The best character in Aliens is getting her very own book. No, not Ripley. No, not the Queen Alien, though that would be cool. We’re talking of course about Private First Class Jenette Vasquez, 2nd Battalion Bravo Team in the United States Colonial Marine Corps.
Played by Jenette Goldstein in the legendary 1986 James Cameron sequel, Vasquez was as cool and confident as they came. A true badass made even more awesome by the fact she wielded the massive M56 Smartgun, just a stunning piece of on-screen weaponry. And while Vasquez did her best against the xenomorphs on LV-426, ultimately, she perished. But now, a new book will tell us all about what happened to her before that fateful mission.
Entertainment Weekly broke the news that Titan Books will release Aliens: Vasquez by V. Castro on October 25. The book will tell Vasquez’s backstory as well as what happened to her children, who she was forced to leave behind for military duty. (Some of that has been covered in Aliens comics before, though it’s unclear if those stories will line up with these).
Here’s how the EW piece describes part of the story: “Even before the doomed mission to Hadley’s Hope on LV-426, Jenette Vasquez had to fight to survive. Born to an immigrant family with a long military tradition, she looked up to the stars, but life pulled her back down to Earth — first into a street gang, then prison. The Colonial Marines proved to be Vasquez’s way out — a way that forced her to give up her twin children.”
So we’ll get Vasquez’s story, probably a retelling and expansion of her time we see in the movie, and then follow her children as they live up to their mother’s legacy which, of course, will end up having them show down with the species that Mum met all those years ago.
All of this just sounds rad. I can’t wait. And here’s the equally excellent cover.
Aliens: Vasquez is out October 25.