Aliens: Dust to Dust #1

The opening chapter of this four-issue Dark Horse miniseries sets an immediately overwhelming tone: Gabriel Hardman's cover depicts two small human figures — one appearing to shield or guide the other — dwarfed beneath a mass of Xenomorphs erupting from smoke and fire, their jaws stretched wide in terrifying unison. The scale contrast alone is striking, conveying hopeless odds with a painterly intensity that Rain Beredo's moody blue-and-orange palette makes even more visceral. If this cover is any indication, Aliens: Dust to Dust promises the kind of survival-against-impossible-creatures tension that makes the franchise so enduring.