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Story Title: “Concrete Jungle”
Published: June 1989 to March 1990
Writer: Mark Verheiden
Artist: Chris Warner and Ron Randall

The Background:
In 1980, Mike Richardson founded Dark Horse Comics, a comic publisher that separated itself from the heavy-hitters like DC Comics and Marvel Comics by focusing its efforts on creator-owned titles. Dark Horse Comics achieved greater mainstream success in 1988 by publishing licensed stories and adaptations of horror and science-fiction films and franchises, the most prominent of these was the merging of the Alien franchise (Various, 1977 to present) and the Predator films (Various, 1987 to present). However, concurrent to writer Chris Warner’s three-issue clash between those two, Dark Horse Comics also published this four-issue spin-off of the Predator franchise, specifically revolved around the hitherto-unknown brother of Major Alan “Dutch” Schaefer (Arnold Schwarzenegger), later retitled to “Concrete Jungle”. Perhaps bolstered by the crossover between Aliens and Predator, “Concrete Jungle” proved popular enough to spawn not only a slew of additional Predator spin-off comics and movie adaptations, but also crossovers with other comic book icons such as DC Comics’ superheroes and even lawman of the future Judge Joseph Dredd. While the Predator movies have often been met with mixed reviews, comic book adaptations continued to be published, with the alien hunters even crossing over into Marvel Comics after Disney purchased 20^th Century Fox.

The Review:
Much like Predator 2 (Hopkins, 1990) “Concrete Jungle” is set in an overpopulated and crime-ridden city during a stifling heatwave that drives its citizens to violence and even murder. In this case, we’re in New York City and following police detectives and long-term friends and partners Errol G. Rasche and John Schaefer, Dutch’s older brother who got them transferred from narcotics to homicide after tossing a cartel chief off a rooftop. While Rasche is convinced this is a conspiracy headed by their corrupt police captain, McComb, to have them offed by local gangs, Schaefer’s more concerned about the stars looking “different” than either their current situation or the escalating drug problem sweeping the city streets. This nicely segues to a tense meeting between two rival gangs, headed by Lamb and Carr; while Carr advocates for them joining forces to maximise their profits and fend off Columbian cartels, Lamb would much rather fight to the death and see who’s left to reap the rewards. Just as an all-out gunfight is about to break out, one of Lamb’s men is blasted from behind by the Predator’s plasma cannon; another is diced up when he sticks his head out the window and, assuming it’s an attack by the Columbians, both gangs open fire and blow a hole in the building wall. The fracas draws the attention of the cops but, when Rasche and Schaefer arrive, they’re barred from entering the building until Captain McComb arrives.

Just like the hot-headed Lieutenant Mike Harrigan (Danny Glover), Schaefer doesn’t really give a damn about McComb’s authority and he and Rasche head on in after one of the gang members is hurled from a window and crashes into a police car. Inside, they’re horrified to find the remains of the two gangs littering the floor and strung up, skinned, from the ceiling. Carr, who somehow survived the massacre, opens fire, blaming the cops for what happened, and manages to slip away right before Special Weapons and Tactics (S.W.A.T.) come crashing in, led by an incensed McComb. Pissed that Schaefer disobeyed a direct order, McComb continues the homage retread of Predator 2 by chewing the blonde-haired muscleman out for overstepping his boundaries. Later, Rasche and Schaefer investigate a wholesale slaughter in the subway, again covering the same ground as Predator 2 and seeing McComb reprimand them despite the fact that they’re literally just responding to calls rather than actively involving themselves in the investigation. This time, however, McComb’s orders are overruled by the appearance of General Homer Philips, Dutch’s former commanding officer from the first movie, who takes Rasche and Schaefer aside to warn them off out of loyalty to Dutch. While we’re never told what happened to Dutch or where he is, he clearly told General Philips enough about his big brother and the Predator for him to step in, for their own safety, assuring them that it’ll all be over in about two weeks if they don’t interfere. Realising that the gruesome murders are somehow connected to Dutch, Schaefer naturally ignores these warnings and breaks into Lamb’s apartment, now a crime scene, where he’s blindsided by the Predator. A fist fight breaks out, one naturally one-sided, that sees the Predator place a curious implant into Schaefer’s neck and him managing to steal the creature’s helmet after smashing it off with a piece of timber.

For his efforts, he’s left with a broken nose and sent plummeting to the street below; he’s saved from death only by grabbing on to and tangling himself up in washing lines conveniently hanging between buildings. Despite being left a bloody mess, his snark remains intact, but his doctor is unconvinced by the paper thin explanations the two give for the brute’s injuries. Stubbornly refusing to take the time to rest, Schaefer limps his way over to Rasche’s home where he suggests that the Predator tagged him to keep track of him for later and insists that they try to find General Philips so they can get some real answers. Their efforts are interrupted by a furious McComb, but when he threatens to have Schaefer brought up on charges, the hulk lashes out, smashing his telephone, ramming McComb against the wall, and threatening him with further violence if he doesn’t give up General Philips. However, McComb is too low on the totem pole to help; as far as he’s concerned, General Philips doesn’t exist, there is no investigation, and all of it is far above his paygrade. With no other leads to go on, Schaefer decides to fly out to South America, Dutch’s last known location, and look for answers himself despite the danger posed to him by the Columbians he’s pissed off. He finds himself a guide in a seedy bar in Riosucio and is led to first the overgrown remains of the guerrilla camp Dutch and his team ransacked in Predator and then the massive crater left over from the Predator’s (Kevin Peter Hall) self-destruct device. At night, Schaefer reminisces about his childhood with Dutch (the two of them used to hunt in the woods, not for sport or fun but to test their mettle against nature) and arms himself with a fully automatic shotgun when his neck implant alerts him to the Predator’s presence. Although he’s able to dodge the Predator’s plasma cannon and even land a shot on the creature’s shoulder, Schaefer’s caught off-guard by the Predator’s cloak; still, he’s able to stab it in the ribs before being manhandled. Schaefer’s as quick with his wit as he is with his thinking, though, and tosses salt in the Predator’s eyes before beating it with a log, successfully knocking it over a cliff edge and causing it to be impaled on a spike-like tree branch.

Schaefer’s less than surprised when it turns out that his guide was one of General Philips’ men, who’s distraught that Schaefer killed the creature and even suggests that Philips knew about the Predator when he sent Dutch into the jungle. As he forces Schaefer to face General Philips, chastising him for not understanding the implications of killing one of the alien hunters, they’re attacked by Columbian drug lords, who kill the guide and manage to knock Schaefer out. Although Schaefer’s able to fight his way out before he can be tortured, a whole gang of Predators strikes the drug camp, wiping out the Columbians with their plasma cannons and setting the base on fire. Thankfully, General Philips arrives to help get Schaefer out of there and back to New York, where Philips confirms that he’s known about the Predators all along and that they seem to be fixated on Schaefer and his brother. Meanwhile, Rasche messes about with the Predator’s helmet and, when he puts it on, figures out what’s been screwing with television receptions and the stars when he sees a whole fleet of cloaked Predator ships hovering throughout the city skyline! When he attempts to warn McComb, the police captain shoots him down and threatens him with jail for withholding evidence and he’s taken into custody by agents of the Inland Revenue Service acting on behalf of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). When he realises that the Feds mean to hand Schaefer over to the Predators, Rasche is able to take advantage of the accountants’ penchant for numbers to overpower them and load up at the station armoury. Showing little concern for the safety of New York, Schaefer knocks Philips out and forces his chopper to land so he can reconvene with Rasche but, realising that they’re outgunned and outmatched against the alien menace, Schaefer goes to Carr to recruit him and his gang.

Although he’s naturally suspicious of the cop, Carr is immediately attacked by a Predator; when Schaefer struggles to fend off the Predator, Rasche arrives and blows it away with a bazooka, convincing Carr to set aside their differences to combat the alien invasion. The Predator ships open fire, bombarding the city with devastating laser blasts but Schaefer and the others manage to escape to safety and get their forces together to make a final stand against the invaders. Schaefer draws first blood, using the Predator helmet to direct Carr in bringing down a Predator ship with a single rocket, somewhat undermining the threat of their advanced technology and looming ships. Their efforts catch the attention and anger of Captain McComb, who surrounds the immediate area and calls for their surrender but, just as McComb is about to gun Schaefer down in the street, a Predator ship decloaks and opens fire, resulting in McComb getting his face blasted off by a Predator’s plasma blast. Schaefer’s helmet is damaged after he goes off all gung-ho and Rasche is injured by a plasma shot before General Philips and the army turn up, only to reveal that the military is preparing to launch a massive air strike that will level the city and lay waste to both the populace and the “foreigners”. Schaefer targets fire hydrants to short out the Predator’s technology, revealing their ground forces and allowing him and his allies to take the fight to them, but the Predators quickly overpower even Schaefer. However, they burst into laughter when they see the incoming choppers amidst a dark, rainy sky. Schaefer finally pulls his neck implant out as the Predators leave, theorising that the weather has turned too cold, and the situation has escalated so far that there’s no sport to be found in New York anymore. Schaefer vows to see them again the next time it grows unseasonably hot and ignores General Philips’ scolding to get Rasche to safety, showing little consideration for the state of the city.

The Summary:
While the artwork of “Concrete Jungle” is pretty good, with Schaefer appearing as a good facsimile of Arnold Schwarzenegger and New York City mimicking the aesthetic of Predator 2, the writing and narrative leaves a lot to be desired. Although Dutch dropped a couple of situational one-liners, he wasn’t some cliché, snark-spouting machine; his older brother, however, has almost John McClane (Bruce Willis) levels of sarcasm and is never short of a wry remark no matter how desperate the situation is. This is fine for a one-dimensional action hero and helps to differentiate the elder Schaefer from his brother, but it doesn’t always land for me; it doesn’t help that he’s motivated not out of a desire to serve and protect but more to test his own limits. A proud man with little regard for authority, he sees New York as an unsalvageable cesspool and he simply rises to the challenge when the Predators arrive, sensing their presence even before he’s forcibly implanted with their relatively unexplained and ultimately pointless neck device. In many ways, Schaefer is a mixture of Dutch’s musclebound bravado and Harrigan’s weathered, roguish character; he bursts into crime scenes, shows up where he’s not wanted, and openly defies both his superior and the American military, just like Harrigan, while throwing his muscles around and being a driven man’s-man just like his younger brother. Unfortunately, these elements come together in a way that doesn’t really gel for me; “Concrete Jungle” has a really interesting premise that it just squanders in favour of recreating or referencing events from the first two Predator films.

I really like the idea of the hunters arriving on Earth en masse; the visual of characters wearing their helmets, being horrified at the sight of the fleet, and the Predator ships opening fire upon New York City and swarming the streets is a striking one and a natural escalation from the existing movies that only comics can provide since they’re unconstrained by budgets. But all the potential of these plot points isn’t realised until the final few pages of the last issue and, instead, the bulk of the story is spent on a rehash of the main plot elements of Predator 2. Like Los Angeles, New York is a grimy city in the middle of a gang war about drugs that involves a lot of violence, and, like Harrigan, Schaefer has no time for the red tape surrounding this and wants to bring both gangs down. The Predator not only slaughters both gangs much like in the opening moments of Predator 2 but even randomly attacks subway passengers, just like in that film; McComb’s anger at Schaefer is a combination of Special Agent Peter Keyes (Gary Busey) and Deputy Chief Phil Heinemann (Robert Davi), and the general visual and narrative thrust of the first two issues is geared very much towards recreating sequences of Predator 2, robbing “Concrete Jungle” of much of its identity. The story then finds a contrived reason to ship Schaefer over to South America for literally no other reason than to reference events from the first film; it turns out that he’s right and General Philips is there, but this could’ve just as easily taken place somewhere else, and Dutch’s actions could’ve been represented by pictures and dialogue rather than literally having Schaefer stand in that crater. I enjoyed the return of General Philips, a character I would’ve loved to see make a return in a hypothetical Predator 3 back in the nineties, and it was interesting learning that he was aware of the Predator before sending Dutch in, effectively turning him into a Keyes substitute.

I can’t say I actually enjoy this twist, though; the brief interaction between Dutch and Philips spoke to me as two old friends who have an immense amount of respect for each other, and nothing in Predator suggested that he (or anyone apart from Anna Gonsalves (Elpidia Carrillo)) was aware of the Predators. In fact, the prevailing understanding is that the world (or, at least, the government and military) only became aware of the Predators after that first film and I found it a bit disappointing and frustrating to find out that Philips was happy to sacrifice his best soldier and close friend to the alien hunters. Of the two protagonists, Rasche gets quite a bit of development; we see his home, learn and see a little from his family, and he’s much more concerned with the implications of their actions compared to Schaefer; it’s also through him that we learn anything about Schaefer for some time, as surface-level as it is, so I was glad that he didn’t die, especially as it seemed like he was going to. Then there’s the Predators; modelled after the ones seen in the first two movies with little deviations, they sport very little new weaponry or technology, and their threat has been significantly downplayed. Naturally, in a one-on-one fight, not even Schaefer can stand against one of them, but he is able to wound them, knock one of their helmets off, sense their presence even before he gets his neck implant, and is able to kill one much easier than either of the films’ two protagonists. Schaefer can dodge their plasma cannons pretty easily, regularly fights them off with melee weapons, and never has to worry about their wrist blades, combisticks, or other weapons as these either don’t get much play or are only used against disposable background characters. The ending was also extremely anti-climactic; with all of New York under siege and the human characters vastly overpowered, the battle/invasion/whatever just…ends because of a bit of rain and the suggestion that the Predators just wanted to goad humans into destroying each other. It’s a bit vague and very unfulfilling for an ending, with the only consolation being that it didn’t end the same way as the films (with a one-on-one fight against a Predator) but, in this case, maybe it should’ve as it seems like the Predators were just messing about and never intended to wipe out the city (and/or humanity) despite clearly being able to with their superior force (…as long as you ignore how easily Carr took down one of their ships…)

My Rating:

Pretty Good

Have you ever read the original, four-issue Predator story? If so, what did you think to it? Do you own a copy of the original comics or did you pick up the collected edition? Were you also disappointed by repetition of events from the first two movies? What did you think to John Schaefer, especially compared to his little brother, and the revelation that General Philips knew about the Predators? Were you disappointed that the story didn’t do more with the Predator invasion plot or did you enjoy the callbacks to the first two films? Which of Dark Horse’s Predator stories or adaptations was your favourite? Whatever your thoughts on Predator, and comic book adaptations of this kind, drop a comment down below or share your thoughts on my social media.