UFO: Hope

UFO: Hope is the first volume of the UFO series, consisting of twenty-six issues. It revolves around the battles and struggles of an organisation of surviving humans who have taken up refuge in the remains of Los Angeles, California, where they fight against bandits and mutated humans and animals, known as "Transgenants", in their efforts to reclaim more territory and establish communications with rumoured groups of survivors in Mexico and Texas.

Issue 1: A New Hope
The issue initially begins by showing what appears to be people in a movie theatre watching a film about an alien invasion, which ends with humanity achieving victory over the invaders. It is then revealed to the audience that all the people in the cinema are dead, with a type of fungus growing on their bodies as the novel explains the events of the Twilight and Nightfall. The story then cuts to Malcolm McLean, a survivor in Long Beach, California, as he scavenges for supplies around his devastated and abandoned hometown while wearing a gas mask. He briefly has a encounter with "Dangleflies", mutated flies that have grown gigantic and become covered in spores, but manages to defeat the pack with his pistol and continues his search.

Frustrated and lonely with no-one other than his pregnant cat, Frankie, for company, Malcolm briefly considers suicide when he searches a school and sees a classroom containing the bodies of many dead children. However, when he hears a cry for help from outside the building, his morale is renewed and he rushes off to assist. The call turns out to be from another man, who is being attacked by the "Morelmen", the corpses of humans reanimated by the spores who still possess enough autonomy to wield firearms and weapons, named after the cancerous growths on their backs that resemble morels. While the man is badly injured and falls unconscious, Malcolm is able to scare off the Morelmen by activating a local car alarm, taking the man back with him to his home, where he has survived by growing corn in his basement.

Waking up after being bandaged by Malcolm, the man introduces himself as Brian Fleck and tells him that he was sent out to get supplies by a group of survivors. Malcolm initially does not believe that there are any other survivors, but Brian tells him that this group exists and that they have reclaimed a part of Los Angeles. Malcolm and Brian venture back out to recover Brian's radio, which he dropped when he was attacked, and call for pick-up. During their trip outside, Malcolm finds that he no longer needs his gas mask, as the spores have seemingly decomposed and been absorbed by the soil. After reaching the area they first met in, they are cornered by a "Taxicrab", a gigantic crab-like beast that has fused with a car and uses it as a shell to protect itself while also firing beams of light through the car's headlights. Malcolm and Brian fight back against the creature, finally managing to down it after Brian throws a Molotov cocktail into its mouth. After this, they radio for extraction, and a armoured truck arrives outside Malcolm's home. After transporting Malcolm's supplies and resources into the truck, as well as Frankie, they begin driving towards Los Angeles. As Brian explains that there is "essentially a whole city" there, Malcolm is shocked and amazed when he see what appears to be a relatively untouched part of Los Angeles where the survivors have taken up refuge, and his morale is boosted as he vows to protect the city.

Character Debuts

 * Malcolm McLean
 * Brian Fleck
 * Frankie

Transgenants

 * Dangleflies
 * Morelmen
 * Taxicrab

Trivia

 * A Colt M1911A1 Pistol first appears as Malcolm's main weapon.
 * A Colt Diamondback Revolver first appears as Brian's main weapon.
 * A SPAS-12 Shotgun first appears in the extraction truck.

Issue 2: Humans Together Strong
The issue starts as the extraction truck enters the Los Angeles, where Malcolm is taken to the leader of the survivors, President Leon Vault, a former US Army lieutenant who has taken the responsibility of the leader of the "Los Angeles Union of Survivors", a group of hundreds of survivors who have reclaimed a quarter of Los Angeles and intend to retake the rest of the city from the Transgenants. Malcolm is requested to join Phoenix Group, the organisation's spearhead combat unit, and he accepts the offer in exchange for a residence within the base. He is assigned a apartment on the twelfth floor of a skyscraper being used as a housing facility for soldiers, where he moves his salvaged furniture and technology from his old home, as well as Frankie, and finds that by coincidence Brian lives in the apartment just below his.

The next day, Malcolm and Brian are called into action when Phoenix Group is assigned to acquire a rumoured cache of military hardware from a secret military base in Santa Monica. Arming themselves with the civilian and police-grade firearms they possess, Phoenix Group is dropped off by helicopter outside the base and begin their investigation. Brian and the squad's medic, Peter Scholz, locate the base, finding it patrolled by Carcrabs, a lesser variant of the Taxicrab. This thus motivates them to breach the sewage systems and attempt to find a alternate opening into the base, engaging with Cudgels, bloated and deformed human-based mutants that behave more akin to traditional zombies than the more intelligent Morelmen. While the other members of Phoenix Group hold the line, Peter begins attempting to unlock a safe that he believes contains supplies, and briefly becomes distracted by examining a Cudgel's corpse, allowing a Carcrab, a smaller and more numerous variant of the Taxicrab, to attack him. While the rest of the squad seem willing to abandon him, Malcolm viciously fights his way through the Transgenants and saves Peter, berating his squadmates for their lack of attachment.

As the pick-up helicopter arrives,

Character Debuts

 * President Leon Vault
 * Phoenix Group
 * Peter Scholz
 * Susan Spencer
 * Jackie Connery
 * Vladimir Spirin
 * Zinatul Lugin
 * Megan "Hero" Okembo
 * Richard "Valhallen" McCready
 * Cecile de Chalonge
 * Willum Canmore
 * Jiang Chan Leung

Transgenants

 * Carcrab
 * Cudgel

Trivia

 * Starting from this issue until the third volume, a Pump-Action SPAS-12 Shotgun is now used as Malcolm's main weapon, with his original Colt M1911A1 Pistol now delegated to his secondary weapon.
 * Starting from this issue until the twenty-fourth issue of the second volume, an IMI Uzi SMG is now used as Brian's main weapon, with his original Colt Diamondback Revolver now delegated to his secondary weapon.
 * A CZ Scorpion SMG and FN Browning Pistol first appear as Peter's main weapon and secondary weapon respectively.
 * A Remington 500 Sniper Rifle first appears as Susan's main weapon.