#614: Predator: Hell Come A-Walkin’
Dark Horse weaves a tale of hate and rage
Initial release: February-March 1998 (serialized, 2 issues)
Writer: Nancy Collins
Artist: Dean Ormston
I grew up on Alien and Predator. I was a big fan of the films (moreso Alien than Predator) and I had a lot of the games, a few of the Dark Horse comics, and most of the novelizations thereof. And maybe I’m just a crusty Millennial, but I think Dark Horse was a better steward of the Xenoverse (for lack of a better term) than Ridley Scott or Disney could hope to be. Last time I wrote in this space, I expressed my frustrations about how Prey, as good as it was, didn’t handle the story of the flintlock pistol from Predator 2 as good as it could have compared to an old Dark Horse story from 1996, and while I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing more period Predator pieces from Disney, I can’t say I trust them to get, say, the Civil War right. But that’s okay, for that we have Predator: Hell Come A-Walkin’.
Set in the midst of the American Civil War, Hell Come A-Walkin’ is a story about the kind of men who participated in it. The basic premise is obvious enough: a Yautja — what Dark Horse calls the Predator’s race — is drawn to the conflict, picking specifically one of the regions that saw the ugliest fighting, the Missouri/Arkansas border. The Ozarks are wild and untamed, a difficult battlefield and the ideal hunting ground for alien entities looking for sport. After their group is ambushed and slain by — so they assume — the Yankees, a trio of Rebel soldiers manage to stage an ambush in turn on some Union troops, who have become bogged down in the mud. But it soon becomes clear that something is hunting them both, and so they form an unlikely team-up to take down whatever is haunting the woods.
While on paper it’s just another “man vs monster” story, albeit one with a thin historical veneer, Nancy Collins manages to humanize these characters (some of them anyway) by revealing their backstories. So we see how an angry young Jesse, whose family is tortured by Union-sympathizing militia, joins up with the Confederacy for revenge; how Spartacus escapes from slavery and sees fighting for the Union as a way to liberate his people and most importantly his family; how the immigrant “Dutch” Brubaker is in it for the money but also for a purpose in life. There’s also an element of the supernatural, as stories are told about the Ozarks — demons, wendigos, and the like. And in case you’re wondering, the most racist character, Neb, doesn’t get a backstory; and, in fact, he gets rather unceremoniously slaughtered towards the end of the story, right in front of Spartacus to boot.
Hell Come A-Walkin’ may be short, but its themes are clear: it’s a story about hate and rage. Neb is a hateful old goat who makes his contempt for black people clear; Jesse is full of rage at what Union militias did to his family. Spartacus wants to end the evil of slavery by any means necessary, even though the Union was hesitant about handing him a gun at first. I wish there had been a little more room to let these characters grow, but alas, such is the nature of short-form comic book fiction, especially licensed stuff.
Dean Ormston does most of the art duties and it’s a solid look, with beautiful watercolors and a jagged, Mike Mignola-esque style. While I wouldn’t say the big double-page splash where Jesse symbolically impales the Yautja on the American flag is perfect it’s certainly evocative, contrasting the blues and greens of the forest with the browns of the characters in the forefront, and much of the rest of the comic makes nice use of this kind of contrast; he makes some decent use of light and shadow to really make certain scenes pop. I think if nothing else this story is worth it for the art.
While I think Dark Horse tended to focus more of their attention on the Alien line — see how many Alien comics got novelizations compared to Predator — I can’t say they haven’t done some really interesting stuff with Predator, especially when they were bold enough to try and make it a historical piece, as if to say that there’s something inhuman in every moment of human violence throughout history — from the evils of colonialism to the atrocities of war. In this framing, the Predator isn’t just some monster from outside the human context, drawn to conflict because that’s where the best hunting is, but a direct consequence of our hatred and rage.