Warning! This article contains spoilers for Alien Vol. 2 #6 The underlying theme of the Alien franchise has always been that the life of the child is only possible through the death of the parent–something that has become even more pronounced in the latest film installments–but now, that theme is being flipped within the current continuity of Alien comics, specifically with the most recent Xenomorph survivor.
As shown in the first Alien movie, the Xenomorph is born after gruesomely emerging from the chest of its human host, killing that host in the process. Similarly (in a more metaphorical sense), in the prequel films Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, the synthetic David murders the humans he was designed to be subservient to, and effectively takes their place as the higher life form. The idea of David ‘grew’ within the minds of humans before he ‘emerged’ from them and was given life. At which point, David killed his creators and went on to create life himself–a version of the classic Xenomorph known commonly as the Praetomorph–which did the exact same thing with its ‘host’ in a much more literal (and violent) way. These examples highlight the aforementioned theme of the Alien franchise. But now, with this established theme in mind, fans are left with a bit of a conundrum.
Xenomorph-Killing Synthetics are Raising a Human Child – Flipping Alien’s Theme
In Alien Vol. 2 #6 by Phillip Kennedy Johnson and Julius Ohta, a team of Xenomorph-killing synthetics known as Steel Team are trying to escape a planet that has been overrun by Xenomorphs, Tobler-9. They were sent there to obtain the Xenomorphs’ biological material in order for humanity to refine it into a life-saving drug. When they initially arrived at Tobler-9, they were surprised to see a group of humans had survived the Xenomorph onslaught, and were safely living on the decimated world. Unfortunately, that didn’t last long, as Steel Team’s presence on Tobler-9 caused a chain of events that led to every human (and most of the synthetics) being brutally murdered–every human, but one: a child. The comic–and the series–ended with the two surviving synthetics making it off Tobler-9 with the boy, and their intention to raise him was made clear.
While it is too early to tell what will become of this found-family of two synthetic parents and one human child (if anything at all), the one thing that is clear is where this ending left the fans. Everything about it is backwards, especially when considering the three movies made by the creator of the Alien franchise, Ridley Scott: Alien, Prometheus, and Alien: Covenant. In those films, synthetics regard the Xenomorph as a perfect organism, and humans as nothing more than useless bundles of flesh and bone. David hated his creators, and so he sought to destroy them in order to truly be born. Similarly, Ash was more than willing to let the humans on the Nostromo die for the sake of the Xenomorph. Here, in this storyline, synthetics are acting the exact opposite way, with an entire team of them killing Xenomorphs before adopting a human child as their own.
Based on Daivd’s entire story arc, synthetics are meant to be the children of humanity, and only through humanity’s death can these children flourish. This parallel is marked with the introduction of the Xenomorph, as its life cycle is exactly the same, but in a far more literal sense. But now, everything about Alien’s theme has been flipped, and while fans don’t know what that means for the franchise quite yet, what they do know is that it’s only happening because of the series’ latest Xenomorph survivor.
Alien Vol. 2 #6 by Marvel Comics is available now.
