For decades, Alien’s Xenomorphs and Predator’s Yautja have been at war, a war that stretches back to the earliest known chapters of each species’ lore–and now, after so many surprise conflicts and ceremonial hunts, Alien vs Predator finally reveals which is the better killer.
While the first hints of a live-action Alien and Predator crossover came in the form of a brief cameo in Predator 2 (that being a Xenomorph skull in a Predator’s trophy room), the idea for the crossover actually predated this fan-service, and was around long before the official live-action film franchise. In fact, the first Alien vs Predator story came in the form of a comic, specifically Dark Horse Comics Presents #36, in January 1990–almost a full year before Predator 2 was released in November 1990. Since then, fans became obsessed with the shared lore of these two Sci-Fi juggernauts–and while they have always been presented as the perfect equals, one comic series gives fans a pretty clear-cut winner.
In Aliens vs Predator vs The Terminator #4 by Mark Schultz and Mel Rubi, Ripley8 (the Xenomorph-hybrid clone of Ripley) has joined forces with the Predators to take down Skynet before the Terminators merge with Xenomorphs and become the deadliest creatures in the galaxy. Ripley and the Predators track the Terminators to a secret laboratory that was established as a safe place off-world to experiment on Xenomorphs. The Terminators decided to make it their own testing facility and use the dormant Xenomorphs that were contained within the lab to create their sinister hybrids. When Ripley and the small army of Predators arrived, they realized that they were too late, and the Terminators already created their perfect killing machines. This means that the Predators had to kill them all, right here and now, or the universe would be doomed. Unfortunately, once the battle breaks out, the Predators start losing–pretty badly. The Terminator/Xenomorph-hybrids proved too much for the Predators as the team of professional hunters were getting decimated by Skynet’s forces. So, Ripley does the one thing she thought she’d never do, and she unleashes a horde of Xenomorphs. The Xenomorphs–who were previously kept dormant in the lab–swarmed the Terminator-hybrids, and quickly wiped out every last one of them.
Xenomorphs are Better Killers than Predators, & The Terminator Proves It
The number of Xenomorphs that attacked the Terminators were about the same as the number of Predators that were fighting in the battle. This direct side-by-side comparison seems to indicate that Xenomorphs are better killers, since they succeeded where the Predators so miserably failed–but that’s not all. The reason the Terminators were so hard for the Predators to kill wasn’t because of their robotics–as Predators have destroyed androids plenty of times in past AvP stories–but because of the ‘Xenomorph’ aspect of their new synthetic biology. Plus, the entire plot of this book revolved around the efforts of the most highly-advanced A.I. in the universe to unite with the strongest organism it could find–and that organism wasn’t a Predator, it was a Xenomorph.
This Alien vs Predator series lays out a number of reasons why the Xenomorphs are superior. From the fact that the Terminators chose them for their hybridization, to the cold, hard truth spelled out in the side-by-side comparison of the Xenomorphs decimating an enemy the Predators could barely touch. In doing so, Alien vs Predator fans are finally given as clear of an answer as they’re going to get in terms of which–between Alien’s Xenomorphs and Predator’s Yautja–are stronger, and the answer is decidedly the Xenomorph.