Aliens: Newt's Tale

Aliens / Predator / Prometheus Universe

by Mike Richardson, Brian Garvey, J. Somerville

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Aliens, Science Fiction, Horror, Fiction, Comic Book

96 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1994

About the author

Mike Richardson is an American publisher, writer, and Emmy-winning producer. In 1986, he founded Dark Horse Comics, an award-winning international publishing house located in Milwaukie, Oregon. Richardson is also the founder and President of the Things From Another World retail chain and president of Dark Horse Entertainment, which has developed and produced numerous projects for film and television based on Dark Horse properties or licensed properties.
In addition, he has written numerous graphic novels and comics series, including The Secret, Living with the Dead, and Cut as well as co-authoring two non-fiction books: Comics Between the Panels and Blast Off!.

Reviews

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice additional story of the Aliens 2 movie. Recommended

[clumsyplankton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got these original comics a very long time ago when they were first published. I remember these two being some of the first Aliens comics I ever purchased when I was a kid. I had greatly enjoyed the movie and, while I'm not very interested in movie adaptations in comics, this one served to be a different experience overall.

Rather than simply retell the Aliens story, this series tells the story from Newt's perspective, which gives us a much deeper insight into the fall of Hadley's Hope. It's interesting to note that in a mere two issues they've managed to cover quite a bit of ground and make for a truly worthy addition to the Aliens story. At the time this came out this included scenes that were cut out of the original version of the Aliens film, which would be later released. Since this was the only place to get that opening scene with Newt's family discovering the derelict ship, I found this comic a fascinating read and loved every moment of it. Here we see Newt's father succumbing to the fate of the face hugger which kicks off the eventual fall of their colony. Everyone around Newt is killed and then she is left to fend for herself until the Marines arrive.

Once the Colonial Marines show up, there's quite a bit of overlap with the movie, as is expected, but it's interesting in a way, because a lot of scenes are cut out, again, because this is Newt's perspective. So the whole film experience goes much faster here, because, for example, when Newt gets taken by the Aliens she is knocked out until Ripley goes off to find her, so the hunt for Newt that we experience in the film is not in the comic. I think they did a wonderful job sticking to that theme and give the readers the terrifying ride from Newt's perspective, where you know even less about what's going on.

Of course, this is heavily censored in terms of the script. Hudson, played by the amazing Bill Paxton, was often swearing his head off throughout the film, especially as stress levels began to rise, so it was pretty funny to see some of his iconic lines not even bleeped out, but just not have swears. It's amazing the impact some of his lines lose without the harsh language.

The art, overall, is extremely good. They did a great job capturing all the characters in the film and putting them down on paper for us. I think I will always find this particular comic a timeless release and something worth revisiting from time to time. A lot of that love is because this isn't a simple a re-telling of the film, if it was, I think I would see no real point in reading this more than once in my life. I highly recommend this comic for any fan of the Aliens franchise if you haven't read this yet.

[Lksreads · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a book that shows the events on Hadley’s Hope before the arrival of Ripley and the space marine company - as told through the eyes of Newt - this does what it sets out to do. It’s about a 50/50 split of an expansion/prologue of the movie and a direct comic adaptation of it, it’s solid. Doesn’t offer anything new but does all the great Aliens moments justice. Could skip but happy to have it in part of the Epic Collections lol

[Matias Cerizola · Rating 4 out of 5]

El Cuento De Newt.- Richardson; Sommerville; Harvey⁣
⁣
“En algún lugar del espacio profundo. Una nave viaja a su cita con el planeta Tierra. Dentro, una pasajera duerme, sueña. El sueño debería devolverle la calma. Pero solo la lleva de vuelta a una macabra pesadilla.”⁣
⁣
La pequeña Newt y su familia viven en la colonia de trabajadores y científicos ubicada en Acheron, un planetoide del espacio exterior. Cuando su padre descubre en sus recorridas una estructura extraterrestre, comienza la pesadilla para Newt, quién puede sobrevivir a duras penas, sola y transitando en pequeños espacios, a un enemigo que no para de reproducirse y que no tiene contemplación alguna con los humanos que encuentra en el camino.⁣
⁣
El Cuento De Newt (Newt’s Tale) es un cómic de dos tomos publicado originalmente en el año 1992 por Dark Horse y fue publicado en español por Editorial Norma.⁣
⁣
Modo meme abuelo Simpson “on”: hubo una época en la que era muy difícil acceder a versiones especiales o extendidas de las películas estrenadas en cines, incluso las versiones estrenadas en salas tardaban un año en salir en VHS hogareño. El periplo desde cines a hogares de la gran película de James Cameron, Aliens (1986) no fue excepción. La película tuvo distintas ediciones y hasta la salida en DVD, la única forma de verla en su edición extendida era en Láser Disc, equipos estos que muy poca gente tenía. Está introducción es para darle contexto a la importancia del cómic El Cuento De Newt en su momento, por primera vez accedimos a lo que era el guión original de la película, con escenas (algunas importantes) que no llegaron al estreno en salas y quedaban en el piso de la sala de edición. Ahora,¿vale la pena leer El Cuento De Newt en el 2024?, para mí sí, pero claro, soy fanático de la saga y pega un poco en la nostalgia. Ustedes decidirán.⁣
⁣
🤘🤘🤘🤘

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lowest common denominator. There's a more compelling back-story hiding somewhere between these panels. Ironically, the interesting part was the rehash of the film, although that too was executed poorly and assumes the reader has seen and/or remembers all of the characters from 1986's Aliens. Even then, characters' lines are mixed up or altered and the character designs leave a lot to be desired, i.e., all male characters basically look the same. Unless you're a collector of all things Aliens canon, my suggestion is to skip this forgettable entry.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugly art (rushed and cartoony), enhanced by really bad flat coloring.
Rushed story, basically giving a very short synapsis about what happened to Newt prior to the marines and Ripley's arrival, tyhen a few rushed scenes from the movie.
The covers were pretty nice though.

[Mike Arrani · Rating 2 out of 5]

I expected this to be a prequel, but for some reason about 75% of this is an adaptation of the movie. Which is fine, and it's competently made, but, as is usually the case, it just comes off inferior, failing to utilize the comic book form to convey the same emotions, because it sticks so closely to repeating what worked in the film.

However, the main reason I rated it so low is because this book has unnecessary child cruelty in a couple of scenes. In one of which, god knows why, they decided to depict a child getting murdered in a gruesome manner by a xenomorph. Look, we all know that Newt must've witnessed endless horrors while trying to survive out there, but this is just excessive and tasteless. We know the colony didn't survive, we know a lot of families got murdered, but do you have to revel in violence like that? This seems to serve no story purpose either, coming off as being there only for shock value. As a writer myself, I just don't respect this.

[OmniBen · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Zero spoiler review)
Read as part of the Aliens omnibus volume one, and what a strong collection of tales it turned out to be. And whilst the writing has been of a consistently solid to strong quality, it has been the art which has truly shone the brighter of the two, and Newt's Tale is absolutely no exception. Considerable kudos should go to the inker and colourist, who take Jim Sommerville's exceptional pencils, and somehow manage to elevate them. This is era and style of art is my absolute favourite, making Mike Richardson's competent script all the more enjoyable. I'm not really sure why this currently scores so low on this site. The slightly altered and expanded take on the original movie would be my guess as to the apathetic scoring, although I really don't know. All I know is, it was a bloody beautiful book to look at. And it didn't read half bad either. 4/5


OmniBen.

[Ella De · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just a cheap cash grab.

I hoped for the story of Newt's survival after her parents found the ship and her father was attacked by a face hugger but this story only makes a small percentage of this. Most of it is a simply retelling of the most important scenes from the Aliens movie. This wouldn't be to bad, if the art was any good. But it looks cheap an cartoony and it seems the artists didn't even try to make the characters look anything like their movie counterparts. The colouring is strange and the only change the make to the story males Newt look clumsy and dumb. When she slips und falls down the ventilation duct on the way to the dropship it is caused by the grenades Gorman and Vasquez use to kill themselves in the movie. In this version she simply falls without any other reason than being clumsy.

[Edward Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first part of this two-issue special edition collection of Newt's Tale gives a little more than a few pages to tell of what happened before the Sulaco and Marines arrived on the planet Archeron (aka LV-426) and the rest is dedicated to things you already know (a rehash of Aliens) - I enjoyed seeing the characters on the printed page but if you want a better story of the same vein, try Alien: River of Pain which is more in-depth and gives a better vision of what horrors were picking off the colonists.

[BIGnick BIGnick · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you a big fan of the franchise this is a great addition to the canon.
It shows Newts introduction to the aliens and her family’s death alluded to in the Aliens movie. The rest is her perspective of the events through that movie with a dower ending which fans of the series are all too familiar with.

[Riley Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

While in stasis, Newt remembers the events of Aliens from her perspective (even some bits she wasn’t there for!) Also includes a look at Hadley’s Hope before the outbreak (even more than in the Aliens Special Edition)! But at least she was saved, and now she’s in stasis in a spaceship, everything should work out JUST fine…

[Wetdryvac · Rating 2 out of 5]

1) Recap.
2) Some originalish material.
3) Recap.

Basically, the movie Aliens in painful comic book form with a few extra pages of material. Probably would be less painful if I could stand the art style - which is technically a solid example of said style, but not something I like.

[Odd · Rating 2 out of 5]

About 10% of it is 'Newt's Tale', how the xenomorph outbreak in the colony on LV-426 happened and how she survived alone prior to the marines arriving, the rest is a 1:1 retelling of Aliens. The art isn't pretty either

[Siobhán · Rating 2 out of 5]

Loved the original content, but sadly it made up about a quarter of the story. The rest was a mediocre retelling of Aliens. A little disappointing, because the new content was super interesting!

[Donavon · Rating 3 out of 5]

If not already seen Aliens, might be better. Only a few panels here and there not a direct adaption of director's cut. Must not have had likeness rights. Final page's nod to Alien 3 was nice.

[John Racioppi · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of book one showing what was going on with Newt was great, but then the series just devolves into a rehash of the movie. Still liked it, but pretty disappointed.

[Alex Gregory · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've always looked at Aliens: Newt's Tale as a weird sort of curiosity.

Released in the lead-up to the release of the critically-polarizing (and commercially underwhelming) Alien 3, the concept of a book focusing on a character who (as the ending of the book even suggests) will soon die as a result of a deus ex machina twist is underwhelming right from the get-go. It's strange, too, that this is the only official movie adaptation of the previous film, Aliens.

The book follows Rebecca 'Newt' Jorden, the sole survivor of the Hadley's Hope colony in the wake of a xenomorph infestation. Unlike the movie, the book goes into more depth about her actions before the discovery of the derelict Space Jockey ship that resulted in a settler (her father) being infected and brought back to the colony, where he died and subsequently caused the deaths of everyone else.

Right from the get-go, there isn't a whole lot you can do with a book that focuses on a child character and has to be written within the confines of an already-existing film. The first half of the book is largely boring and consists of interminable dialogue scenes where characters struggle to figure what is kidnapping members of the colony. In the hands of a better writer, this could have been compelling material to draw out the horror aspects of the creature, but this only reveals itself when the creatures massacre the last few colonists after they've barricaded themselves into a wing. Newt is the only survivor after watching her mother get ripped apart and her brother get sprayed with acid blood.

The second half is essentially an rushed comic adaptation of the film, including scenes that were previously only available in the Director's Cut (or in deleted scenes, which were finally seen on the Alien Anthology Blu-Ray set). There's some appeal to seeing sequences that didn't appear proper in the film itself, like Newt biting Hicks' hand or the famous "cocoon" sequence with Ripley finding Burke, but by that point, it's basically Ripley's story anyway, and Newt only exists to be a distressed damsel.

Newt's Tale feels like a film adaptation that was ballooned out to two parts because the material in the original work was too narrow. The first half doesn't do a great job endearing the reader to any of the characters (especially if they already know everyone besides Newt will die anyway), and the second half is just something that could be better served by watching the film itself. The constant rising tension of Jim Cameron's work just isn't communicated well in this work at all. Likewise, the art is ugly and overwrought, with character's faces ballooning out to comical proportions at several points.

If you want a better-paced version of the events leading up to Aliens, you should read River of Pain. While not perfect, it's more competently written.

[Steph · Rating 3 out of 5]

The art's not very good (the children look creepishly like miniature adults, and most characters aren't recognizable from the movie), but Newt's perspective is an interesting one.

And of course the ending, ahhh! (Aliens/Alien 3 spoilers)

[Beau N. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in the original 2 issue version.

It was basically the second movie in comic form. And that would have been fine, if it hadn't been called just "Newt's Tale" - I kind of thought it was going to be a different story. It would have been good to have a new story from Newt's life, from her point of view.

I guess I didn't look into it before reading it.

Still, 3 out of 5 stars.

[Jonathan Harbour · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just a rehash of Aliens film, nothing new about Newt after the first few pages. LAME!

[Travis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Decent project, telling the events leading up to the movies Aliens all from Newts' POV.