Like a lot of people, I made the trek to my local cinema to take in Predator: Badlands this weekend, and was completely blown away by Dan Trachtenberg’s latest foray into the world of the Yautja. As the credits rolled, as excited as I was by what I saw, I was also a little bummed out because of how much I enjoyed Dek as a character, and wanted something, anything more with his character. While a video game would be my preferred movie tie-in for Badlands, a prequel comic overseen by Trachtenberg, with a script by Ethan Sacks and art by Elvin Ching, will have to do instead.
Taking place before the events of the film, Predator: Badlands finds Dek on another mission for his father to prove his worth. Tasked with finding the power core of an ancient ship, Dek and his brother Kwei set off to take on the mysteries of the Moon of Pelkonen IV and the defenses of the ship that crash landed there. The crew is long dead, but the onboard intelligence has kept watch for thousands of years, keeping a promise it made to one of the young members of the crew. As Dek makes his way into the interior of the ship, the onboard defenses use everything they can against the young Yautja, which leads to some awesome moments as Dek has to fight off hordes of alien bugs and the eventual AI itself, in a fancy Yautja inspired shell. It all leads to a finale the you can see coming a mile away (especially if you saw the movie), but is still a solid adventure with Dek.
Ethan Sacks’ script is primarily focused on getting the story moving from action set piece to action set piece, and it does a fantastic job in that regard. However, there is very little in the way of character motivations or unseen revelations that weren’t in the movie here. Also, the stakes are extremely low, since there’s no way Dek is in any real danger since we know the big movie takes place after this. While Dan Trachtenberg introduces the comic, this feels very much like something that he (and Marvel) saw Fede Alvarez do last year with the Alien: Romulus prequel comic and went “hey, let’s do that too!”, and provided a simple story for Sacks to build off of.
Yet despite the zero stakes and minor characterizations in Badlands the comic, I still really liked it! It has a cool Indiana Jones feel to the story, much like how the movie felt like a Conan The Barbarian movie that just happened to star a Yautja. The end reveal with the security system and the crew can be seen a mile away, but it’s still effectively done and is just different enough from the movie to make it not feel like a retread. If anything, the story is over a little TOO quickly, as the 30-page one-shot wraps up very efficiently, but abruptly. That being said, if this gets Marvel to do a Dek series, I’ll be there day one.
Marvel
Elvin Ching’s art does a good job of matching Dek’s look from the movie, which I imagine must be a gigantic pain to draw. While Oren Junior’s heavy inks tend to make the art look a lot thicker than you’d initially expect, the sense of fluidity and power that Dek and his enemy have here is depicted very well. In fact, there are moments in this one-shot that felt like they showcased moves that Dek did in the movie, but that also may be because the movie is so fresh in my brain. There also aren’t nearly as many cool alien creatures as in the Badlands film, but Ching’s still able to present us with a pretty cool design for the security system’s final boss form when it begins a last ditch attempt against Dek.
Overall, there’s nothing groundbreaking or “must read” about Predator: Badlands, but if you are low-key obsessed with the movie like I am at the moment, it’s a great book to pick up. While the comic warns you that the story takes place before the events of the movie, there’s nothing here that would ruin anything if you read this first, and it might even enhance the movie if you do switch the order, as you’ll get a little more of a well-rounded narrative arc with Badlands (the movie). As someone who was craving more adventures with my new best friend Dek so badly that I ran to the soundtrack the other day, Predator: Badlands #1 was that new adventure that almost completely scratched the itch.
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