A lot has gone on in the Alien universe besides what's appeared on screen. For decades now Dark Horse have been publishing comics which are, presumably, considered canon. Which is pretty easy to get away with when you're not involving any of the human characters from the movies, meaning there's nothing that can be contradicted with future films. It's that expansion of an existing universe that has the new Star Wars chucking out all the ancillary tie-ins that came after the movies, telling the further adventures of Skywalkers and Solos. That shouldn't be necessary when putting together a new Alien film, but it'd be nice if the comics got a shout-out. Especially given the most recent crossover, Fire And Stone, attempted to bring together the back story provided by Prometheus with the later Alien films, and the fact that the Predator movies also exist in the same universe. It also managed to tell a decent story amongst all those narrative gymnastics. Will any of that matter, though?
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
