As the Alien franchise charts a bold, new comic book era at Marvel, a major character from the movies has resurfaced in a slightly different form.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Alien #1, by Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Salvador Larroca, Guru-eFX and VC’s Clayton Cowles, on sale now.
After decades of being published by Dark Horse Comics, the Alien franchise has officially come to Marvel with a brand-new series by Phillip Kennedy Johnson and Salvador Larroca. Set years after the events of Aliens, the new series features plenty of the franchise’s trademark science fiction horror.
And while the creative team focuses largely on entirely new characters as they face the unrelenting terror of the Xenomorphs across the cosmos, Alien #1 prominently features a familiar face from the classic movies: the android Bishop.
Bishop is an advanced android built by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation that serves as the executive officer and science officer onboard the Sulaco as the vessel investigates the human colony on LV-426, portrayed by Lance Henriksen and introduced in 1986’s Aliens. Given her previous, harrowing experience with a different android model in the 1979 original film, Ellen Ripley is initially distrustful Bishop but later grows to overcome this bias as she realizes that Bishop is programmed to be loyal to the crew’s interests rather than the company that built him. Bishop was catastrophically damaged as the Sulaco crashes onto Fury 161 at the start of 1992’s Alien 3, reactivated to access the ship’s black box before Ripley honors his request to be deactivated rather than repaired. Bishop’s creator and inspiration behind his physical design was introduced at the end of Alien 3, Michael Bishop Weyland, who personally investigates the incident on Fury 161.
The start of Marvel’s Alien series follows a veteran Weyland-Yutani employee Gabriel Cruz who had his own traumatic encounter with the Xenomorphs, which continues to haunt him even after he retires from the company. Helping Cruz acclimate back to civilian life on Earth is a Bishop model android, with this particular unit noting that he does not have the same memory banks as the android that worked alongside Cruz during his nightmarish experience with the Xenomorphs. With that reminder, Cruz remains alone in facing his trauma even as the individual speaking to him wears the familiar face of all the previous Bishops, including the one that worked with Ripley during her own horrific battles against the Xenomorphs years previously.
With a new Bishop in the mix, it’s unclear if this particular model is programmed to be completely loyal to the humans around him, including Cruz, or to Weyland-Yutani like the original film’s sinister android Ash. This Bishop physically resembles his predecessors and creator and hasn’t done anything to directly harm Cruz, but motivations should always be questioned whenever Weyland-Yutani is involved. And with a fresh wave of Xenomorphs unleashed, Cruz and a Bishop may be called into action again.
The original 1979 Alien and its android crew member Ash exposed just how manipulative Weyland-Yutani truly was and how far the corporation would go exploit the Xenomorphs for their own nefarious gain. Aliens softened the depiction of androids while continuing to showcase how conniving Weyland-Yutani was while the 2012 prequel film Prometheus showed another evil android working for Weyland-Yutani in Michael Fassbender’s David. Despite having a friendly face from films past, this new Bishop could be either corporately programmed or as noble as his predecessor on LV-426. In the meantime, Cruz has much more pressing issues to confront in more Xenomorphs attacking another crew of hapless humans, including his son.
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