Aliens: Earth War was a continuation of the events from Aliens (series 1) (1988) and Aliens (series 2) (1989), originally featuring the continuing adventures of the characters Newt and Dwayne Hicks from the film Aliens, and also reintroducing Alien-film-franchise heroine Lt. Ellen Ripley.
For later printings, after the release of the film Alien³, the story was retitled Aliens: The Female War, and the names/identities of the lead characters were changed to Billie and Wilks, since Newt and Hicks were killed off at the start of the film, and the Ellen Ripley who appears in the story is said to be a synthetic version of Ripley, who was killed off at the film’s end. As such, the story, as Aliens: The Female War, the story still stands as part of Aliens comics/novel continuity; and Billie, Wilks, and the Ellen Ripley synthetic have all become completely separate characters.
EHT Comics 