series The X-Files airs
  • 2002: Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones opens
  • 2005: Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith premiers

Direct Beam Comms #74

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, Toys, TVPosted on

TV

American Gods Episode 1: C+

There’s been a tendency of late for series creators to embrace the model of season-long stories. The old model of TV was that each episode of a show would have a story that has a beginning, middle and end so that each episode wasn’t connected to other episodes stories in any meaningful way. Recently, more modern series began embracing season-long stories where episodes did have a beginning, middle and end but also were a piece of a season-long story that was also playing out throughout the year. But now some shows have abandoned each episode have a beginning middle and end and have started treating each episode as a “chapter” in a season-long story. So episodes are only a part of a larger story are used in service of that.

Which, if done right like in The Wire or True Detective can make some wonderful TV. But, if done not so right can make for some confusing TV, like I experienced with the first episode of the Starz series American Gods.

Adapted from the Neil Gaiman novel of the same name, the American Gods TV series was created by writer Bryan Fuller and Michael Green. Which I thought boded well for the show since Fuller adapted the heck out of the Hannibal story for NBC a few years ago and created a magnificent series in the process. That show about the early days of Hannibal Lector had episode stories as well a season-long story too. While this worked for Hannibal, with American Gods Fuller instead embraces the season-long story model which made for one weird episode of TV.

In the first episode, a guy named Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle) is released from prison where he meets up with a guy named Wednesday (Ian McShane) who quickly puts Moon on his payroll of being his eyes and ears out in the world. It seems as if the gods of lore like Odin and new gods like Technology are real, and the new gods and old are on the brink of war with each other.

Except I didn’t get much of the gods plot from the first episode, that came from TV commercials for the show and reading up on the original novel. Most of the first episode of American Gods is about Moon trying to get to his wife’s funeral, Wednesday turning up in some unexpected places, the introduction of a few other gods and the weirdest human sacrifice put to film I’ve ever seen.

In fact, I don’t think that if I didn’t already know kind’a what was going in on American Gods that I would have had any clue as to what was happening whatsoever since the first episode, while beautiful to look at, had very little plot/story going on. While watching it I kept getting the feeling that people who’d read the American Gods book were also watching the show going, “Ohhhh, that’s the part where X happens and this is setting you Y down the road!” But to me I never really got a handle on what was all going on.

I get that the eight episodes of American Gods show will play out as a single story, it’s just how long do we have to wait until we get past the weird sex stuff and people being cut in half before we get to a little plot?

The Defenders TV commercial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h3m7B4v6Zc

Inhumans TV commercial

Comics

Creepshow

A new edition of the classic Creepshow graphic novel is back in print some 35 years after original was released. Creepshow collects all of the stories that went into the movie of the same name with illustrations from Bernie Wrightson, which that name alone is reason enough to pick this one up. I was a little too young to buy the graphic novel when it first came out and for whatever reason never bothered picking it up since so I’m really excited about picking a copy of this up as soon as its released.

From Simon & Schuster:

Now back in print: the graphic novel adaptation of Stephen King’s Creepshow, based on the 1982 horror anthology and cult classic film directed by George Romero (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead)—and featuring stunning illustrations by the legendary Bernie Wrightson and cover art by the acclaimed Jack Kamen! A harrowing and darkly humorous tribute to the controversial and influential horror comics of the 1950s, Creepshow presents five sinister stories from the #1 New York Times bestselling author—“Father’s Day,” “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill,” “Something to Tide You Over,” “The Crate,” and “They’re Creeping Up on You”…unforgettable tales of terror to haunt your days and nights!

Star Wars: The Classic Newspaper Comics Vol. 1 Hardcover

From IDW this week comes a collected edition of the Star Wars newspaper strips that ran from 1979–1984. This first edition runs from 1979 to the end of 1980 and has something like 575 panels from that period. I don’t know why but I’m a nut for these collected adventure strips and can’t wait for this one to come out, even if I think I’ve already got a lot of these stories somewhere when Dark Horse ran them collected in comic book form.

From IDW:

The first of three volumes that present, for the first time ever, the classic Star Wars newspaper strip from 1979–1984 in its complete format — including each Sunday title header and “bonus” panels in their meticulously restored original color. Initially the color Sundays and black and white dailies told separate stories, but within six months the incomparable Russ Manning merged the adventures to tell brand new epic seven-days-a-week sagas that rivaled the best science fiction comics of all time.

Movies

The Dark Tower movie trailer

Games

The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31 Board Game

I’m not much into board games, but I have to say that I’m very tempted to pick up the The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31 board game by Mondo from subject-matter alone.

From Mondo:

An alien lifeform has infiltrated a bleak and desolate Antarctic research station assimilating other organisms and then imitating them. In the hidden identity game THE THING ™ INFECTION AT OUTPOST 31, you will relive John Carpenter’s sci-fi cult classic in a race to discover who among the team has been infected by this heinous lifeform. The game has been designed to be as authentically cinematic as possible, ensuring that the players will experience the paranoia and tension that makes the film so great.

Toys

Prometheus Action Figure Series – The Lost Wave

Nearly five years after they were originally due to be released, the final three toys from NECA’s line of action figures based on the film Prometheus are finally set to be released this June. The first three figures in the set that did make it to shelves included David, the alien creature known as the “Deacon” and an “Engineer.” The lead character of the film Shaw and characters Vickers and Fiefeld were set to be released later, but later turned into never when the line was cancelled after poor sales. But never let it be said that NECA didn’t sense a golden opportunity when the new movie Alien: Covenant was announced and suddenly these three “lost” figures suddenly became found and are now set to be available again this summer and will retail for around $70.

From Big Bad Toy Store:

The 7″ scale figures are entirely movie accurate and feature over 25 points of articulation. Vickers (Charlize Theron) comes with flamethrower and removable helmet. Shaw (Noomi Rapace) comes with axe, removable helmet and the android David’s severed head. Fifield (Sean Harris) comes with flashlight and removable helmet.

LEGO® Ideas 21309 NASA Apollo Saturn V

This new Lego Apollo Saturn V rocket stands a whopping three feet tall, contains all three rocket stages as well as the command module, LEM and three micro figures. The kit will retail for about $120 and will be on sale the first of June.

The Reading List

This week in pop-culture history

  • 1971: Morgan Weisser, Nathan West of Space: Above and Beyond, is born
  • 1973: Soylent Green opens in theaters
  • 1984: Firestarter debuts
  • 1986: Short Circuit opens
  • 1989: The Return of Swamp Thing premiers in theaters
  • 1994: The Crow opens in theaters
  • 1994: The TV mini-series The Stand premiers
  • 1995: The Fifth Element debuts in theaters
  • 1998: Deep Impact opens in theaters

Let me tell you a tale of the Guardians of the Galaxy

CategoriesFeature, MoviesPosted on

Gather round and let me tell a tale that will shock, horrify and electrify you.

I have a little secret to admit — according to some very high profile sources, one of which is me, I’m the one person in the world that didn’t care for the 2014 movie Guardians of the Galaxy. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that I didn’t like GG. Think of how odd that is coming from a superhero and sci-fi junkie who’s spent many a Saturday night scanning Netflix, then Amazon Prime and then Netflix again looking for anything superhero or sci-fi to watch — to say that he doesn’t like a superhero sci-fi movie that the masses loved, that made nearly $800 million at the box office is practically sacrilegious. But it’s true, I’m no a fan of Starlord, Drax, Groot, Gamora or any of that interstellar bunch.

That’s not to say that I’m a fan of each and every superhero movie. No way! I didn’t care for either of the Thor movies and thought a lot of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was a drag. But I don’t dislike either of those two movies. I’m not a fan of them but will still watch them if I happen to be flipping around the dial and catch an airing. Yet, I’m not that way for GG, and it’s not like I haven’t tried.

For starters, I didn’t see GG in the movie theater, though that’s not that uncommon these days since I watch most movies at home via digital download. A few of my friends did see it there and said it was wonderful and a some called it their favorite superhero movie ever. And online reviews of the movie were generally glowing too.

Plus, I was always a huge fan of the GG comics and the whole superheroes in space subgenera that emerged in the 1990s, of which this film was adapting and updating, too. So, once GG was available I immediately rented it and sat down to watch what I was assuming was going to be a great experience.

Except it wasn’t. Right from the start, right from Peter Quill as a kid being abducted by aliens to adult Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) trying to steal something, getting caught, trying to talk his way out of trouble before finally having to fight his way out of it — I knew the movie was in trouble for me. And here’s the thing, I’m not sure why.

I don’t mind it when characters have smart-mouths, I loved Deadpool. And I don’t mind it when movies are over the top in terms of action, I love things like Mad Max: Fury Road. But for whatever reason these elements in GG just didn’t click for me.

And it’s not like I haven’t tried to like the movie. When I told those same friends I didn’t like the movie as they were getting Groot Christmas presents and rewatching their Blu-ray of GG for the many-ith time, they couldn’t believe what I was saying. It was like GG was made for me, it was a combination of the generas I like and even had story elements from comics I liked and collected. So surly there must’ve been something wrong with me since I didn’t like it. Either I didn’t like GG because everyone else did, which I don’t think so since I’m generally not like that — I either like something or I don’t and aren’t ashamed to say so, or maybe my initial viewing of the film was sub-optimal. That what I needed to do was to go back and watch it again. So I did. Since it was released I’ve watched GG two more times and every time the viewing’s over I come away with the same review, “Meh.” To me, GG isn’t bad but it’s not good either.

And now comes the forgone sequel Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 that’s currently in theaters. If it’s anything like the first GG it’ll be a film that most people I know will love and cherish. But for me it’ll be a movie where I’m on the outside looking in trying to figure out what all the fuss is about.

Direct Beam Comms #73

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, TVPosted on

TV

Powerless – First, and apparently only, season Grade B-

The NBC comedy series Powerless unexpectedly ended its run a few weeks back. “Unexpectedly” since the series was pulled from the schedule before the last two episodes could air which effectively marks the end of Powerless.

Taking place in the DC universe, Powerless was about workers at Wayne Enterprises headed by Bruce’s Cousin Van (Alan Tudyk). Wayne Enterprises invents things to keep people safe from the superhero battles that are constantly going on all around them. In a clever twist, it turns out that some of their inventions turn up as gadgets used by Batman to fight the bad-guys, but most of Powerless was centered on the employees including Emily (Vanessa Hudgens) as a new girl in town enamored with all the goings-on of superheroes, Teddy (Danny Pudi) and Ron (Ron Funches) two engineers and Jackie (Christina Kirk) Van’s assistant.

Powerless was an enjoyable show and an interesting, comedic look at life of people living alongside superheroes and villains who see them mostly as an annoyance like traffic or bad weather than something to aspire to. I’m not sure why Powerless didn’t click with the general public? My guess would be that since it was half-comedy and half-superhero show, it didn’t really appeal to the people who might have tuned in for just a comedy OR a superhero show.

Regardless, I enjoyed Powerless and felt that the show was finding it’s legs as it were and was interested to see how the first season was going to wrap up.

Movies

The Lost Boys

When I first caught The Lost Boys on cable probably sometime in 1988 I was immediately hooked. This story about a family that moves to Santa Carla, California and finds that it’s infested with vampires was always one of my favorite movies as a teen. But I have to say watching the movie today 30 years after its release was a bit of a letdown.

I remember when The Lost Boys came out the big draw to it at my middle school was that it starred “The Corey’s” of Corey Haim and Corey Feldman. If either of those two actors are remembered at all today it’s because of their substance abuse problems in the 1990s which would lead to the untimely death of Haim in 2010. But in 1987 those two were the biggest teen heart-throbs on the planet with Feldman having just come off of movies like The Goonies and Stand By Me and Haim Lucas.

I remember Haim being the guy most girls at my school wanted to be their boyfriend and Feldman being the guy most dudes at my school wished was their best friend. In The Lost Boys, Haim plays Sam, younger brother to Michael and I so wanted to be Sam with his cool quips, driving cars without licenses and killer of vampires. A year later and both Haim and Feldman would star in the movie License to Drive which was a big hit in its day but now is mostly an unknown movie to anyone under the age of 35.

The Lost Boys also starred a few actors who would go onto have big careers including Jason Patric as Michael in an early role who would go onto films like Rush and Narc and Kiefer Sutherland who then was just entering the big movie-stardom phase of his career which would lead to roles like Young Guns and Flatliners and is a TV star these days. The Lost Boys also co-stars Jami Gertz as the one lost girl of the bunch who’s had a long career on film and TV and Alex Winter too who would go onto co-star in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure in 1989.

If anything, The Lost Boys has loads of style. It’s a movie that college professors today could use as an example of how films from the late 1980s looked with costumes, set designs and colors. And that’s one of the reasons I think that the The Lost Boys hasn’t aged that well the last 30 years. It’s a fantastic movie to look at and is very fun to watch but is lacking in the story department. It’s one of those movies that works the first time through when the viewer doesn’t know the trick/twist of the film coming, but after that future viewings are mostly style over substance.

So much style that the design of the vampires from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series owe a great deal to the heavy forehead and freaky eyes vampires of The Lost Boys.

The Lost Boys is a pretty spectacular film in the gore and gross-out department, though. When the vampires kill, they bite into the heads of the unlucky ones which causes a gush of blood almost like they’re popping the top of a frosty beer. And when the vampires start meeting their ends, it’s pretty gruesome as well with them bursting into flames, receiving horrific burn wounds via holy water and even dissolving into green blobs of skeletal puss when immersed in the stuff.

In fact, The Lost Boys is rated “R” which I couldn’t ever see happening today. If it were released in 2017 instead of 1987 The Lost Boys would be rated “PG–13,” would feature a lot less gore and would be more focused on the action. I guess even if The Lost Boys isn’t a great movie it’s still great that it was released in 1987 instead of 2017 since I can only imagine it would be more Twilight than Evil Dead.

The Reading & Watch List

This week in pop-culture history

  • 1937: George Takei, Sulu of Star Trek is born
  • 1940: Lance Henriksen of Terminator, Aliens and Near Dark
  • 1984: The TV mini-series V: The Final Battle premiers
  • 2008: Iron Man opens in theaters
  • 2013: Iron Man 3 premieres in theaters

Direct Beam Comms #72

CategoriesComic Books, Direct Beam Comms, FeaturePosted on

TV

Fargo – Installment 3, episode 1 Grade: A-

Fargo doesn’t seem like it’s a TV series that originates from the US. Though the third season of Fargo stared last week on FX, it’s really not a third season in the traditional sense of a regular show that would be continuing with stories and characters from the first two seasons. In Fargo, each season has a completely different story from what’s come before with a brand new cast.

And since the characters change season to season it means that in Fargo there can be unexpected twists with major characters being unexpectedly knocked off in any episode. If anything, Fargo feels like a series out of the UK that isn’t beholden to the “rules” of US TV but which makes for some interesting TV.

But there in lies the rub in reviewing Fargo; interesting or not each season is like a brand new show without the continuation of the story from previous years. And since a season of Fargo plays out like one continuous story from first episode to last, early episodes can drag a bit as story is being setup and characters introduced.

That being said, the first two seasons of Fargo were wonderful, so I’ll take that into consideration with this new third installment.

The first season of Fargo was set in 2006 and was kind’a sort’a a TV version of the 1996 Fargo film. The TV series followed many of the same plot-points of the movie and had many of the same character types, but in the end played out differently. The second season took place in the late 1970s and had a few characters from the first season carryover as younger versions, but that was really the only link with the first season. And now this third installment takes place after both the previous seasons in 2010 and doesn’t seem to have any ties with what’s come before.

Each season of Fargo seems to focus on a character, or set of characters, who make the worst decision(s) of their lives and spend the rest of the season trying to cover their tracks and shift the blame to someone else. Or, worst of all, the characters around the doer of the deed end up paying the ramifications for someone else’s bad decision.

And the third installment of Fargo is no different. This time, parking-lot magnate Emmit Stussy (Ewan McGregor) makes a deal with some shady figures for a short-term loan that has some seriously long-term strings attached and down on his luck twin brother Ray (also McGregor) thinks that a stamp Emmit has belongs to him and sends someone to Emmit’s house to steal it back. Except he goes to the wrong house where very bad things happen throwing police officer Gloria Burgle (Carrie Coon) into the mix.

Slow to start or not, one episode in and Fargo has me hooked and I can’t wait to see where it goes.

The Expanse – Season 2 Grade: A

We might live in a time of a lot of great sci-fi on TV, but ironically not much of this TV is traditional sci-fi in nature. What’s “traditional sci-fi?” Well, that would be people living and working in space in some far-off future. Think Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica. Most TV sci-fi nowadays is super-hero in nature, or stories that take place in the near-future like Legion or Westworld. One series that I think fits in squarely in the realm of “traditional sci-fi” is the series The Expanse and just so happens to be one of the great series of 2017.

Frankie Adams as
Roberta ‘Bobbie’ W. Draper

I think the main theme of the second season of The Expanse is of mankind trying to control the uncontrollable — which we have a tendency to do. Much of the story this year dealt with the three main factions of people living in the several hundreds of years in the future in The Expanse; those from the Earth, those from Mars and those living in the “belt” on asteroids, who are all simultaneously trying to stop what’s known as the Protomolecule discovered in the first season from destroying all life in the solar system while at the same time trying to get a piece of it for themselves so they’ll be prepared if any of the other factions get it and try and use it on someone else.

It’s the classic, “we can control it even if we don’t think you can” scenario that’s played out time after time over the course of history.

And this Protomolecule is dangerous. In the first season a shadowy organization released it inside an asteroid station and this “thing” killed every living person there. Well, mostly killed in that it used all the living biomass to create a great glowing something that practically filled the station. A “something” that wanted to fly off and infect all of the Earth and create an even bigger biomass for unknown ends.

So it goes without saying that when even a piece of the Protomolecule is the most dangerous thing in the solar system everyone wants their piece of it.

Worst of all, with all these factions racing around the solar system trying to get their own sample the, until then, mostly stable political structure of the solar system is thrown into disarray. The Earth and Mars who have spent generations waging a cold war with one and other are now on the verge of a real one and the people living in the belt who’ve spend decades as third-class citizens have started to actively fight against Mars and Earth which causes more and more tension with every move they make.

The show that I think most closely matches The Expanse is the Battlestar Galactica reboot of a few years ago. Both shows are good at being mirrors to the real times that we live in. If Battlestar Galactica was about the fear of suicide bombings and of being attacked from the outside, then The Expanse is about what it’s like to live in a time when things we’d assumed were stable and unchanging suddenly shifting revealing a different, bleaker reality than the one we thought we were living in.

I feel like with The Expanse that with ever episode I think I’m seeing the big picture as to what’s all going on, until a few episodes later when something else happens I realize that I’ve only been seeing a tiny piece of a larger canvas.

Cloak & Dagger TV spot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZFc3FzK344

Comics

Aliens: The Original Comics Series Volume 2 HC

Out this week is a hardcover collected edition of the second and third Dark Horse Aliens comic series from the late 1980s and early 1990s. The first of the collected series, which has become known as “Nightmare Asylum,” chronicles the loss of the Earth to the Alien baddies from the first series where Newt and Hicks must fight to escape a mad General and return to fight for the Earth. The third series known as “Female War” shows this battle on the Earth with Ripley having returned to the fold.

“Nightmare Asylum” was illustrated via airbrush by Den Beauvais and to me is the best looking comic series ever and “Female War” by a young Sam Keith who was just coming off his influential run on the then new Sandman and would later go on to create the The Maxx character is pretty spectacular too.

From Dark Horse:

Long before Alien3 was even a glint in director David Fincher’s eye, Dark Horse Comics was already crafting a terrifying post-Aliens continuity for Ripley, Hicks, and Newt. These are the original stories that took the comics market by storm in a prestige collection of the unabridged and unadulterated series. Collects Aliens: Nightmare Asylum #1–#4 and Aliens: Female War #1–#4.

This week in pop-culture history

  • 1947: Jeffrey DeMunn of The Mist, The X-Files and Dale of The Walking Dead is born
  • 1951: The Thing from Another World premiers in theaters
  • 1955: Kate Mulgrew, Captain Jainway of Star Trek:Voyager is born
  • 1956: Godzilla opens in the US
  • 1975: Death Race 2000 premiers
  • 1999: Existenz permiers