That marvelous Xenomorph, an extraterrestrial monster that, in its first appearance back in 1979, in the cult movie Alien, amazed horror and science fiction fans. That was the beginning of a magnificent franchise that would spawn quite a few types and variations of that movie monster.
Now we will deal with exactly that, the numerous Xenomorph variants which appear through many sequels, prequels, and spin-offs of the popular franchise.
Actually, there are many different kinds of Xenomorphs in the Alien universe, and they all look very different from the original Alien monster. So, in this text, we will explain each and every version of the Xenomorph, including some really obscure and extreme hybrids from comic books that you most likely haven’t heard of before. Since we know more about the most well-known movie adaptations, we will concentrate on explaining them. However, we will also detail some interesting but less well-known variations in alien lore.
So let’s start with an overview of Xeno (Xenomorph) species.
Ovomorph
In 1979’s Alien, the ovomorph is the first extraterrestrial species we see. It’s a whole new organism with a fully formed facehugger inside, and it’s commonly called an alien egg.
Eggs can withstand high temperatures and a wide range of physical abuse without breaking. As their goal is to store a facehugger until they come across intelligent life, they are designed to do just that. Aliens queens are the ones who lay the eggs that hatch into facehuggers.
However, it is still a mystery where the eggs from the downed spaceship came from. The Alien Covenant egg sacs are also noteworthy because they, like ovomorphs, are the first stage in the development of an extraterrestrial life form. Egg sacs seem to have developed as a result of a mutation in the plant. David’s pathogen causes a plant to release tiny pores in the host organism, that develop inside a host into the neomorph.
The Facehugger
The facehugger is an extraterrestrial parasitoid that develops from an egg. Because of their speed and agility, the facehuggers are able to attach themselves to a host’s head and impregnate them with an alien embryo that will develop into a chestburster and then into a Xenomorph.
The royal facehugger from Alien 3 is a specific variant of that creature. It possesses the ability to lay an embryo of an alien queen inside a host, and it is one of the variations of that creature. The Octo-Facehugger is a Xeno organism derived from Prometheus. In an earlier draft of the script, this organism was written to cause Charlie Holloway to impregnate with the beluga Xenomorph, which will be discussed in just a few moments. This idea was shot down, and David decided to infect Holloway with the black goo instead. This led to a series of mutations that culminated in the creation of the Deacon. According to the original scripts, the Octo-Facehuggers were a prehistorical form of the Xenomorphism hugger that had been engineered into a biological weapon.
The Chestburster
The chestburster is not a unique species, but rather an infantile member of the Xeno family that bursts through the chest of its host after developing inside it. Within a matter of hours following the host’s grisly demise, a chestbuster will have matured into an adult Xenomorph.
The Xenomorph
The Xenomorph, also known as XX121, made its debut in 1979’s Alien and has since become a cinematic classic. The only things that matter to this predator are the survival of its own species and the annihilation of anything else it comes into contact with. Xenomorphs, like bees, are social hive creatures with distinct castes that rely on an alien queen to produce offspring. These creatures are vicious and lethal due to their acid blood, inner jaws, and bladed tails. The original Xenomorph is sometimes called a drone, soldier, or warrior, and its skull has a slightly different shape in several films, suggesting the creature’s maturation. XX121 is a human-spawned Xenomorph.
But in alien lore, Xenomorphs spawned from a wide range of hosts, inheriting bits of DNA that eventually gave rise to a few distinct Xeno types.
Versions of Xenomorphs from comics and video games
Some of the largest and most bizarre Xenomorphs evolved from animal hosts, such as the bull aliens, the gorilla aliens, the rhino aliens, the mantis aliens, and the crocodile aliens.
The Runner, also known as the Dog or the Scout, is a Xenomorph that evolved from a four-legged being and can be seen in the Alien 3 movie. Animal runners are more agile, and faster, and have the ability to spit acid from their mouths than the original Xenomorphs, despite being smaller in size.
Another 1979 Xeno offspring of an Engineer is the Jockey-Xenomorph. Because the pilot’s fossilized suit was ripped open from the inside, it is unknown what kind of creature emerged from this space pilot. However, in a different setting depicted in a comic book and a video game, the Jockey was born from an Engineer host. But, since the release of Prometheus, this version is no longer canon.
The Crusher is a powerful stage-six Xenomorph in the game Colonial Marines, known for its massive head crest and devastating attacks.
The Praetorian is the last of the Xeno stages and is also known as the Royal Guard. Their primary duty is to defend the hive and the queen, and their imposing crests make them look like a queen.
The Rogue, also known as the King Alien, is a domesticated Xenomorph/human hybrid designed to serve as a substitute for an alien queen under human control. On the other hand, the Rogue turned out to be extremely hostile to the original Xenomorphs, destroying the hive and fighting a Xeno queen.
Another variant
A malfunctioning artificial intelligence (AI) combined human, Xenomorph, and Yautja (species from Predator) DNA to create the white hybrid, a fictional Xeno species from the comics.
White hybrids are extremely intelligent beings, with the ability to understand and use language, tools, and weapons.
The Wraith is an unidentified Xeno that was discovered in a ship built by engineers. We also have one type which is called a Swimming aliens. As their name suggests, Swimming aliens are Xenomorphs that prefer aquatic environments, much like the Subterranean Xenomorphs who are capable of digging underground tunnels.
Another variant often seen in AVP, movies, comics, and video games is the Predalien, a cross between a Yautja and a Xenomorph. This creature, which is spawned from a predator, possesses characteristics of both species, including acid, blood, dreadlocks, and mandibles. Predaliens are physically stronger than Xenomorphs and Yautja. They engage in trophy hunting and are significantly taller than the other two species.
The Berserker aliens are particularly dangerous Xenos because it was created from a super Predator and therefore possess superhuman levels of strength, agility, and durability.
There are several unique variants of aliens throughout the various video games, including the Matriarch and Ancient Alien Queen, the Alien Dragon from the Aliens Extermination arcade game, and the Giant Xenomorph from the Aliens: Armageddon arcade game.
The King is a particularly massive, hardy, and hostile variety of the Xeno species. The King’s true function and origin are mysteries, but at first glance, it appears to be a combat-ready version of a Xeno queen with two extra-bladed tails on each side.
Aliens from Prometheus and Covenant
Let’s take a look at the Xenomorphs from Prometheus and Alien Covenant before we move on to the non-canon ones and alien queens of various types.
The Hammerpede was caused by the infection of an extraterrestrial host on LV 223. It’s an alien organism created when LV-223’s native worms are exposed to Chemical A0-3959X.91-15.
The Beluga Xenomorph, also known as the Holloway Alien, was meant to be born from Dr. Holloway after being impregnated by Octo-Facehuggers in the Engineer temple. Due to its similarities to the events in Alien (1979), this idea was cut from the script.
The octopus-like Trilobite is a creature that was the result of Holloway transferring a pathogen to Elizabeth Shaw during intercourse, which led to the growth of a trilobite embryo in Elizabeth’s womb. The Trilobite reached adult size in less than a day, an incredible rate of growth. According to what we know so far, its main function was to implant a Deacon embryo into a host.
The Trilobite impregnated the Engineer, creating a dark blue Xeno-like creature called the Deacon. Although we know very little about it, we can infer from a mural in the LV-223 temple that Engineers once worshiped Deacons, or perhaps a less brutal and more intelligent version of them. The Engineer was meant to be the one that gave birth to the Jockey Xeno known as the Ultramorph, but instead, it was the Deacon. This being is incredibly tall and has some characteristics with the Engineers’ bio-suits.
Likely, this Ultramorph was meant to lay eggs on the crashed ship, which would be the Juggernaut spaceship from Alien (1979), thus completing the full circle of the Alien story.
However, the Ultramorph wasn’t included in Prometheus because the filmmakers ultimately decided to take a different path.
Covenant aliens
Alien Covenant, the sequel to Prometheus, introduces viewers to two additional Xeno species found on Planet 4, which is considered to be the planet of Engineers.
A host infected with spores from an egg sac gives birth to a Neomorph, a Xeno-like creature. Seeds from plants on Planet 4 carried Xenomorph DNA because they had been exposed to the pathogen. Therefore, similar to facehuggers, spores are genetically programmed to use the resources of the living host in order to spawn into the Neomorph. The resulting Neomorph has some unique characteristics due to the pathogen’s interaction with the flora on Planet 4. These include a cone-shaped head, pale gray skin, and non-acidic blood.
The Praetomorph was a version of the Xeno that David developed through his experimenting with the Black Goo, organisms from Planet 4, and maybe Shaw’s body parts.
According to the novelization of Alien Covenant, David tried to recreate the Xeno egg he found preserved in a fossilized form on Planet 4. David used the infection harboring Xeno DNA, and the resulting Praetomorph eggs gave rise to a creature with striking similarities to the Xenomorph. Praetomorphs, on the other hand, aren’t mechanically advanced like the original Xeno was, and theorists suggest David’s going to have to use himself as a host in order to perfect creation and give the resulting Xeno those mechanical features.
The Alien Queen
The Alien Queen is the following type of Xenomorph. She is the mother of all Xenomorphs in a hive. Queen aliens are much bigger than others of its kind, with a gigantic skull, additional limbs, and extra spine spikes.
The primary function of the queen is to produce Xenomorph eggs. However, they are also capable of fighting if necessary. Furthermore, queens can control the behavior of Xenomorphs in their hive from great distances, though the exact means of communication between them is unknown.
Additionally, the Queen Mother, the most powerful figure in the Xeno hierarchy, appears in a number of comic books. She is a powerful alien’s Queen who rules over all other queens.
There is another type of Queen, known as the Red Queen Mother, who led the uprising of Red Xenomorphs to depose the Queen Mother. Mutated from ordinary Xenomorphs, the red ones rebelled against their Mother Queen and turned on the original black ones, sparking the Red Xenomorph uprising.
Ripley 8
The eighth successful clone of Ellen Ripley, named Ripley 8, was created in a laboratory by using a blood sample. In the Alien Resurrection movie, the scientists were utilizing Ellen Ripley’s blood in an attempt to revive the alien’s queen embryo she was carrying before dying. Cloning Ellen Ripley resulted in the creation of a Xenomorph human hybrid named Ripley 8, as scientists were unable to separate the DNA of Ripley and the queen.
In this sense, Ripley 8 is a Xenomorph, and she exhibits many creature qualities seen in the film, including superhuman strength and speed, acidic blood, and the capacity to communicate with other Xenomorphs. By cloning Ellen Ripley, scientists were able to create a queen. Ripley 8 had a xeno queen embryo, like the original Ellen, and it was taken and utilized to create Xenomorphs for military experimentation.
The cloned queen has successfully given birth to a Xenomorph. Like Ripley 8, the cloned queen picked up some human DNA throughout the cloning process in addition to the creature’s genome.
Therefore, she evolved a second reproductive system and gave birth to a baby Xeno the traditional way, without the usual succession of Ovomorphs and Facehuggers. Compared to other Xenomorphs, the infant looks very different. The infant was bipedal, had white skin, and superhuman strength because of the enormous amount of Ripley DNA in its genome. In addition, the creature didn’t see the cloned queen as its real mother, but rather Ripley 8.
Non-canon Xenomorphs varieties
Finally, we’ll describe the unusual non-canon Xenomorphs varieties that show up in crossovers between different franchises.
Numerous comic books and video games, most of which are regarded as non-canon, feature a queen with huge wings called the Flying Queen.
A crossover between Batman and Alien resulted in the Killer Croc Xenomorph. Xeno monster from Witchblade, and the Tarkatan from the Mortal Combat video game. And the WildC.A.Ts Comics crossover alien, known as the Fire-Eater for its ability to breathe and spit fire.
The Three-Headed from Operation Alien is a Xenomorph of unknown origin, with three separate heads and distinctive coloring. Finally, we will briefly mention various Xenomorphs from the 1990 arcade game including the Star-Faced; the Defender; the Chrysalis; the Armored Xenomorph; a Predelian Hybrid; the Egg-Shaped; the Electric; the Infectoid; the Razor Claws; the Smasher; the Arachnid; the Walled; and the Long-Neck Alien.
That wraps up every known species of Xenomorph in the Alien universe. We did our best to incorporate every possible variation; if we missed any, please let us know in the comments, on FB and Twitter.