Warning: The following contains spoilers for Alien #4 by Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Salvador Larroca, Guru-eFX and VC's Clayton Cowles, on sale now.
In the most recent installment of Marvel's Alien series, Gabriel Cruz and his companions venture into the xenomorph nest on Weyland-Yutani's Epsilon Station. This risky trip sets off a series of events that lead Gabe face to face with his legacy and the most dangerous alien yet: the Alpha Xenomorph.
When Gabe, Bishop the synthetic android, Hamilton the Weyland-Yutani agent and Iris the anti-corporate terrorist explore the alien's nest, they find dozens of cocooned Epsilon crew members. Among them is Gabe's son Danny who is still attached to a face-hugger. As they remove his unconscious body from the alien webbing, they accidentally alert the xenomorphs, who chase them out of the nest and throughout the space station. They seek refuge in the docking bay, but it appears nowhere on Epsilon is safe anymore. A xenomorph surprises them and kills Hamilton. They then run into the creature they've been searching for all along, giving Gabe his first glance at the Alpha Xenomorph.
In Alien #2 Gabe discovers that the maximum security cryo-storage container designed to hold the Alpha is empty. The container is clearly meant to hold a relatively small embryo, but the xenomorph Cruz encounters in Alien #4 is gigantic. It has grown at a remarkably alarming rate. Much about the Alpha remains mysterious, but Gabe's Weyland-Yutani bosses have referred to it as his legacy, and Iris described it as a "bioweapon." Its rapid growth, formidable size and ruthless aggression all point to it being incredibly dangerous.
The monstrous alien's head is similar in design to that of the Queen Aliens, but its horns are significantly sharper. The Alpha's appears to be as intelligent as the queens, but stronger. Unlike the Queen, this new xenomorph seems more concerned with hunting than merely laying and protecting eggs. It seems focused on Gabe to an almost personal degree. The Alpha makes short work of the Epsilon's steel doors, and stands to an imposing height. Its muscular, humanoid body is reminiscent of the Predalien seen in 2007's Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem directed by Greg and Colin Strause. Like the Alpha Xenomorph, the Predator Alien hybrid matured very quickly and wreaked havoc by working in tandem with face-huggers and other xenomorphs.
It may be more accurate to compare the Alpha Xenomorph to the Alien King featured in Ian Edginton and Will Simpson's 1995 Aliens: Rogue published by Dark Horse Comics. In addition to sharing some physical resemblance, the Alpha and the King may have common origins. Edginton and Simpson's Alien King was genetically engineered in a lab reminiscent of the one on Epsilon. After several failed attempts to breed the xenomorphs, a mad scientist used human DNA to create the Alien King, which quickly ran wild on the space station, and could only be defeated by the more intelligent Queen Alien. Although the exact origins of the Alpha remain unknown, both it and the King are the results of Weyland-Yutani's attempts to tame and harness the power of the Xenomorphs.
Gabe Cruz and his companions' first encounter with the Alpha Xenomorph reveals just how monstrous the situation on Epsilon station has become. This terrifying new alien isn't quite like anything the Alien universe has seen before, and it surely won't be the last monster Cruz comes across.