Head 2 Head: Jason vs. Xenomorphs

Head 2 Head is an ongoing Editorial feature that takes classic horror film icons and pits them up against enemies based solely on caffeine fueled childlike glee, fandom, and pure uncompromising speculation.  The goal here is to play around and have some fun with characters that we all know and love, then make them fight one another.  So for the newest installment of Head 2 Head, I present to you one of the most ridiculous mash ups I could think of: Jason vs the Xenomorphs.

Location:   Jason spends most of his time in the woods hunting down Camp Counselors and other nubile teens who are really asking to get their guts carved out.  On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, The Xenomorphs are an alien race with a home planet somewhere that has rarely been discussed in the entire Alien saga.  We have however seen aliens in poorly dark and dank ancient temples, dark and dank space ships, and dark and dank prison planets.  Naturally given each the only equalizing factor in their overlapping locations, they are going to be squaring off in space.  In a space ship of sorts, not like… they vacuum that is space, which would be stupid without lasers and rocket packs.

Enemy Strengths:   The Xenomorphs have a long and storied history of being stone cold bad asses.  After all, they are extremely fast, have some kind of head that pokes out of their mouth and stabs things, and show amazing strength.  Add that to the fact that they bleed acid and you have a creature that is a true dynamo of violence.  Most of the time, the idea of defecating yourself in the presence of just one of these creatures is a pretty normal response, but for the most part that isn’t nearly terrifying enough since they appear to travel and devour in packs leaving the subject to be attacked by multiple creatures at once.  Did I mention that they bleed acid?  It’s like a final f**k you to whatever killed them.

Enemy Weaknesses: The only real weakness that I can think of it that they die.  Seriously though, they don’t have a whole lot of weaknesses to speak of.  They can navigate, plan, and attack in low light environments, they have no remorse whatsoever, and there are always a lot of them.  So… weaknesses… well… they have a really tough and acid resistant shell?  Well, that isn’t really a weakness so much as yet another strength.  They can die from bullets and explosions, but unfortunately for Jason, he will have no such weapons.

Arsenal: It would be completely unfair to give Jason a wide array of violence dealers such as rocket launchers, guns, and other high explosives and pit him against humans.  Then again when you put him against a whole brigade of Xenomorphs, it might actually constitute a fair fight.  For the sake of our argument though that isn’t very fun now is it?  Jason will only be outfitted with his signature machete, and his amazing ability to pop up out of nowhere and kill things with efficiency.

Strengths: Jason has the distinct trait that is he can’t die.  Yeah sure, maybe he’ll be out of commission for a while at the bottom of a lake or buried in a shallow grave, but you just can’t keep this guy down for long.  This has been evident in the case file of Jason X when decades into the future, some moron kids bring him back on to a space ship to study.  Regardless of his immortality, Jason also has the ability to take a whole lot of punishment without any major damage.  It seems that the only way to really neutralize him is to completely destroy him like a fat kid takes out a piñata.

Weaknesses: Even though Jason is superhuman, he is still made out of human parts even if this sack of meat can take a real beating (heh).  Jason apparently doesn’t feel pain so multiple bites and attacks from some aliens will most likely not have much of an impact against Jason other than maybe stunning him for a moment or two.  Jason is strong, but his slowness and inability to regenerate his body parts could be the trait that loses him the battle.

Outcome: In our fictional scenario, Jason is on a spaceship with a group of aliens which for all accounts favor’s Jason’s fighting style.  There will be dead ends to get trapped in, but given Jason’s previous tendency to pick his battles and execute most of his killings in relative obscurity, he will be able to take on as many Xenomorphs at a time as he likes.  Yes, the aliens can climb through vents and amongst the ceiling, but with the smallest amount of planning, he will be able pick his battles efficiently.  Some of you make argue that Jason isn’t exactly the most efficient battle strategist, being that most of his style involved the technique of “stab it until it dies”, but what you have to realize is that he goes through most of the running time of the Friday the 13^th films he kills without any one even realizing that he is there.  If he has the capacity for stealthy assassinations, then why wouldn’t he be able to create a battle environment that is to his benefit?

Jason is big burly and practically invincible, so when he does engage the aliens in combat, it’s a rather messy affair.  The machete combined with Jason’s strength make it very possible to him to slice through the aliens like a boner through a banana (still reading? Just checking).  The acid splash back however will cause a bit of a problem considering that no matter how tough he is, it will wear down his body and possibly his weapons.  However we have seen Jason beat some girl to death while she was in a sleeping bag, so I’m confident of his improvisational skills.

In this very specific fighting scenario, Jason reigns supreme in the combat aspect, however the acid splash back melts his body down to almost nothing.  It appears that the hardest hitting guy in horror, who can’t in fact die, actually dies after the battle is technically over.  But don’t you worry kids I’m sure he’ll turn into some kind of demon worm thing and find another body to inhabit soon enough.