Aliens is a line of several comic books set in the fictional universe of the Alien films published by Dark Horse Comics from 1988 forward. The stories often feature the company Weyland-Yutani and the United States Colonial Marines. Originally intended as a sequel to James Cameron's 1986 film Aliens, the first mini-series features the characters of Rebecca "Newt" Jorden and Corporal Dwayne Hicks. Later series also included the further adventures of Ellen Ripley, with other stories being unique to the Alien universe and are often used to explore other aspects of the species, such as their sociology and biology, and also tying into Dark Horse Comics' Predator and Aliens vs. Predator lines. Concept The heads of Dark Horse Comics made a decision early on to not publish ongoing or unlimited titles from the license and compose the line as a series of limited series, one-shots and short stories with a main focus on limited series because they believed that it would allow more creative freedom and flexibility for the writers and artists. Dark Horse hasn't published any original graphic novels on the concept. History The first three stories formed a continuation of the two Alien films that had been released by the time they were published. However, 1992 saw the release of Alien 3, which contradicted the events of the comics by beginning with the deaths of Newt and Corporal Hicks. In order to keep the stories relevant to the main Alien film series, Dark Horse changed the names of the characters for future printings of the stories. Newt became Billie while Hicks was now known as Wilks. The only other major difference between the original publications is that as well as being renamed the trade paperbacks were also recolored. Between 1999 and 2008 the line was on hiatus. In 2020, the comic rights to the Aliens franchise were sold to Marvel Comics, ending the Dark Horse Comics line. As well as producing their own original comics, Marvel have the right to reprint at least some of the previous Dark Horse stories, and as of 2022 several have been republished in new collections and/or as digital comics. Publications Dark Horse has produced a number of Aliens comic books and collected volumes: Initial works Aliens 1–6 (by Mark Verheiden and Mark A. Nelson, 1989) Aliens 1–4 (AKA Aliens Book 2 & Nightmare Asylum, by Mark Verheiden, Denis Beauvais and Mark A.