Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #765484 in Books
• Published on: 1997-07-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 136 pages

Synopsis
One of the "Remasters" series which aligns the stories with the "Aliens" movies and novelizations. The true horror of Doctor Paul Church's work is discovered when the research assistants in his space laboratory start dying and the dark secret of his previous close encounter with the Aliens unfolds.

Customer Reviews

Horror and Depravity beyond belief. Brace yourselves...
Over time an Aliens fan becomes somewhat desensitised to the 'horrors' of the genre that first transfixed you. The novelty of the xenomorph wears off and becomes just a part of the environment of the story (read at least ten Aliens graphic novels and you'll see what I mean).

The aliens inevitably become a mere vehicle for the story; tools, so to speak. So you look for plot and characterisation because the aliens themselves don't shock anymore; but this inevitably means that you don't get to focus on the alien, just on people; people scheming, surviving and dying; playing out their lives in an arena which happens to have aliens present, xenomorphs who always seem to be 'pets' that have been brought under the control of some crazy scientist/professor who wants to use the aliens - and unfortunate human victims - for dastardly and evil ends. (The biggest cliche' in Alien graphic novels, by the way.) The alien becomes familiar; and thus by definition - not an alien! They don't shock anymore! This is a problem.

And then I read 'Aliens: Labyrinth'. And, through a barrage of stomach-churning horror, my faith was restored in the word 'Alien' as a byword for horror and depravity beyond your darkest imaginings. Horror that is intense enough to warp your perceptions. Horror that is an excrutiating blend of your deepest disturbances, worst fears and darkest nightmares!

The aliens promote human pain and suffering that is pushed to the absolute limit, punctuated by the aliens' sadism that borders on the masochistic; sexual deviances [incest, cross-breeding betweenalien and human ]; the sickening stenches, smells, odours and organic messes of the nest; the horrifying way in which the hive is living organic tissue which assimilates the hapless human creatures trapped in it, so that they swell into vomit-inducing 'food sacs' for alien nourishment, no my brief desriptions do not do justice to the sheer nastiness that Labyrinth plows through. Let me summarise: An extended family of terra-formers land on what is believed to be an uninhabited planet to investigate a crash-landing from a few years back. Unfortunately, they don't bank on landing next to an alien nest. They are kidnapped, but instead of being summarily killed or strapped to chamber walls for implantation, they are tortured and abused as the normally predictable xenomorphs use the unfortunate family as guinea pigs; a twist if there ever was one. The story centres on the son of the family, a twenty year old boy who is the only survivor. He sees the members of his family get playfully disembowelled by the xenomorphs, get their limbs removed, etc. But this is nothing. To survive, he manages to imitate the aliens, and they 'accept' him. He has to feed the humans trapped in the nest's walls by mouth - including members of his family - with alien gunge. He has to eat it himself, and drink alien bile. He swims and wallows in the xenomorphs secretions and other organical horrors. He sees his sister pregnant with a litter of alien-human hybrids, only for her to die as they all burst out of her stomach simultaneously. And at perhaps the climax of horror, he is confronted with his mother, who has had her limbs removed. The xenomorphs try to force the boy to mate with his MOTHER. My blood ran cold. The mother's eyes are beyond despair; beyond anguish...she's experienced too much. So out of love the son kills her with his own two hands.

The aliens are trying to cross-breed humans and aliens, because their nest is dying. The boy comes to realise this, and manages to escape by releashing a deadly fungi which hastens the death of the nest. Only when he's escaped does the boy remember that he's human. His experiences have utterly warped him, inside and out. Unfortunatelty for him, by this stage he's already been face-hugged. Now comes the big twist in the book. As a rule in alien folklore, nobody survives once they've been implanted. Once face-hugged, you're a goner. This rule is Law. But the boy, although impregnated, gets lucky. The nest is so sick, that the young alien inside him dies before it can reach full term. He eventually gets back to the ship and use the ships medical technology to operate on himself and cut the dead alien out, before it begins to kill him. Artistic licence, I know, but who gives a..... when the story's this brutal?

Even though we understand that the nest is dying, we have no idea how this comes about, why the aliens became prompted to behave in this manner. We do not see any queen. We do not meet any officials pulling strings, or the other people who suffered at the hands of the aliens before the family arrived. And this is excellent...finally we have an alien novel where not everything is explained. Mystery....loose ends... things we don't know about... this 'X-Files' element is the essence of the Alien concepts that pervades the films and gives them their character and atmosphere, and intensify the horror immeasurably, so why not have this in the graphic novels too? The most alien of the Alien novels. The one that was a true nightmarish brain assault, overloading the synapses with its intertwined catalogue of sights, sounds, moans, smells, stenches, sqelches and gurgles of life being wrenched away by the alien bursting forth. I have never read anything so numbing or disturbing in the viciousness and callousness of its horror. It hits you very hard. It could affect you. But in this horror, the flag of the 'Alien' and all the themes under its banner can be flown high on the mast again. Read it. Rejoice. Then go and see a shrink, or an undertaker. Whoah.

"It throws you into the world of the Aliens"
It's not about guns blazing and hoards of aliens, it's about the twisted mind of a scientist. It throws you into the world of the Aliens and takes you along a rolercostar with plenty of twists and turns along the way. With plenty of well-rendered images it's one to treasure forever.

An awesome chapter in the Aliens story
This is my favorite of the Aliens graphic novels so far, not only does it show that the perfect killing machine does have its weaknesses it shows a horrifying new side to the aliens, Paul Church's experience in the hive re-defines the term "graphic novel" the things he and his family and friends are subjected to puts the element of fear right back into the aliens. I also thought that the artwork was done very well the Aliens are drawn pretty much flawlessly and its good to see that the illustrators have remembered that the aliens are much taller than humans (8 feet tall i believe) recommend this graphic novel to both Aliens fans and comic fans alike and if you havent read any Aliens books yet this would be a perfect one to begin with.