Cowboys and Aliens

May 16, 2011
Rather than a comics adaptation of the much-hyped summer movie, this is a reprint of the 2006 graphic novel from which the filmmakers took a catchy title and a powerful theme: what if space aliens treated all humans the way Europeans treated the Native Americans who were living in the land they coveted? H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds used the same basic concept back in 1898, but Cowboys drives the point home effectively by beginning with an interstellar warship crashing in 1873 just as an Apache war party is attacking a wagon train of settlers. The glowering aliens have already enslaved other races, but they see Earthlings as too inferior to bother with, a mere nuisance to be exterminated as soon as they can summon the rest of their fleet. To thwart the invaders, humans must learn to fight together. Rosenberg's high-concept idea is developed adequately by Foley and Van Lente's script and Calero and Lima's art, but this is essentially just another piece of movie-promotion merchandise.