Resident Alien

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Welcome to small town of Patience, Washington, USA, Earth, Sol system, Orion Arm

A comic from Dark Horse Comics, by Peter Hogan (writer) and Steve Parkhouse (artist).

The story of a Flying Saucer pilot stranded on a certain Insignificant Little Blue Planet when trying to retrieve remnants of an observer drone. He did, but the mission grew some complications. Now he needs to hide until his people send a rescue mission and find him. There are also spooks investigating "the Icarus incident" and certain traces the pilot left while doing his best to survive. And common local people with their own problems. Hilarity Ensues.


Tropes used in Resident Alien include:
  • Amateur Sleuth: After replacing the murdered doctor, decided to investigate. Then there was "Suicide Blonde". After which the sheriff advised him to stop before he successfully finds some criminal who will just shoot him.
  • Captain Obvious: Asta in a strange black garb with tassels rides a black horse in decorated harness after a spotted white horse with painted head and also decorated harness, led by her father (also dressed to the occasion, even with some feathers on his head), through a sparse autumn forest with purple grass.

Asta: We're dreaming, right?
Asta's father: You got a real knack for stating the obvious, princess.

  • Dream Sequence: "Harry"/"Icarus"/"Hah-Re" was sleeping while injured and on morphine, and dreamed about a mix of landscapes near Prudence and his home planet, with himself wearing his space suit in a rowboat.
  • Dream Weaver: Dan Twelvetrees, Asta's father. When she notified him about the weirdness, he took her on a dream world trip to "check on her doctor pal".
  • Foreshadowing: In "Suicide Blonde" when Mike interviewed Amanda, her little daughter stared at "Harry" and later claimed he "looked funny". In "Sam Hain" arc, he treats her minor injury and she asks a strange question. Then she takes crayons and draws him… as he really is.
  • The Greys: A downplayed version. "Icarus" has typical "Sectoid" looks, but is purple-ish in color and not a midget by human standards, just below average height. Also, has three long fingers plus a thumb. The same traits don't prevent his fiance (seen in flashbacks) from being a good-looking young lady by human standards.
    • Space Elf: Borderline. "Harry" is a cool and fairly benevolent dude, whose overconfidence may be his worst enemy (especially when getting caught on camera is a risk), even though he's cautious and smart enough to avoid the worst pitfalls. Also, his Dream Sequence shows a very nice overgrown landscape. Amusingly, his confidence and poker face made him a very good small town doctor.
  • Healing Factor: He recovered from a wound quickly. It's not clear whether this was a natural trait, augmentation, emergency medical supplies or Psychic Powers.
  • The Hermit: "Harry", while capable of passing for a human, quite sensibly decided that it would be prudent to settle in Old Haskins cabin near the lake as "Dr. Harry Vanderspeigle", because not many Americans know exactly how Dutch accent sounds. And deal with humans mainly via internet, for good measure. Which worked for two years, then the only doctor in a nearby town was murdered, and the locals found themselves in need of basic forensics and a replacement doctor.
  • Living Lie Detector: "Harry" notices when someone lies, though not via Psychic Powers. It's just that he is very observant, and quickly learned to read human body language — and most humans are expressive enough.
  • Magical Native American: Asta is a rare human partially resistant to alien telepathic illusions. Then again, her father is a shaman (but he's also a mechanic).
  • Psychic Powers: Psychic camouflage and Telekinesis.
    • Glamour Failure: "Icarus" was told the estimate of one human per million immune to his powers. And he's smart enough to not taunt the law of large numbers. Then he randomly encountered one and half in a small town. Also, since it's purely mental, cameras are not fooled — his equipment allows to disable security CCTV if he needs to enter a place when it's expected, but there are other cameras around.
    • Nurse Asta doesn't see straight through the illusion, but sees his face as a blur, and even then only half the time. So she went to check her vision (which turns out to be perfect)… then she went to chat with her father (who does see through it enough to recognize how "Harry" looks like).

Asta: I had an eye test, and it's definitely not me. It's him. Dad, nobody's face is a &*%$ing blur. Nobody human, anyway.

    • Later it turned out Amanda's little daughter fully sees him as he is (and worse, draws).

Honey: Mommy, that man looked funny.

  • Sherlock Scan: Those big eyes are not just for cool look.
  • Visible Invisibility: The illusions are not visible for the reader, which increases amusement value — we see everyone acting as if one of The Greys perfectly mixed in the crowd (see the image). Also builds some suspense, because if someone is resistant, the difference is also all in their heads.