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I don't need to tell you, loyal xenomorph fan, that the most obvious place to go when hunting for the future of the Alien franchise is, currently, to FX, where Noah Halwey's Alien: Earth is bringing the Ridley Scott-created horror saga to the small screen. However, I'll also kindly remind you that Marvel has been publishing their own piece of xeno-lore, most recently in the pages of the Johnathan Hickman/Esad Ribic-crafted Aliens vs. Avengers. And while those stories are likely not canon to the on-screen Alien saga, there is a pretty huge reason that you might want to check them out.

Namely, that Alien: Romulus filmmaker Fede Álvarez is collecting them. 

Álvarez spoke about his love for Alien comics in the Summer 2024 issue of Fangoria Magazine. 

"I collect most of the old [comics]" Álvarez told interviewer Richard Newby, "There's new ones still coming out, all the Marvel ones, that are pretty awesome. So that was really helpful and inspiring when it came to going beyond what's in the movies and finding out there's certain chapters here and there, certain ideas where I go, 'Oh, that's actually really cool.'"

"For me as a director, as a writer," the Evil Dead reboot filmmaker continued, "You stand on the shoulders of all these artists that dealt with this before and have had their time to come up with new ideas and new angles for this story."

But don't just stop at reading Alien comics if you want to track Álvarez's inspirations. The director, who is currently working on a big screen sequel to Alien: Romulus, makes it clear that video games also factor into his creations, particularly Alien's most landmark example.

"A lot of people will notice that there's a lot of [...] Alien: Isolation in the film," Álvarez says of Romulus, a fact that fans who have now seen the movie will probably agree with, "It was a big influence on me as well. When I was having those early conversations with Ridley [Scptt], I had the chance to tell him what I wanted. I was actually starting to play Alien: Isolation and the game made me remember how scary Alien can be."

Both Alien: Romulus and Alien: Earth are streaming on Hulu now, with new episodes of the latter dropping every Tuesday. Alien: Isolation and Aliens vs. Avengers are available wherever games and comics, respectively, are sold.