Posted in: Comics, Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Sponsored | Tagged: aliens, aliens vs. predator, auction, avp, dark horse, dark horse presents, dhp, predator

Where Aliens Vs Predator First Began, In 1989's Dark Horse Presents

Aliens Vs Predator didn't begin with the movies, or the games, but with a black and whote story told in a comic book anthology In 1989...

In 1989, co-founder and VP of Dark Horse Comics, Randy Stradley, with artist Phill Norwood, told a couple of short stories in Dark Horse Presents, the anthology comic from Dark Horse, with issue 34 featuring a short Aliens story, showing alien eggs being harvested and an Alien Queen being held hostage.

This was followed a month later in issue 35 with Predators preparing for the hunt, from the same creative team.

And it would be Dark Horse Presents issue 36 in 1990 that the big surprise would land, Aliens Vs Predator, the first time these film franchises occurred, and the comic was the inspiration for the video games and then the movies to do the same, something fairly unusual, for a licensed product to inspire the main franchise, but something that has become more common since.

Screenwriter Peter Briggs created the original spec screenplay in 1990, based on the first comic series and in 1991, a video game was produced by Capcom as a tie-in saw release in 1994 and a later draft by James DeMonaco and Kevin Fox very close to the comic was rejected in favour of a story set on Earth. Paul W. S. Anderson wrote a story based on the Machiko Noguchi Aliens Vs Predator stories and it was that, with Shane Salerno co-writing. that turned into the finished film, Alien vs. Predator in 2004 directed by Anderson. And followed by Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem in 2007, directed by the Strause brothers. The development of a third film, currently deleted in development but inevitable at some point.

Now those first issues- including 34 and 35 which are often not considered as part of Aliens Vs Predator, but absolutely are, are up for auction for collectors from Heritage Auction, two issues of DHP #34, CGC slabbed at 9.0 and 9.2, DHP #35 both CGC slabbed at 9.4 and DHP #36 CGC slabbed at 9.2, currently with a combined bid of $45, going under the hammer later today, and very likely for a higher amount.

Dark Horse Presents #34-36 CGC-Graded Group of 5 (Dark Horse, 1989-90). Includes issues #34 (2 copies, NM- 9.2 and VF/NM 9.0), 35 (2 copies, both NM 9.4), and 36 (Variant Cover – NM- 9.2). Aliens covers and story. Approximate Overstreet value for group = $45

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