Alien Legion Omnibus Vol. 1

Written by Alan Zelenetz
Art by Frank Cirocco, Terry Austin, Terry Shoemaker, Carl Potts, Chris Warner,  Whilce Portacio, Larry Stroman, and Randy Emberlin

I checked out the Alien Legion last spring, when I read an old trade paperback I'd picked up for a very cheap price.  I liked what I read, and decided it was time to start tracking down the whole series.  Therefore, I was thankful to see that Dark Horse is collecting the book as part of its Omnibus series.

This is a very satisfying brick of a book, collecting the first eleven issues of the first Epic Comics series from the mid-80s.  These comics hold up very well, and are a good, solid read.  Reading them reminds me of how much more material there was in a comic back in the day.

The Legion is a low-cost, high-mortality group soldiers made up of a number of different species, helping to protect the Galarchy, a Federation-style confederation of many different worlds.  They have held a truce with their traditional enemies, the Harkilons (think female Dire Wraiths meet JarJar Binks) for years, but the Harkilons are starting to push into their territory again.

The comic is focused on the Legion's Nomad Squadron, a group of rough and tumble aliens, under the command of Captain Sarigar (a very cool-looking half-snake character) and Lieutenant Montroc, a human.  The characters are developed very slowly over the course of these eleven issues, as Zelenetz keeps sticking them into some pretty sticky situations.  It isn't until the last few issues, which make up the Slaughterworld arc, that we really start to get a handle on who everyone is.

The art in this comic is great.  Frank Cirocco draws slightly more than the first half of the book, and demonstrates a very cool approach to design.  His art varies quite a bit depending on who is inking him.  Later, Chris Warner takes over the book, and breathes a lot more characterization into the different aliens, some of whom are very strange looking.

I definitely liked this enough to want to get the second Omnibus.  I'm not sure if Dark Horse is intending to publish more of these, or if I'm going to have to start digging through back issue bins...