Star Wars (1977)

The Star Wars comic book series from Marvel holds the distinction of being the very first comic series ever crafted for the Star Wars saga. Comprising 107 individual issues, accompanied by three special Annual editions, its run was notably extensive. Its publication spanned from 1977 until 1986, all under the banner of Marvel Comics. The series proved to be an immense success for Marvel, particularly during a year marked by otherwise lackluster sales. Many individuals employed at Marvel in 1977 attribute the series with having rescued the company from potential financial collapse.

Issues 1 through 6 presented adaptations of the events depicted in A New Hope, while issues 39 through 44 offered adaptations of The Empire Strikes Back. However, the adaptation of Return of the Jedi was uniquely released as a standalone four-issue mini-series, separate from the main series.

Further stories were incorporated into Marvel Illustrated Books' Star Wars, Star Wars 2: World of Fire, and Classic Star Wars: Devilworlds 1 and 2, supplementing the Marvel UK Star Wars series' content, which, due to its weekly release schedule, featured additional narratives. The only story that had not seen a US reprint was Death Masque, until it finally appeared in the 2013 publication of Star Wars Omnibus: Wild Space Volume 1.

A letter column titled Star-Words was a recurring feature in numerous issues of the primary series.

On May 29, 2019, Marvel commemorated the series with a special 108th issue that picked up the storyline where it left off in Star Wars (1977) 50.

Continuity

Marvel and Lucasfilm maintained a review process from the series' inception, with Archie Goodwin forwarding drafts to Carol Titelman, and subsequently to another editor within Lucasfilm's licensing division.

Over time, the Marvel stories lost some of their significance, a point highlighted by Allan Kausch in The Secrets of Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire in 1996. According to Leland Chee, all Marvel Comics content is categorized as S-Canon unless a C-Canon source references it, at which point the specific comic in question ascends to C-Canon status.

Media

Issues

Return of the Jedi movie adaptation mini-series

Additional collections

A New Hope

The Empire Strikes Back

Return of the Jedi

Marvel Illustrated Books

A Long Time Ago...

Devilworlds

Wild Space

Other

Publication dates

A 1977 Star Wars House ad

Back in 1977, when the series first launched, the direct market for comic books was still quite new, and specialized comic book stores weren't common. To deal with this, Marvel kept two sets of records for when the comics came out: shipping dates and on-sale dates.

Shipping dates showed when the comics were sent from the printer to places like newsstands, grocery stores, and drug stores, where they would usually be available for sale as soon as they arrived. Marvel set on-sale dates as a consistent Tuesday for all places selling the comics—especially comic book shops—to start selling a new issue. Throughout the Star Wars series, the on-sale date was generally about three weeks after the shipping date. Depending on where someone lived in North America, they might have found a comic a bit before the on-sale date, but everyone should have been able to get it by that date.

Like most magazines, the date printed on the cover was meant to tell stores when to take the comic off the shelves, not when it first went on sale. For Star Wars, the cover date was usually three months after the shipping date, and two months after the on-sale date.

Worldwide variations

United Kingdom

Marvel UK put out the British version, called Star Wars Weekly, starting in February 1978. Thomas and Chaykin's take on A New Hope was spread over 12 issues, instead of the six issues it took in the US. Starting with issue 118 in May 1980, it became The Empire Strikes Back Weekly, then The Empire Strikes Back Monthly in November of the same year. After a short time as Star Wars Monthly, the last issue came out in July 1983. The magazine then went back to being a weekly with issue 1 of Return of the Jedi Weekly.

Sweden

Translated as Stjärnornas krig ("War of the stars"), Marvel's Star Wars comics were published by Semic Press AB from 1977 to 1987. Initially, they were only released as large annual albums, which collected issues 1-6, 11-15, 18-23, 25-26, 31-34, and 39-44.

The first regular issue of the Swedish Star Wars comic book is marked as #1 1983/84. It was released every two months, with each Swedish issue containing comics from two American issues. In 1985, the Star Wars title was combined with the Indiana Jones title under the new name Månadens äventyr ("Adventure of the month"), where every other issue featured Indiana Jones instead of Star Wars.

Every American issue from 45 to 107, except for 94 and 100, was published in the Swedish comic books, although the order of the issues was a bit mixed up: 51-52, 55, 49, 56-63, 65, 68-91, 93, 92, 45-48, 50, 53-54, 64-67, 95-99, 101-107. Issue 65 was released twice.

Portugal, Spain, Mexico and Brazil

In these countries, the comics were all part of the same collection, Comics Star Wars, published by Planeta DeAgostini, with each country having its own translation. A total of twelve issues were released, each containing between eight and eleven stories, all in hardcover format.

Italy

In 1978, Mondadori's Editoriale Corno imprint released a series of thirteen double issues called Guerre Stellari ("Stellar Wars"). Some issues included Star Wars posters inside.

A fourteenth issue was a special edition, featuring the adaptation of Return of the Jedi and titled Il ritorno dello Jedi.

The stories have been republished several times, but usually with more recent translations instead of the original ones.

Denmark

Stjerne Krigen was the name of the six-issue Danish version of Marvel's series. This series featured comic books with different covers than those in other countries, except for the first issue, which used a modified version of the movie poster.

Sources

Notes and references

Appearances