Yes, I know this is a Blackthorne Star Wars comic. I only own one Marvel issue and it’s not in the best shape.

If you haven’t heard by now, it was announced last week that Disney, parent company of both Marvel and Lucasfilm in recent acquisitions, have decided to bring the two companies back together, returning the tales of the galaxy far, far away to Marvel comics starting in 2015. Marvel previously published Star Wars comics from 1977 to 1986. In all 107 issues were produced with only two “spin-off” comics produced that I know of, both tie-ins to the Droids and Ewoks cartoons. (The Wookiepedia link over there mentions a reprinting of some UK stories but I never saw them.) This is a coming home for the franchise.

However…..Since 1986, the comics have been in the hands of Dark Horse comics and Star Wars may be one of the reasons they rose from small indie publisher to a big name company known more for their licensed titles than original series like Ghost or Big Guy And Rusty. (Although the Mask and Hellboy have had larger success and Big Guy & Rusty had their own Saturday morning appearances. I still want a Hero Zero cartoon.) That means they’re about to be shut out of not only their biggest title but one that has pleased franchise fans for decades, keeping the series alive long after the movies and cartoons had stop being produced. Did the mouse make a mistake?

Here’s the actual press release from Disney/Marvel:

The Walt Disney Company’s Lucasfilm Ltd. and Marvel Entertainment are joining forces to bring new Star Wars adventures to readers across the galaxy, with Marvel granted exclusive rights to create and publish Star Wars comics and graphic novels beginning in 2015.

The agreement marks a homecoming for the Star Wars comic books. Marvel Comics published the first Star Wars comic book, STAR WARS #1, in March 1977, which went on to sell more than 1 million copies. Marvel Comics published its STAR WARS series for nine years. In 1991, Dark Horse Comics took over the license, publishing fan-favorite titles like Dark Empire and Star Wars: Legacy. Last year, Dark Horse released The Star Wars #1, an adaptation of George Lucas’ original rough-draft screenplay for the film, garnering rave reviews and national media attention and ranking among the top-selling Star Wars comics of all time.

Actually, The Star Wars is a miniseries but that’s being nitpicky. I don’t know why Marvel stopped making Star Wars comics in 1986 so I won’t make any judgement calls on that. I will say that I understand the move back. Disney wants all of their properties close to home, which makes things easier to track. However, the question is what they’ll do with it. Remember, they did the same thing with Boom Comics, who were publishing Disney comics when they started their Kaboom kids imprint line. Thus far, Marvel has only reprinted some of their stories and the Incredibles and Muppet comics produced by other companies, and publishing the previously unreleased final Muppets comic made by Roger Langridge before his parting ways with Marvel. No new Disney Afternoon or Pixar comics, or any of the other Disney properties. Personally I still want a continuation of The Black Hole to see what they found on the other side.

Dark Horse, on the other hand, did a lot with Star Wars, covering not only the original series but attempting to flesh out the characters and the races of the Star Wars Universe, doing as much, if not more, than the novels and video games. And when the prequels came out, Dark Horse built upon that time period as well. So what was their response?

For those who are new to the industry, Dark Horse revolutionized the treatment of comics based on films. After a history of movie properties being poorly handled with little regard for execution and continuity, Dark Horse took a new approach, carefully choosing licenses and approaching them with excitement and creative energy. Our goal was to create sequels and prequels to the films we loved, paying careful attention to quality and detail, essentially treating those films as though they were our own. Star Wars has been the crown jewel of this approach. We began chasing the title as far back as 1989, and with the launch of Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy’s Dark Empire, a new era in comics was born. I’m not ashamed to admit that we were Star Wars geeks, and we have been determined to spare neither effort nor expense in the pursuit of excellence.
It is ironic that this announcement comes at a time when Dark Horse is experiencing its most successful year ever. For obvious reasons, we have prepared for this eventuality by finding new and exciting projects to place on our schedule for 2015 and beyond. Will they take the place of Star Wars? That’s a tall order, but we will do our best to make that happen. In the meantime, 2014 may be our last year at the helm of the Star Wars comics franchise, but we plan to make it a memorable one. We know that fans of the franchise will expect no less. The Force is with us still.

That was publisher Mike Richardson writing that press release. Dark Horse’s vice president of publishing, Randy Stradley, added his own comments on Facebook, as reported by Robot 6:

“From my perspective, the upcoming films will mean less freedom to do what we at Dark Horse have always done best: expanding the universe,” Stradley, who has served as senior editor of the Star Wars line since 2002, wrote Sunday on his Facebook page. “With a new film scheduled every year, and a new television series, it is likely that there will be a lot of comics pages devoted to adaptations and direct spin-off stories in support of the films and TV shows. That’s not where my interests lie, and it has never been Dark Horse’s strong suit. That would be too much like real work to me. Probably, the coming years will be a great time to be a Star Wars fan (especially a *new* Star Wars fan), and I hope you all enjoy the ride, but I think I’m going to be glad to not be in the mix.”

To be fair, the “expanded universe” was never canon to Lucas anyway. The only story that was sold as official canon was Shadows Of The Empire. So while fans who followed the comics are going to be disappointed that all of the hard work by Dark Horse’s writers will be tossed away, they were never official. (Thankfully, that includes the story of why the Jedi supposedly banned marriage from their ranks.) And Stradley has a point about all the tie-ins. Ask IDW how that’s going for them with Star Trek, where they had to start getting used to a whole new universe on top of that.

While I’m sorry to see Dark Horse lose such an important license in light of the good they’ve done with it, and Marvel’s history makes doing anything with it questionable, much less all the effort Dark Horse did, I do understand Disney’s decision and hopefully they will find a way to make Star Wars stories in what may well be an over-saturation of Star Wars stories already coming. But the big thing to me…

The only reason to see the prequels.

I WANT MORE DROIDS SOLO ADVENTURES!

Make that happen!