1990: ALIEN NATION: THE SPARTANS LIMITED COLLECTOR'S EDITION (ADVENTURE COMICS)

From 1990: The premium ALIEN NATION: THE SPARTANS LIMITED COLLECTOR'S EDITION, published by Adventure Comics.

As posted previously, Adventure snapped up the rights to the about-to-be-cancelled Ken Johnson TV series (based on the earlier film) in 1990 and published a run of black & white mini-series which dug deeper into the (near) future Earth established on the screen. This creative route seemed to be governed by a limited licence which - with one exception - didn't allow them to use the characters from the film or TV versions.

The Spartans was the first four-parter to go into print and the launch was marked by this premium edition version with alternative cover art and foil logo. Those were the days...

Follow the ALIEN NATION link below for more...

1992: ALIEN NATION TENCTONESE LANGUAGE GUIDE

From 1992 (or thereabouts): a fan created guide to the Tenctonese language, as published by Britain's ALIEN NATION APPRECIATION SOCIETY.

File under: labour of love.

This took the basis of the spoken and written language introduced in the feature film but refined and expanded for the Fox weekly series incarnation, and tried to make sense of it. 

To the show's credit, it really did sound like it was an authentic language... but I'm still not sure I would be inclined to try and make sense of it.

This was a black & white A5 publication with colour cover. The society was run by Pete Chambers who was, latterly, rewarded for his attempts to keep the show alive (after the fledgling FBC shifted their early schedules - which only amounted to a few hours per week - from expensive one-hour dramas to cheaper to make sitcoms) with a guest spot (as an alien, of course) in one of the five TV movies which reunited the cast (and production team) a good half-decade after the show was canned. 

I was a member of the group for years but - stupidly - didn't hang onto any of the regular A5 newsletters. 

1988: ALIEN NATION MOVIE ADAPTATION (DC Comics)

From 1988: the DC Comics adaptation of the ALIEN NATION movie.

Marvel were masters of stretching their movie adaptations over several issues (although they often issued them as done-in-one magazines or books as well) but DC preferred to recreate the viewing experience more faithfully by restricting their movie books to extended-length one-shots.

This ALIEN NATION tie-in was no exception.

Its a pretty standard, but still entertaining, riff on the familiar buddy-cop formula by making one of the bickering detectives an off-worlder and making the crime they investigate related to these "Newcomers". 

The movie, which boasts a great cast, presumably did OK business but not enough to tempt Fox into making it a franchise. 

Except the newly launched TV part of the business was looking for new shows that whilst superficially similar to normal telly fare, tweeked the formula sufficiently to give a twist on the tried and familiar. Alien Nation fitted the bill and blasted back as a weekly series, now overseen by Kenneth (" V") Johnson. 

The feature-length pilot, with a whole new cast, doubled as a follow-up to the first flick (Fox were clearly thinking that it could double as a straight-to-tape sequel overseas) but, after that, Johnson used TV's generous running time to flesh out the world of the near future and use the aliens for a bit of (occasionally on the nose) social commentary. 

The series fell victim, after only a season, to a change of policy at Fox which saw the new semi-network dump its expensive but soft rated one-hour dramas in favour of less risky sitcoms (inspired by the success of THE SIMPSONS and MARRIED: WITH CHILDREN).

The TV show inspired the Adventure Comics subsidery of Malibu to launch a seccession of mini-series set in the same world but, with one exception, no direct link to the show. I've posted those series in the past. 

Fox eventually revived the TV incarnation as a package of five TV movies.

The film, weekly series and movie package have all been released on DVD. 

1990: ALIEN NATION/ PLANET OF THE APES House Ad (Adventure Comics)

From 1990... an Adventure Comics House Ad for their two properties licensed from 20th Century Fox: the equally defunct screen franchises (although both subsequently saw revivals) ALIEN NATION and PLANET OF THE APES. 

1997: THE SECOND SFX GUIDE TO THE GALAXY

The second, and (sadly) final, SFX Magazine SFX EPISODE GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, given away free with a 1997 issue.

As before, the small paperback provided summaries and analysis of the the show's covered and comes highly recommended.  Because both editions had a relatively high circulation (they were free after all!) they do occasionally resurface in charity and secondhand book stores.  Well worth grabbing!

It's hard to believe now that the erratic LOIS AND CLARK (aka simply THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN on the BBC) would deserve such prominent billing as, despite the DVD releases, this SEAQUEST 'killer' (their first seasons were scheduled against each other... and Supes emerged triumphant) has faded from public consciousness and now only seems to be mentioned when discussing Terri Hatcher's 'other' work.  Personally, I liked the first season because it tried hard not to be a superhero show (and recognized the limitations of both the character and the genre on the small screen) in favor of MOONLIGHTING evoking romance.  Plus it had TV legend Tracy Scoggins amongst the supporting cast.  Once they tried to be a proper superpowered show... I lost interest.  

AMERICAN GOTHIC is a show I did (and still do) absolutely love and I highly recommend searching out a copy of the box set.  If you do, double-check the order that the episodes should be viewed in as, I think, the set follows the CBS transmission order which (as the ratings dropped) started to get out-of-sequence with the intended internal chronology of the show.  

ALIEN NATION, the show that would not die, is a nice (albeit, sometimes heavy-handed) police procedural with-a-twist based on the feature film.  It returned as a series of five TV movies and they're worth seeking out (as a DVD box set) as Producer Ken Johnson supplies an audio commentary for each and no-one in TV does commentaries as well as Johnson.  His commentary on the original 'V' mini-series is essential. 

SAPPHIRE AND STEEL, from ATV, is just the most amazing show ever.  It is the quintessential something-out-of-nothing production maxing out the limitations of the studio-bound format and small cast to create something really special...

1991: ALIEN NATION: PUBLIC ENEMY (Adventure Comics)

ALIEN NATION: PUBLIC ENEMY was the sixth (and final) limited series (including the colour APE NATION series), based on the film/ TV show combo, published by Adventure Comics.  It appeared between December 1991 and March 1992.

By that time, the show had been off the air for almost two years and, with no obvious sign of a revival (five TV movies, from Ken Johnson and the original creative team, did go into production several years later) Adventure (a subsidiary of Malibu) obviously felt interest and sales had dropped to a level where further excursions were deemed a non-starter.

1990: ALIEN NATION: A BREED APART (Adventure Comics)

Back to the early nineties and a cover gallery for ALIEN NATION: A BREED APART, the second four-parter from Adventure Comics spun-off from the film and TV franchise.  

1990: ALIEN NATION: THE SPARTANS (Adventure Comics)

Issue 1 without flap.

Issue 1 with flap

Issue 1 back cover

Issue 2

Issue 3

Issue 4

The complete cover gallery for Adventure Comic's ALIEN NATION: THE SPARTANS, the inaugural limited series to emerge out of their licensing deal with 20th Century Fox.  

The first issue came with the colour-paper "outer" seen above.  Low budget variants included blue paper and pink paper.  

The full Adventure Comics run, published between 1990 and 1992, consisted of:

THE SPARTANS (4 issues)

A BREED APART (4 issues)

THE SKIN TRADE (4 issues)

THE FIRSTCOMERS (4 issues)

PUBLIC ENEMY (4 issues)

THE LOST TV EPISODE (one-shot)

and the bonkers:

APE NATION (4 issues)

Only the latter was published in colour.

1990: ALIEN NATION: THE SPARTANS Limited Edition (Adventure Comics)

 

ALIEN NATION: THE SPARTANS was the first of the overlapping limited series, based on the film and TV show, published by Adventure Comics in the early 1990s.

To kick things off, they teamed with Diamond Distributors to published this limited edition version, limited to 5000 copies.  The logo is finished in foil.  

1991: ALIEN NATION: THE FIRSTCOMERS (Adventure Comics)

ALIEN NATION: THE FIRSTCOMERS was the next four-issue story arc published by Adventure Comics cover-dated May-August 1991.

Once again, the black & white series was based on the premise of the movie/ TV show but featured a storyline entirely unrelated to the characters featured in both screen incarnations.  

It was never collected into trade paperback form and has never been reprinted.  

1991: ALIEN NATION: THE SKIN TRADE (Adventure Comics)

ALIEN NATION: THE SKIN TRADE (cover-dated between March and June 1991) was the third of Adventure Comic's ALIEN NATION limited series, based on the 1988 movie and the 1989-90 TV series.

Published in black & white, it borrowed the premise (a ship of alien slaves crashes in the desert outside Los Angeles and, upon release, the 'Newcomers' must integrate into a society they find equally alien) from the screen incarnations but none of the characters, giving the creative teams free reign to explore new ideas without (necessarily) having to frame them in a police procedural plot device.  

The first four-parter was THE SPARTANS followed by A BREED APART (neither of which I have to hand to scan).

1992: ALIEN NATION TELEVISION SPECIAL (Malibu/ Adventure)

 

The ALIEN NATION TELEVISION SPECIAL was an Adventure Comics/ Malibu Comics black-and-white bookshelf-format (card covers!) one-shot from 1982 that adapted the unshot resolution to AN's solitary season on the small screen.

The episode, Soul Train, had been written to open the second TV years and wrap-up the numerous dangling plot lines and associated jeopardy from the season one wrap-up.  Unfortunately for Kenneth ("V") Johnson and the show's team, FOX decided to forsake one-hour drama shows in favour of comedy and factual and AN was dumped.

Years later, FOX revisited the would-be franchise with a series of five new TV movies which reunited the cast and behind-the-scenes creative team.  Elements from this script were worked into those movies.  

1991: APE NATION (adventure Comics)

The 1990s became a decade jam-packed with crossovers (the most notorious was surely the Punisher/ Archie combo which must have been concocted during a particularly heavy Crack Den sesh) as publishers looked for more and more outrageous ways of shifting mass quantities of copies.

This February 1991 effort from Adventure Comics was one of the first… but no less bonkers: The publisher already had a bunch of reasonably successful ALIEN NATION and PLANET OF THE APES mini-series so, as both screen properties were owned by the same studio, a crossover was relatively easy and too tempting to resist. Voila: APE NATION.

Of course, the fact that the two franchises exist is two obviously entirely different continuities was no hindrance to a "good" idea so in this four-parter, Adventure's first colour series, a Newcomer vessel arrives on the Ape-Earth of the distant future.  

I believe this was slated for a trade paperback collection at the time but I'm not sure whether it ever happened.  It's certainly not been reprinted since (something it has in common with all the other Adventure books from both franchises) which, despite its wonky premise, is a shame.