Michael Heisler

Predator: Life and Death isn’t exactly reinventing the wheel, here. (A group of trigger-happy, battle-hardened military types touching down on a far-off planet, totally unprepared for the alien predators they’ll find lurking there? You’d be forgive if you feel like you’ve seen this movie once or twice or six times.) But I’m encouraged by the total competence with which this creative team checks all the boxes of a good Predator adventure. And with three issues left in this arc–and with sixteen parts left in Dark Horse’s new Xenoverse story cycle–there’s plenty of time left to stop checking boxes and do something outside the box.

Even with good solo character moments and a beautifully gritty color palette, Barb Wire seems to rely too much on presumed reader nostalgia to carry it as a story. Instead of re-presenting or re-crafting her world, it functions on half formed ideas and doesn’t try to explain any of them. Maybe if you’re a fan of hers from the 90s, the book will make a ton of sense, but for the rest of us, it’s not worth the trip to Steel Harbor.