Aliens Minimates Return to the Nostromo

The third wave of Aliens Minimates revisits Ridley Scott’s sci-fi horror classic.

The Aliens Minimates collection from Diamond Select has wisely chosen to keep their focus on the first two films in the series, and with the release of the latest wave of Alien-themed two-packs, we’ve received pretty close to every major character and variant from this movie.

Previously, Alien has been relegated to deluxe four-packs, which built out most of the crew of the Nostromo (even Jonesy the asshole cat), as well as a few variants of the Big Chap Alien who menaced them.  The new wave of Minimates finishes off the crew with Ash– the sinister android doctor– as well as a few new Ripley variants, Dallas and Lambert in their awesome Pressure Suits, and a new Xenomorph suffering from the cold of deep space after it had been jettisoned out the airlock.

The most exciting figures in this lineup are Ash and the Pressure Suit crew, as they appeared on the surface of LV-426 in the movie.  The suits feature all new sculpts for their removable helmets as well as overlays on the chest, forearms, and shins, which not only translate the film’s aesthetic nicely into Minimates form, but add a welcome bulk to these figures.

Ash is a little more basic, but his painted face features a very good Minimates-style caricature of actor Ian Holm, and the short-packed variant– featuring a “battle damaged” Ash after he meets the business end of a fire extinguisher courtesy of Parker– is a perfectly milky/ nasty alternate version of the character.  The only disappointment with these variants, for me, was that the frozen Alien in both packs is identical.  I get the need to include an Alien variant in this lineup, but I wish we had seen two variants of Kane in his Pressure Suit (both with, and without a Face Hugger attached to him) along with the two Ash figures.  That would have enhanced the value of the variant set, while also fully rounding out the roster we need to complete the Alien Minimates collection.

Our final set features Ripley in her underwear, from the finale of the film.  It’s an iconic enough scene that this variant feels justified, especially because the blocky Minimates aesthetic prevents the figure from feeling too perv-y.  Ripley is packed with the white Pressure Suit she wears during her final confrontation with the Xenomorph, and it features a really cool concept.  The figure features two heads– one of Ripley, with a removable helmet, and the other a clear head grafted to a helmet.  This means you can feature this figure as either Ripley from the finale, or the empty suit she later puts on for said finale.

The latest Aliens Minimates are another great set of figures that feature enough cool designs and clever extras to feel like must-own items for any serious Alien fan.  It does seem weird that Diamond Select has sort of painted themselves into the corner, with only Kane in Pressure Suit left to really make the collection feel complete, but it’s hard to argue with a set of Minimates this fun and cool.

Look for the third wave of Aliens Minimates at your local comic book or specialty store now.