San Diego Comic-Con was held this weekend, and in between all the movies and TV shows and video games, there were one or two announcements about comic books. Including what Marvel will do with its shiny new Star Wars license, which boils down to “Throw every talented person we have at it.”
The Star Wars line will break out into three books: Star Wars, which will take place between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back and will be delivered by Jason Aaron and John Cassaday; Star Wars: Darth Vader from Kieron Gillen and Salvador Larroca; and Star Wars: Princess Leia by Mark Waid and Terry Dodson.
Each of the books, as you may have guessed, follows a different theme; Vader’s book will be all about the political intrigue and (presumably literal) back-stabbing Vader pulls to be in a position of power by the beginning of Empire; Leia’s book will focus on how somebody who has had their culture completely wiped out recovers from that; and Star Wars is all about Han, Luke, Leia and the rest blowing s*** up.
The main question for Marvel, and it won’t be an easy one, is answering where this fits in after more than two decades of Dark Horse tackling the same property. In fact, Dark Horse is wrapping up its own Star Wars ongoing just two weeks from now tackling the same span of time as Marvel’s new series to enormous critical acclaim, us included.
That said, Marvel’s putting a lot of talent behind these books. Gillen knows his bad guys, Aaron is superb at juggling large numbers of characters, and Mark Waid is probably one of the best comics scribes working right now. All the artists are top notch. And if nothing else, these books will be a heck of a lot better than Marvel’s first crack at the franchise.