Batman / Aliens - with Victor Grubbs
Victor Grubbs joins Trade School to revisit Batman/Aliens, the comic that permanently rewired his teenage brain. Written by Ron Marz with art by Bernie Wrightson, it’s a near-perfect 50/50 crossover: Batman brings his detective skills, preparation, and gothic presence, while the Alien universe brings enclosed spaces, existential dread, corporate malice, and monsters terrifying enough to make Bruce Wayne look genuinely afraid.
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Edited by Case Aiken
Scored by Bret Eagleston
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⏱️ Chapters
00:00 Welcome and Introduction
00:08 Meet Victor Grubbs
00:08 Introducing Batman/Aliens
00:53 Why This Crossover Mattered
01:53 Ron Marz and the Perfect 50/50 Crossover
02:51 Batman Investigates the Xenomorphs
03:42 Bernie Wrightson’s Art
04:21 The Story and Horror Elements
05:11 Why Batman Works in Sci-Fi Horror
05:57 Victor’s Plugs
06:43 Tales from the Backlog Promo
07:41 CPOV Tag
Transcription
00:00
Welcome to Certain Point of View's Trade School, where each episode a different host talks about a comic book trade paperback that they loved and why they love it. What's up, everybody? My name is Victor Grubbs, and I'll be your host this week. And today we're going to talk about something near and dear to my little nerd heart. Crossovers. Specifically, a crossover that changed young adult Victor forever. Anybody who knows me know that I love Batman and I love Alien. So one Christmas, somebody who loves me very much got me a present straight from our wildest teenage dreams. Batman. Aliens. Now, I've seen misleading variant covers before. I mean, I used to search for Super Saiyan 100 in Google Images only to find out that there were only four at that time, at least.
00:53
So when I first saw that, I could not allow myself to believe that it was real until I opened it and actually laid my eyes on the gold within. From that moment on, my brain chemistry was forever altered. Alien is my favorite horror movie. Aliens is my favorite movie. I've fallen asleep most nights to the sound of retro futuristic tech beeping and xenomorphs screeching. I'll probably do it again tonight, to be honest. Meanwhile, Batman was my favorite character for a long time. And you know who surpassed him? Nightwing. Mr. Dick Grayson himself. So clearly I love the Bat fam. In their world, seeing these two icons on the same comic cover, that. That just means something to me, man. Batman Aliens is a dark horse led crossover comic that basically features Batman as the protagonist of an Alien movie.
01:53
It's written by Ron Mars, who wrote DC vs Marvel with Peter David and who wrote on Green Lantern during the Emerald Twilight era that led into Kyle Rayner's tenure as Green Lantern. This is truly a perfect 5050 crossover. There's no signs of either company fighting for real estate. You get everything you'd want to see when you bring Batman into the alien mythos, from plans to pearls. The weight of Batman's presence is felt throughout, but this does not come at the expense of the things prevalent in alien lore. There are still colonial Marines, enclosed spaces, and somebody prioritizing corporate interests over human lives. In fact, the experience is enhanced by having a protagonist as narratively and I guess, literally rich as Batman. He's exceedingly competent, which gives him a chance against these creatures, but also tortured enough to explore the nihilistic themes of Alien.
02:51
Seeing him come onto the scene and try his hand at solving the mystery of the alien life cycle is just so satisfying. It explains the life cycle to new viewers while also giving experienced fans a look at somebody else's perspective on it. And it's interesting watching him wrestle with the existential dread imposed by these creatures, on top of it being fun to watch him literally wrestle with them as well. It's the perfect killing machine versus the perfect human specimen. The art by Bernie Wrightson is fittingly moody for an alien adventure, which makes sense considering that it's the same Bernie Wrightson who co created Swamp Thing. The colors are both bold and dark, capturing shadow and emphasizing the gory details. When it comes to the horror elements, Batman's design also leans heavily on his gothic elements.
03:42
With the super long ears and billowing cape, he's not too far from looking like one of the creatures they're fighting. Actually. Wrightson also captures action really well and forces you to experience how impossible the odds would feel against these creatures in close quarters. The aliens were incredibly realized, highly detailed, heavily shadowed, and truly massive. There were so many times where my stomach clenched because I felt like Batman was in genuine danger. His face showed it too. Bruce Legit looks scared so many times in this, and I really appreciated that detail. A huge part of being in an alien adventure is to look fear in the face and figure out how to overcome it.
04:21
But despite all this, Batman is still a hero who can battle these creatures with a shark toothed sword over top of a lava pit and shout out to really fun onomatopoeia. In this book, Thresh is just a genius way to describe the sound of an alien inner jaw firing off. Without spoiling anything, the plot is extremely simple. Batman goes into the Amazonian jungle. I think it's Amazonian jungle. It meets up with a black ops mercenary squad and stumbles onto an alien ship where he finds. You know, I'm gonna let you guess the rest of that, and I will leave it at that because I believe, truly believe you should discover the rest of this for yourself. It's just a blast.
05:11
Batman is honestly an amazing protagonist for crossovers in the sci fi horror because at the end of the day, he's just a highly competent human. He's honestly not too far off from Ripley or McCready or Dutch. Any situation that will put them through the wringer would most likely do the same for Batman. If you're a fan of either franchise or even the sci fi horror genre in general, you'll most likely be a fan of this as well. Batman Aliens stands alongside Batman vs Predator as two perfectly executed crossovers with the Dark Knight. Now, if you want to hear more from me or see more of my contents, you can follow me @vj grubs on Instagram.
05:57
I believe my Twitter is vicj795, though that's a little, you know, Twitter is a little more dead nowadays, but I am much more active on Instagram and that's where you can find mostly photography right now. But if there were to be new announcements and new projects coming up soon, which, you know, keep it, let's keep it vague, let's keep the intrigue going. Just come in, come to Instagram and check out and see if there are some new things coming up. So again, that's VJ Grubs, Grubbs, and thanks for hanging out with me during this. So happy reading.
06:43
Do you find yourself playing older games and wishing that there were new discussions about those games? Enter Tales from the Backlog hi, I'm Dave Jackson, and on each episode I'm joined by a guest to break down those games that may be stuck in your ever expanding backlog. Each episode looks at one game in depth, focusing on mechanics, story, music, and other aspects with no spoilers until a clearly marked spoiler wall in the middle. If you've played the game, go ahead and climb that spoiler wall and enjoy in depth story discussions. And if not, jump out when we warn you and maybe go play that game for yourself. We have over 100 episodes in the feed, everything from Disco Elysium to Tunic to discussion episodes about how to get into horror games.
07:27
And if games actually need to be fun, or if they have more to offer, I guarantee that there's something in there for everybody. Once again, that's Tales from the Backlog, available wherever your podcasts are found.
07:41
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