Summary
- The Predators have a horrifying secret - they actually visit Earth to abduct huge groups of people for their hunting reserves, keeping them in stasis for decades.
- The revelation of the Predators' mass abductions makes them more clinical and cruel, adding a less honorable element to their society.
- The twist opens up potential for the franchise's future, allowing for ancient enemies and characters from different time periods to return and bring new dynamics to the story.
While the Predator franchise has had a great few years - with 2022's Prey beginning a thrilling new saga - 2023 took things to the next level with a reveal that makes the Yautja incredibly disturbing. Intergalactic game hunters whose entire culture is structured around the hunt, the Predators have visited Earth many times in order to find worthy prey. Now, it turns out fans misunderstood the scale of their interest in Earth.
Marvel's recent Predator volume 2 (from Ed Brisson and Netho Diaz) has continued to follow the adventures of Theta - a woman who travels the universe killing Predators in revenge for their murder of her parents. However, this volume changes things up by taking place on a world which appears to be the game reserve planet from 2010's Predators. Awakening on this deadly planet, a group of human captives make a disturbing discovery - they're each from significantly different time periods.
Part of Marvel's 20th Century Studios line, the movie-canon Predator series has expanded the franchise's lore in various ways, but 2023 saw it spill the Predators' biggest secret - they actually visit Earth to kidnap large groups of suitable prey. These people are then kept in stasis - sometimes for decades - until eventually being selected for a hunt. The twist reveals what the Predators were doing on Earth in the first two movies, exposing their small-scale hunts as a footnote to a larger system of predation. Earth isn't just a planet where individual Predators sometimes hunt - it's a world from which they abduct huge numbers of people to fill their game reserves.
Predator Stasis Farms Make Them Way More Terrifying
The Yautja Don't Just Hunt Humans - They Store Them for Decades
While fans had long believed that the Yautja in 1987's Predator and 1990's Predator 2 simply came to Earth for some worthy sport, it turns out that the species is far more ambitious. While the Predators are still fully focused on hunting and killing humans, the nature of their mass abductions makes the aliens far more disturbing. In previous canon, the Predators seemed relatively honorable, but their mass abduction of people who pose no immediate threat makes them seem far more clinical and cruel - especially once it's revealed that countless humans are being stored in vast Stasis Farms.
In Predator volume 2, it's revealed that in the year 2062, a stock of humans taken in 1987 are still being kept in Stasis Farms. This means characters don't just experience being hunted on an alien world, but also have to come to with the fact that even if they survive, life on Earth has ed them by. One subplot follows the disturbing implications of being kept in stasis for decades, as two parents desperately try to figure out what year it is after being taken away from their four-year-old daughter. That's a lot darker than Dutch simply fighting for his life in the original Predator.
2023 Made Predators Scary Again
The Yautja's Secret Abductions Are Nightmare Fuel
For all the danger they pose, Predators have rarely been horrifying, especially compared to the body horror of their rivals from the Alien franchise. However, the idea that Yautja aren't just visiting Earth - but rather abduct a new batch of prey every few years - shows a level of callous control that makes them far more disturbing. It's one thing for trained killers to fight 1-on-1 for survival against the occasional Predator, but quite another for Earth to effectively be one big larder that the Yautja won't stop raiding.
As well as making the Yautja a more ambitious threat, this twist also opens up some major potential for the franchise moving forward. While no truly ancient fighters have been shown in stasis yet, the Predators seem to thaw out groups who will bring different tactics to the table, so it makes sense they'd still have ancient enemies in storage. This could allow some characters from the distant past - perhaps even Prey's Naru - to return in present-day stories. 2024 will bring fans a new chapter in the Predator: The Last Hunt miniseries, following Theta as she attempts to free the victims of the Yautja's Stasis Farms. Hopefully, that chapter continues to redefine the Predator franchise as Marvel managed to do in 2023.
Predator: The Last Hunt #1 is coming February 21, 2024, from Marvel Comics.
