Alien's Religious Themes Hint at Inevitable End of Humans vs Xenomorphs
Warning: contains spoilers for Aliens #11!
There's no denying that the xenomorphs from the Alien franchise are some of the most efficient and ruthless killers in all of fiction. In the comics, Marvel has combined a recent Aliens storyline with religious themes, and it could quite possibly hint at how the conflict might end.
The story arc is about a colony on a distant planet that is waiting for extraction following a long mission. Instead, a ship of xenomorphs crash lands and attacks the colony, killing them off one by one. Primarily in farmland, the xenomorphs pay homage to Jurassic Park and hunt people in cornstalks. To make matters worse, there were company synthetics hiding amongst the colonists, working against their survival. The colonists, known as Spinners, are very religious. They are devout to a set of scriptures and a deity they call Mother. In fact, after being discovered and nearly destroyed, the synthetic that was hiding amongst them use their religion in a twisted way to justify the xenomorphs attack and slaughtering of all the colonists.
In issue #11, which was written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson and illustrated by Salvador Larocca, the synthetic points out that anyone who takes their Mother into their hearts will become transformed. He views xenomorph life as this transformation, and that all people will inevitably go through this change. The synthetic spells it out plainly for the main character Jane when he says, "you're all resisting the will of God."
Although this theory is inherently tied to the Spinner religion, it's not a far-fetched one in terms of the Alien universe. One long running theme within Alien xenomorph movies and comics is evolution. The idea of being transformed through religion is not all that different from organic life transitioning from one form to another. Fans have seen time and time again how xenomorph biology can shift according to the DNA they absorb. Even through science, engineers have been able to tweak xenomorph types to their liking.
Of course, taking the religious approach to this concept is fairly new, especially a unique religion that is original to the comic. Though the idea does have a profound message. These people, the Spinners, believed they were doing right not by their deity but also the company in which they worked for. If the company let them down by allowing the xenomorphs to invade, it only makes sense that their deity would also have let them down by blessing the aliens as a divine part of their scripture. Either way, if the colonists were to survive, then they will need to reject their religion in order to face the xenomorphs for the threat they are.
Alien #11 is available now from Marvel Comics in print and digital!
Source: Screenrant
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