After almost 3 decades of publication at Dark Horse Comics, the Alien franchise has arrived at Marvel Comics with a new #1 issue and a clean slate for storytelling. Alien #1 is set approximately 21 years after the events of Aliens and 78 years after Alien, and it appears those are the only points of context readers should expect to be familiar with when discovering these new characters and settings. Those two films are critical because readers are expected to fill in some gaps—how Xenomorphs procreate, Weyland-Yutani’s interest in the species, the role of space marines—and they create an interesting contrast as a result, not always for the better.