Spoilers for Aliens: Aftermath ahead!
The Weyland-Yutani corporation's greatest crime did not involve Xenomorphs, as revealed in Aliens: Aftermath. The special one-shot revisits 1986’s Aliens, ignoring subsequent entries in the franchise, instead telling a new story set roughly 40 years after the events of that film.
In the Alien universe, the Xenomorphs are the main bad guys, but the Weyland-Yutani Corporation is just as evil. It was Weyland-Yutani who sent the Nostromo to LV-426, in hopes of finding the Xenomorphs in order to study and exploit them. Likewise, in Aliens, the company built a colony, named Hadley’s Hope on LV-426, knowing what was there, and essentially condemning the colonists to death. The Weyland-Yutani Corporation has committed numerous other sins throughout the franchise’s history, but now, in Aliens: Aftermath, written by Benjamin Percy, with art by Dave Wachter, colors by Chris Sotomayor, and letters by Ariana Maher, readers learn that Weyland-Yutani engages in murder—in the name of the bottom line.
One of the central characters is C. Vasquez, nephew of Jennette Vasquez from Aliens. Readers also learn he has a huge grudge against Weyland-Yutani. As a child, he was traveling to a distant world with his mother and father, all of them in cryogenic sleep on Weyland-Yutani ships. He recounts that during a budget crisis, the company decided to “downsize”—by turning off the cryogenic machines, which killed most of the crew, except for Vasquez. He goes on to recount that the company claimed it was a “technical error,” but he does not buy it, and readers learn it happened on four other ships as well. This, on top of his aunt’s mysterious fate, has caused Vasquez’s hatred for Weyland-Yutani to grow, and now he plans revenge.
While the Xenomorphs are the upfront bad guys in the Alien movies, Weyland-Yutani hangs in the background, a large, mysterious, monolithic entity that inspires terror just as much as the Xenomorphs. The movies and tie-in media have made it clear this company will do whatever it takes to maintain their bottom line—even if it means sending crews into dangerous situations or just flat out murdering them. What is truly terrifying about Weyland-Yutani is that they continue to exist without much consequence, they answer to no one. The Xenomorphs can be killed, and that is the end; yet Weyland-Yutani escapes punishment every single time, and somehow seems to bounce back even bigger than before. The revelation they pulled the plug on four ships worth of people should not come as a surprise, and yet it still manages to horrify.
The Weyland-Yutani corporation has committed many heinous crimes since the first Alien film, some involving Xenomorphs. Yet, Aliens: Aftermath reveals a new level of depravity—all in the name of profit.