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Publisher: Dark Horse
Writer(s): Marc Andreyko & David Lapham
Artist(s): Guilherme Balbi & Gabriel Guzman
Cover: Paul Lee

**Minor Spoilers**

“Welcome to the Jungle pt 2”: Last week we met Drake and his highly trained and deadly military team who lasted all of a few days on a planet where they were stalked by a Predator (or Predators, we don’t know the exact number at this point).  However, Drake ran into a man (Noland who is played by Laurence Fishburne) who has been surviving on this planet for quite some time by himself.  Noland is also dressed in Predator garb, which gives Drake reason to assume that he was the man responsible for his team’s deaths, so he attacks him.

Finally, after cooler heads prevail, Noland leads Drake back to his sanctuary, and while he discloses some info about his own past, Drake is very pissed that his entire team is dead and figures that if he and his new “friend” work together they can take out their captors.  Noland quickly puts the idea down and informs Drake that it’s suicide to try and he’s not having any part in it.  Well, that’s not good enough for Drake, so he liberates a weapon and leaves with a few other supplies; but while on his trek across the jungle, he is caught in rain storm.  While seeking shelter, he runs into a “native” on the planet…

Part two of this story has a bit more meat on it than the first, making for a longer and much better read than the first issue.  The time taken to flesh out the characters is a welcomed move, and Andreyko pretty much has me liking Noland and thinking that Drake is an idiot, or just too blinded by revenge, that he’s not thinking straight.  Balbi’s work is pretty consistent with what we saw in Predators #1, though sometimes there were issues with the faces being shadowed too heavily, making them look a bit odd in some panels.

In the back up story A Predatory Life pt 2, the mercenary Royce has located his target, but among them is a familiar face Royce recognizes from his past.  This does kind of change his perception of the guys he thought were helping guard the village, but he still has a mission to accomplish, so he sets out to do what he does best.

For only having six pages to work with, David Lapham packs quite a bit in the story here, and I’m eager to see what Royce has planned next.  Though most of the story is told through Royce’s inner dialogue, fleshing out the character here is a good idea, because I don’t think there will be a lot of time for back story in the movie, so this helps us get to know the character even if only a little bit.  I’m glad Lapham even chose to shed light on the botched mission Royce was involved in that was mentioned last issue.  Guzman’s visuals are as good as they were before and help make this one of the better back up features in any book.

With a story like this I’m glad that you really can’t tell exactly how it’s going to end, and both writers deserve credit for that.  Marc Andreyko’s main feature really picks up here, because regardless of how many Predators you have killing soldiers, it’s the human factor that helps to move the story, and without that the killing gets old real quick.  Doing what it’s supposed to, Predators is entertaining and still piques interest about the upcoming movie; and whereas the main feature shows us actual Predators, I’m beginning to think that the “Predator” in Lapham’s back up story is Royce.  But even if one doesn’t show up at all I’m pretty excited to see what happens next week!

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