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Predator: Fire And Stone #2
Published by: Dark Horse Comics
Published on: November 19th, 2014.
Written by: Joshua Williamson
Art by: Christopher Mooneyham
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Picking up directly where the first issue left off, this second installment of the four issue Predator: Fire And Stone series opens with a sequence wherein a group of alien hunters patrol UE-753 in the year 2107. A panel showing some all too familiar heat vision technology spying on them leads into a violent battle wherein a young Predator is defeated by his opponent and left for dead in a cave. Bad move. You don't turn your back on a Predator.
Cut to 2219 where we see Galgo, the only survivor of the first issue, strung up by his alien opponent. The Predator wants him to fly the ship back to LV-223 so that he can 'hunt those big blue aliens you've got such a hard-on for' but Galgo's not having any of it. The Predator has ways of convincing him, however, and Galgo figures alright, I'll just drop the ugly brute off on the planet and be on my way. They land, and the Predator insists he accompany him off of the ship, and without any sort of real choice, he does just that. The Predator takes him to a mass grave, a pile of Alien corpses a mile high, but when Galgo sees a certain accelerant and the Predator goes to investigate it, he warns him not to. Galgo knows something bigger than a Predator made that pile of bodies and he doesn't want to stick around to see what that thing is. Predators love a good challenge though, they live for the thrill of the hunt, so Galgo might not have a say in the matter.
This builds nicely off of the ending of the first issue, taking a more action intensive approach to the story. It's a quick read, mostly a big fight scene that leads into a bit of back and forth between Galgo and the Predator, but it sets up more to come. As far as second issues go, this accomplishes what it should in that it expands on what came before and then hooks us in for what's to come. There isn't a ton of exposition here, but without going into detail regarding the cliffhanger ending, there's going to be some coming soon as it seems that out hero's past has come back to haunt him.
Williamson scripts the tough guy storyline well. Obviously we have no idea what the Predator says but Galgo talks the talk, he's an interesting enough character that we're curious to see where this goes. The artwork by Christopher Mooneyham is strong, bringing to mind Walter Simonson and Howard Chaykin as influences but definitely going out on his own enough so that it never feels derivative. It's a sketchy sort of style but there's still a good amount of detail here to appreciate. Dan Brown's coloring compliments the artwork really well while Lucas Graciano's cover sets just the right sort of mood to get you to pick this one up off of the shelf. We'll see where this goes soon enough as we've just hit the half way point, but it's obviously setting up something big that will tie into the other Fire And Stone mini-series that Dark Horse is running through the Aliens/Predator/Prometheus universe right now.
