Alien Apokolips Now, Part 1

By: Arnold T. Blumberg
Date: Wednesday, April 03, 2002

In 1995, courtesy of Dan Jurgens and Kevin Nowlan, Superman encountered a race of Aliens unlike anything he had ever seen before. They were relentless, ferocious fighters, almost impossible to beat, and nearly succeeded in killing even the Last Son of Krypton. But he did beat them and returned to tell the tale. Now, writer Chuck Dixon and artists John Bogdanove and Nowlan present the next battle in this strange, cross-universe war, debuting in May: SUPERMAN/ALIENS II: GODWAR.

"[It's] not really a direct sequel," says Bogdanove. "It's another pairing with its own internal logic.'

While not a direct sequel, the new Superman/Aliens miniseries (four issues as opposed to the first series' three) promises to up the ante significantly. And that means Darkseid and the New Gods. But for penciler Bogdanove, there's a much simpler benefit to working on this unique event.

"As Dan wisely put it, it's a really cheap way to get a bunch of cool Kevin Nowlan art," laughs Bogdanove. "It definitely works out."

While the artist now prefers to ink his own work most of the time, the chance to work with Nowlan on this crossover was just too good to pass up.

"Since leaving the regular Superman books, I've worked really hard to develop this sort of classic brush inking style, like Russ Manning, in a very classic look," says Bogdanove. "It's just in the last few years I've wanted to ink my own work and see how that worked and master those skills. I've inked a few projects including an issue of Hulk that came out in October and prior to that I inked a special project, SUPERMAN/SAVAGE DRAGON. But Kevin has his own very distinctive style, very much so, and it was really the opportunity to work with him that drew me to the project. It's a matter of chemistry."

That chemistry extends to the mingling of two such disparate properties as DC's Superman and Twentieth Century Fox's Aliens film series. Bogdanove has already had some experience in this area, having inked a Superman/Savage Dragon crossover, but with the unique design of the Aliens and the addition of Jack Kirby's New Gods, the situation is unprecedented.

"The biggest challenge artistically for this project was trying to find a happy medium to meld the Gigeresque world of the Aliens with the Kirby world of the New Gods," says Bogdanove. "Both artists have an affinity for machinery. Giger does everything in a biomechanical vein, and Kirby machines are a trademark thing, so I was pretty sure a happy medium could be found. But it meant a lot of reference and a lot of drawing and thinking about where to go Gigeresque and where to pull for Kirby and how to make them clash."

"The approach I tried to take was that the Kirby complexities represented good and the Alien complexities represented evil," adds Bogdanove. "I don't know whether that comes across but that's sort of what I was shooting for. There's more sort of writhing organics in Giger's work and Kirby's work has a very solid energetic feel, and you know I think it worked out all right."

For the Alien design itself, Bogdanove went back to the source.

"I did go back mostly to the Giger material itself. I freeze-framed the movies a lot and looked not just at Giger's Alien work but the Necronomicon, his oeuvre. I tried to do less of drawing from other people's interpretations and tried to do most from him."

Bogdanove's work on the Alien creature was also influenced by the many innovations grafted onto the original design by all the creators who preceded him.

"The characters of the Aliens have evolved from movie to movie, comic book to comic book, and action figure to action figure," says Bogdanove. "I couldn't ignore that, and in many ways the changes that have taken place are not arbitrary. Artists have modified Giger along the way to make the Alien more dynamic in a comic book, so I couldn't ignore the work."

"[What] really sells this as an adventure is the aspect of the Aliens adopting the DNA of whatever host creature they inhabit. That makes the Alien the ultimate crossover character, because you could cross it with the DNA of anything. They never really explored that angle of it. It makes them a much more interesting character and how they can survive on any planet is that genetic adaptability."

A much larger challenge was figuring out how to make the Aliens formidable foes for a man who is nigh invulnerable. In the previous series, writer Dan Jurgens took Superman away from Earth's sun, reducing his energy levels. The solution this time didn't involve sapping Superman's strength, however, but amping up the Aliens he would face. In the new story, an Alien-infested spaceship crashes on Apokolips, sparking the interest of Darkseid himself. You know that can't be good.

"Darkseid analyzes these creatures and decides to use them. He ties up a bunch of his Parademon warriors, the footsoldiers of Aopokolips, and he impregnates them with Aliens, creating a bunch of essentially human hybrids."

These new Aliens, while not totally indistinguishable from other humanoid warriors, are now possessed of powers derived from Apokolips genetics.

"They don't look that different from regular Aliens, but they are superbeings born of Apokolips genetics," says Bogdanove. "They're not Superman's equal, but the New Gods' equal. You have a creature that's certainly a formidable threat for Superman. Without being too specific, basically the series is based on the idea that we've amped these monsters up to Superman's level."