Gone are the days of Batman/Aliens and Batman Versus Predator. Or hell, even the dais of Superman and Batman Versus Aliens and Predator. Now, Marvel Comics has the rights to make new comic books set in the horrifying worlds of the Alien and Predator movies, so maybe it’s the turn of Earth’s Mightiest to face a facehugger or six.
Revealed through IGN today, Marvel Comics has acquired the rights to make new Alien and Predator comics, which have long been a staple over at Dark Horse Comics; the company has owned the rights since the late 1980s. Times have changed in the past four decades, and the movies themselves have changed hands, too; with Disney’s recent acquisition of 20th Century Fox, it makes sense that Disney would want to bring the license in-house.
It’s not the first time Dark Horse has found one of its big licenses nabbed by the House of Mouse (and the House of Ideas). The publisher was, since the Expanded Universe’s inception in the ‘90s, the home of Star Wars comics—themselves having gained the license from Marvel—all the way up until Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012, which saw Disney handing the comics rights over to Marvel in 2014, who’ve been printing Star Wars books ever since. Now the same, it seems, will happen to Alien and Predator titles alike.
Just what Marvel has planned for the franchises is currently unknown, with the publisher not quite ready to reveal creative teams or titles. But if the teaser art is anything to go by, maybe fans can expect to see some kind of crossover in the vein of those classic DC Comics/Dark Horse team-ups of the ‘90s, given the ominous tease of a Predator clutching Iron Man’s helmet in this David Finch art:
Who can say, though—we’ve not seen Star Wars x Avengers since Marvel got that license, so maybe the Alien and Predator will likewise be standalones. What we can say for now, at least, is this is a big change in the world of Alien and Predator comics. We’ll bring you more on Marvel’s plans for the Alien and Predator universe as and when we learn it.
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