The original FantaCo Alien Encounters was a 36-page 1981 one-shot black-and-white comic containing short, self-contained stories by Steve Bissette, Steve Stiles, Fred Hembeck, Mike Zeck and Howard Cruse, among others.

They decided to replace Alien Worlds with a new title that would feature a wider range of creators,[2] and purchased the rights to the Alien Encounters title from FantaCo, with Ken Steacy designing the new series' logo.

[3] Eclipse's version was a similarly sized bimonthly ongoing series edited by Cat Yronwode, and would run for 14 issues from June 1985 to August 1987; it was effectively replaced by a short-lived irregular revival of Alien Worlds.

[4][5] Creators who worked on the Eclipse series included Bissette, Cruse, Jones,[6] Zeck, Ray Bradbury, John Bolton,[2] Joe Chiodo,[2] Richard Corben,[7] Chuck Dixon, Gardner F. Fox[7],Rick Geary, Peter Ledger, David Lloyd, David Mazzucchelli, Gray Morrow, Ray Nelson, Timothy Truman[7] and Thomas Yeates.

[8] Reviewing the fourth issue for Amazing Heroes, R.A. Jones was largely unimpressed by the lack of originality shown by the contents.