Predator Officially Debuts Its 'NIGHTMARE HUNTER' Super-Yautja with An Epic Bloodbath

Summary Brace yourselves - Nightmare Hunter is the deadliest Predator yet, leaving even veteran heroes like Theta stunned in fear.

Those who thought they could challenge Nightmare Hunter paid the ultimate price in a brutal and bloody showdown.

Despite a faint glimmer of hope, the grim reality is that Nightmare Hunter will likely emerge unfazed, ready to claim more victims.

Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Predator: The Last Hunt #3! Predator has just welcomed another Super-Yautja to the franchise with the viciously deadly Nightmare Hunter, and the series’ most recent installment makes it clear that this Predator lives up to their namesake. Super-Yautja are - as their moniker implies - bigger, stronger, and overall deadlier than the regular hunters, so it’s no surprise that the protagonists of the latest Predator comic have their hands full with one. But even though it should be expected, actually seeing Predator's Nightmare Hunter in action is still truly shocking.

In a preview for Predator: The Last Hunt #3 by Ed Brisson and Francesco Manna, readers witness the graphically bloody slaughter of a team of humans who thought they could challenge the Nightmare Hunter. As fans can plainly see, they were wrong.

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To be fair, these people didn’t seek out to fight perhaps the deadliest Predator in the franchise. These would-be-warriors were survivors of Predator abduction, who were previously kept in stasis (to be used as prey for controlled hunts on hunting preserve planets) before there was a malfunction that led to their premature awakening. The mission that ended in this grisly slaughter began as a rescue mission to free the other people kept in stasis. They didn’t know they were walking right into a trap, and that the only thing waiting for them at the Yautja facility was the Nightmare Hunter.

These brave survivors thought they could handle the Nightmare Hunter after learning they had walked into a trap set by the Predators. Unfortunately, most were dead before they even realized how wrong they were.

Nightmare Hunter Even Terrifies Predator’s Greatest Yautja-Killer: Theta

Theta and her partner, Paolo (who both have their own Predator armor), come to this Predator hunting preserve planet while on their ongoing mission to find the Yautja homeworld and eradicate the species. In the first issue of Predator: The Last Hunt, they come across the survivors who had awakened from their stasis two years prior. With Theta and Paolo’s help, the survivors decided it was time to go to the main stasis facility to free all the others held there, only for most to meet their grisly end as shown in this preview.

What was perhaps more striking than the slaughter of these survivors itself was Theta’s reaction to it. Theta has killed more Predators than any other hero in the franchise, yet even she dared not make a move against the Nightmare Hunter. Theta was stunned, and Paolo could only scream at the survivors to retreat, as they knew trying to fight Nightmare Hunter would only end in their own deaths. Despite killing dozens of Predators, Theta was terrified of this one, which truthfully says more about how deadly Nightmare Hunter is than the gruesome display of unadulterated carnage this preview offered.

Predator: The Last Hunt Preview Ends on a Hopeful Note, But It Will Be For Naught

After Nightmare Hunter gruesomely kills a great number of the survivors, one of the group’s leaders shoots the Super-Predator in the head at point-blank range. The preview ends after Nightmare Hunter gets shot, which gives readers a faint beacon of hope going into the full issue. However, that will assuredly be for naught, as Nightmare Hunter will more than likely be totally unfazed by the attack, and will murder this human warrior as brutally as the rest before turning their attention to Theta and Paolo - which could very well end with their deaths as well.

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While Nightmare Hunter made their official first appearance in the previous Predator: The Last Hunt issue, this preview is effectively the character’s real debut, as it shows how terrifyingly deadly the Super-Yautja is with an absolutely epic bloodbath - one that made even the franchise’s premier Predator-killer, Theta, stop in her tracks.

Predator: The Last Hunt #3 by 20th Century Studios is available April 24, 2024.