Are you familiar with the Aliens and Predator comics by Dark Horse? Blogger Alasdair Stuart reminisces about his youthful encounters, and celebrates their return:

In Comics, No One Can Hear You Hunt

The first comics I read were science fiction. Specifically, they were the Aliens, Predator and Terminator tie-in comics that Dark Horse put out in the early 1990s, sent to me by my good friend Wayne who lived on the main land where electricity was commonplace and you could actually drive for more than an hour without hitting the sea.

They were glorious. The small, punchy format felt heavy, filled with information and potential and fun. The stories didn’t disappoint either, with all three titles using a series of mini-series to create coherent universe that fitted around the films. The first Predator series, Concrete Jungle, was particularly fun pitting Dutch Schaefer’s homicide cop brother against a fleet of Predators in the big city. Imagine Die Hard With A Vengeance with added plasma cannons and aliens and you’re pretty close. It was written by Mark Verheiden who would go on to write much of Battlestar Galactica. His work on Aliens was as impressive, pitting a disfigured Hicks and adult Newt against both the Xenomorphs and a cult that’s grown around them. Both series consistently did a good job of building on the established mythos and taking it in new directions and some of the later stories were absolutely top notch. Tribes by Steve Bissette and Dave Dorman is a minor classic, using multiple viewpoints to explore the final mission of a veteran Bughunter Unit.

But, as is the way of things, demand fell, the comics went off the boil and were eventually cancelled. Until now, when on Free Comic Book Day, I found myself face to face with my past, with the comics that played a big role in introducing me to the industry.

Dark Horse are relaunching both Aliens and Predator series and judging by the Free Comic Book Day preview have fresh new perspectives on the franchises. The Aliens story is particularly good, told in the form of an academic paper being written in the wake of an unsuccessful alien infestation of what appears to be near future Earth. Straight away the vast amounts of baggage the films and previous comics bring to the table is swept away and replaced by something which feels, based on these few pages, like something which owes as much to The Relic as the Alien franchise.

The Predator story is far more straight forward, Following a US sniper somewhere in Africa on the worst and quite possibly last day of his career. The rise of private security firms like Blackwater, not just in day to day life but in popular fiction has given the franchise a welcome shot in the arm and the story is fast paced, nasty and has a great last page reveal.

Both are written by John Arcudi and both have smart, open art by Zach Howard and Javier Saltares respectively. Most importantly though, both still have the qualities I responded to when I was 12; they’re scary, they’re smart and they’re fun. So if you’re a fan of either movie franchise, do yourself a favour and pick up the new series or the omnibuses Dark Horse have put out of the old stories. Just remember, if you hear hissing or see three dots moving slowly across the page? Run.

This is a personal article by Alasdair Stuart, one of our site contributors. Your thoughts on these comments are welcome, in the comment thread below or in the dedicated comics part of SFX's popular forum.