That's right, the extraterrestrial species that was originally conceived as a hurdy-gurdy fuckball of phalli and vulvae juxtaposed every which way Mr. Potato Head style was once considered prime material for a children's show. Ghostbusters, Aliens was not.

Tulane University
NOW BACK TO THE ADVENTURES OF THORAX DICK AND HIS SIDEKICK, A BUTT.

Let's not forget that this was a unique era in kids' programming when it was perfectly normal to transform the mental anguish of a PTSD-afflicted Vietnam vet into a Saturday morning cartoon about a one-man G.I. Joe squad who don't own any shirts.

Frank's He-Man Page
"Haha, Rambo jumped the shark himself! Fuck you, Mr. Future Blogger Man!"

Operation: Aliens never made it past rudimentary development stages, but the show received a slew of tie-in merchandise, including an extensive 1992 action figure line that came packaged with fantastically shoddy comic books.

AVP Galaxy
"BLORG BLAH BLAH?" "FLOORG FLARGH FAAART."

And from these comics -- which, let's be real, were written for the express purpose of selling toys -- we can glean a rough outline of what Operation: Aliens would've looked like. Here are four scenes that made AvP look like, uh, SvX. (That stands for Schroedinger Vs. Xenophon.)

One smug bastard who got off wearing his yiff suit into battle aside, all of these characters appeared in the movies. And -- 25-YEAR-OLD SPOILER ALERT -- most of them died a gruesome death by the end of Aliens, and 100 percent of the action figure line kicked the bucket when the embattled Alien 3 stopped rolling.

Even more bizarrely, these comics go out of their way to feature the space marines wistfully recalling their adventures on the moon of Acheron, aka the setting of Aliens, aka the place where nearly everybody died.

AVP Galaxy
"What happened was I died in cryosleep! That shit was hilarious."

Later in the comic, the space marines rescue their sergeant from a xenomorph hive. They wax nostalgic about their time on Acheron and Sarge's speedy recovery.

AVP Galaxy

Here's what happened to Sarge at the end of Aliens.

Hint: Those arrows are pointing to individual molecules.

Nothing galvanizes your troops like the ability to reconstitute your own corpse after a nuclear explosion. The only feat of leadership more inspiring would be commanding Sun Tzu to give Dwight Eisenhower a handjob while Lee Iacocca watches.

Indeed, the xenomorphs in the Operation: Aliens comics were so unthreatening they might as well have had marmalade for blood. The space marines tore right through them like honeydews with exoskeletons. Take this scene, in which the space marines square off against an Alien queen. To conserve ammo, the heroes park a winged terrarium on her.

AVP Galaxy
"You guys wanted 1,000 bullets to kill 1,000 Aliens, but I bought a spaceship to momentarily inconvenience one."

The artwork in the follow-up scene is no great shakes, but I love how the illustrator captures the Alien queen's incredulity at being killed by maybe the fiscally irresponsible boondoggle in the history of extraterrestrial murder.

AVP Galaxy
"CURSES, BESTED BY CYLINDERS AGAIN!"

Side note: The 1990s Aliens toy line included almost no "normal" Aliens. You could buy a bunch of weird half-animal hybrids -- like mantis, crab, and rhino Aliens -- but very few straight-up "alien" Aliens.

Xenopedia
Aliens 6: We Banged A Zoo.

It was not unlike a Dark Knight Rises action figure line that only offered cowboy-themed versions of the characters, such as "Sarsaparilla Force Batman" and "Alfred Wearing a Big Hat."

I really like the implication that the Predators -- a proud warrior race that values stealth and cunning -- were led by a flamboyant strawberry ogre in high heels who taught his sideburns how to box. He's absurd, but nowhere as absurd as ...