Aliens (Dark Horse Comics line)

Aliens
Cover of Aliens Book One: Outbreak
Publication information
Publisher	Dark Horse Comics
Format	Comic book limited series and one-shots
Publication date	1988
Main character(s)	Rebecca "Newt" Jorden Corporal Dwayne Hicks Ellen Ripley Weyland-Yutani

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. Other stories are completely unique to the Alien universe, and are often used to explore other aspects of the species, such as their sociology and biology. The comics are generally considered non-canonical to the main Alien film series.

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 flexebility for the writers and artists. Dark Horse has published any original graphic novels on the concept.

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 haiatus.

Dark Horse has produced a number of Aliens comic books and collected volumes:

Aliens line:

Aliens Omnibus collection series:

There have been other comic crossovers published by Dark Horse which are not part of the line as well as a few Alien comics not by Dark Horse.