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What happens when the deadliest organism in existence meets Earth's Mightiest Heroes? We'll find out in Aliens Vs. Avengers, a new four-issue limited series coming this summer that delivers exactly what the title promises: an all out throwdown between the Xenomorphs of the Aliens franchise and a team of the strongest Avengers around.
If that premise alone isn't enough to sell you on Aliens Vs. Avengers, the creative team just might, as the series will mark the return of Jonathan Hickman to the Avengers franchise. The book will also act as a reunion between Hickman and his Secret Wars collaborator Esad Ribić, who will lend his ethereal, painterly style to the interiors as well as covers.
Interestingly though, despite featuring heroes we know and love and of course the vicious, bloodthirsty monsters we fear, this story takes place in a future era set years after the current Marvel Universe, with "older, grittier" incarnations of the Avengers and other heroes.
"The four-part epic is set in a new timeline many years in the future and features older, grittier versions of Marvel characters. It also will be the first-time readers will see certain parts of Alien lore in the Marvel Universe – like the home of the Engineers," reads Marvel's official announcement. "In this unmissable series, Xenomorphs reach Earth, and the perfect organism meets a planet of superhumans. But who will be first to fall?"
Marvel has been publishing Aliens comics for a few years now, but this will be their first crossover with Marvel heroes. Previously, Marvel published a Predator Vs. Wolverine title, crossing over with Aliens' rival sci-fi franchise.
And though the Xenomorphs haven't met the Avengers yet, in the '90s, they did crossover with the DC Universe, in a pair of stories titled Superman/Aliens and Batman/Aliens. In Marvel terms, there is an alien species known as the Brood who are remarkably similar to Xenomorphs, though they usually fight (or even team up with) the X-Men.
"Probably one of the coolest things about the project is how we've found really fun ways to 'Avengerize' Aliens and 'alien-up' Avengers," writer Jonathan Hickman tells Entertainment Weekly, who originally announced the series. "I think fans will be surprised at how elegantly some of those things fit together. It really turned out to be a chocolate-and-peanut-butter situation."
Hickman previously wrote Avengers and its spinoff New Avengers from 2013-2015, telling a years-long epic that eventually led to 2015's Secret Wars which reworked parts of the Marvel Multiverse, and which also featured art by Esad Ribić.
Aliens Vs. Avengers #1 goes on sale July 24, just ahead of the release of the new film Alien: Romulus.
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