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I think we are getting off-topic here, but...

The real reason behind Hick's killing was budget constraints. Originally Sigourney Weaver couldn't make another Alien film because she had already sign to make another film, so the producers decided she will appear only briefly and the main characters would be Hicks and Bishop (as seen in Gibson's Aliens 3 script, now also a comic book). When Weaber told them she was again available (I don't know the reason), the producers said they couldn't bring all three characters back together.

According to a friend of mine, Hicks' actor got more money from his picture appearing for one second in Aliens 3 than for making the entire Aliens 2 film.

And yes, the Dark Horse comics tended to be better than the movies, be it Aliens, Predators, AvP or even the apparently ridiculous Aliens vs Predator vs The Terminator (which gave Ripley a real heroes' ending after Alien 4). Heck, even the AvP videogame had a better script than the film!

Your friend probably got the info from the extra material in one of the Alien-boxes where Biehn said that, apparently Fox hadn't planned to pay him anything but he was pretty pissed off that they planned to use his picture without payment.

The Dark Horse comic about Alien 3 would have made a really good movie and also give a deeper view of the world where the Alien-movies are based in. However, I don't know Fox would have handled it if you look on how they treated Alien 3....

Alien 3 is fine and Hicks/Newt dying in the opening fits with Ripley's over all story.

Ripley's story, at it's core, is about loss at the hands of the company in pursuit of their monster. She's not aloud to make any gains. Her ultimate victory comes when she denies WY of it's prize. Taking from them the only thing they care about after they took from her everything she cared about.

Alien 1 is the loss of her entire crew. Something that sucks, but not her family. Aliens (Directors cut and the movie we were always intended to get) has her stripped of her title and rank, the loss of her job, and most important to her, the loss of her family. She finds a kind of new family in the film and it ends with her hopeful just like Alien did. And Just like Aliens opens with her suffering more losses Alien 3 opens in the same way. There goes her family again. Stuck on this crap rock. There is the monster again. And here comes the company. Ripley's story is about loss. Newt and Hicks have no lasting place in that story.

 There is the monster again. And here comes the company. Ripley's story is about loss. Newt and Hicks have no lasting place in that story.

While an astute observation, the conclusion does not logically follow.

It's entirely possible to have Hicks and Newt  survive through the story, with Hicks dying at the climax  to allow Ripley to self-sacrifice. Further, He's the perfect snarky commentator on the situation.

Plus, it would make Ripley's coming to trust the prisoners all that much more impactful... as she places newt into the care of one of the alphas she has come to trust... keeping in mind that the prisoners are the worst of the worst...  Her desperate self sacrifice becoming all the worse for placing a tender-age child at the mercy of the prisoners.

 There is the monster again. And here comes the company. Ripley's story is about loss. Newt and Hicks have no lasting place in that story.

While an astute observation, the conclusion does not logically follow.

It's entirely possible to have Hicks and Newt  survive through the story, with Hicks dying at the climax  to allow Ripley to self-sacrifice. Further, He's the perfect snarky commentator on the situation.

Plus, it would make Ripley's coming to trust the prisoners all that much more impactful... as she places newt into the care of one of the alphas she has come to trust... keeping in mind that the prisoners are the worst of the worst...  Her desperate self sacrifice becoming all the worse for placing a tender-age child at the mercy of the prisoners.

Newt wouldn't be in the care of the prisoners. Newt would have been taken by WY.

And Hicks being around with Newt would have given Ripley a reason to stay away from the rest of the prisoners an sequester herself away with the 2 people she knows. Getting stuck there alone is what puts her in a position to interact with the prisoners. To give Dylan and the Doctor and Morse a chance to interact with her in meaningful ways so that when they die (or one of them ends up the only survivor) their deaths matter to her. And again, it's really a story about Ripley's losses. Their deaths need to matter to her. Alien 3s Ripley speech.

"When they first heard about this thing, it was crew expendable. The next time they sent in marines; they were expendable too. What makes you think they're gonna care about a bunch of lifers who found God at the ass-end of space? You really think they're going to let you interfere with their plans for this thing? They think we're crud, and they don't give a fuck about one friend of yours that's died. Not one."

This line carries more weight because EVERYONE from her past is dead. Not standing in the room listening to her say it.

According to a friend of mine, Hicks' actor got more money from his picture appearing for one second in Aliens 3 than for making the entire Aliens 2 film.

Your friend probably got the info from the extra material in one of the Alien-boxes where Biehn said that, apparently Fox hadn't planned to pay him anything but he was pretty pissed off that they planned to use his picture without payment.

During an anniversary Q&A for Aliens Hicks's actor was asked a question about how he would have liked Hicks to be in Alien 3 if it were possible. His only response was three very loud words. "<4 letter word> Alien 3."

I think in general, I can see what they were going for with the movie. I just don't like it and probably never will. The idea was fine but it just felt...cruel in its execution. It felt like how slasher movies typically kill off the prior final girl in the first 5 minutes of whichever sequel they're currently making.

Getting slightly back on topic, I think Covenant was a somewhat better film than Prometheus. While I'm still not a fan of prequels over explaining stuff I prefer to be kept a mystery, I really dug David's evolution into a sort of mad scientist type of character. If Covenant had any issues for me it was that most of the story beats were way too predictable. On the plus side, while the characters made occasional bad decisions, they weren't trained scientists who had at least some inkling of what they were getting into. They were basically just a bunch of space truckers again.

I still like to think that David didn't create the Xenomorphs, rather it was a sort of parallel evolution made by his experimenting. I just can't buy the dozens of eggs, 15 foot tall Space Jockey and clearly very old dreadnaught on LV 426 had anything to do with David. What I can buy, especially in light of supplemental material, is David's experiments being what tips Weyland Yutani off to the xenomorph in the first place. Honestly, the black goo makes more sense than a Xenomorph as something the company would really want to get its hands on.