Star Wars (1977)

The very first comic book series ever created for the Marvel Star Wars saga consisted of 107 issues, along with three special Annual editions. This series, published by Marvel Comics, enjoyed a considerably long run from 1977 until 1986. In a year marked by otherwise poor sales, this series proved to be such a massive success for Marvel that many employees from 1977 credit it with saving the company from potential financial collapse.

While issues 1 through 6 presented adaptations of the events in A New Hope, and issues 39 through 44 adapted The Empire Strikes Back, the adaptation of Return of the Jedi was released as a separate mini-series of four issues, distinct from the main series.

Additional stories were included in Marvel Illustrated Books' Star Wars, Star Wars 2: World of Fire, and Classic Star Wars: Devilworlds 1 and 2, which were also part of the Marvel UK Star Wars series. This UK series, due to its weekly release schedule, contained extra stories. Death Masque was the only story that had not been reprinted in the US until it finally appeared in the 2013 Star Wars Omnibus: Wild Space Volume 1.

A letter column called Star-Words was a regular feature in many issues of the main series.

On May 29, 2019, Marvel published a special 108th issue of the series, which continued the storyline that commenced in Star Wars (1977) 50.

Continuity

From the beginning, Marvel and Lucasfilm had a review process in place, where Archie Goodwin would send drafts to Carol Titelman, and later to another editor from the Lucasfilm licensing department.

Allan Kausch pointed out in The Secrets of Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire in 1996 that the Marvel stories became less significant over time. According to Leland Chee, all Marvel Comics are considered S-Canon unless a C-Canon source references them, at which point that particular comic becomes C-Canon.

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 was launched, the direct market for comic books was still developing, and specialized comic book stores were uncommon. Because of this, Marvel maintained two sets of records for publication dates: shipping dates and on-sale dates.

Shipping dates indicated when the comics were dispatched from the printer to newsstands, grocery stores, and drug stores, where they would typically be available for sale upon arrival. Marvel provided on-sale dates as a consistent Tuesday for all outlets—especially comic book shops—to release a comic for sale. Throughout the Star Wars series, the on-sale date usually occurred three weeks after the shipping date. Depending on their location in North America, some readers might have received a comic shortly before the on-sale date, but all readers should have had access to the issue by that date.

As with most magazines, the date printed on the cover was intended to inform retailers when to remove the book from store shelves, not to indicate when the item was available for sale. For Star Wars, the cover date was generally three months after the shipping date and two months after the on-sale date.

Worldwide variations

United Kingdom

Marvel UK released the British version, Star Wars Weekly, starting in February 1978. Thomas and Chaykin's adaptation of A New Hope was published over 12 issues, in contrast to the six-issue version in the US. From issue 118 in May 1980, it was renamed The Empire Strikes Back Weekly, and then to The Empire Strikes Back Monthly in November of the same year. Following a brief period as Star Wars Monthly, the final issue was released in July 1983. The magazine then returned to a weekly format with issue 1 of Return of the Jedi Weekly.

Sweden

Marvel's Star Wars comics, translated as Stjärnornas krig ("War of the stars"), were published by Semic Press AB from 1977 to 1987. Initially, they were released only as annual king-sized albums, compiling 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 listed as #1 1983/84. It was published bimonthly, with each Swedish issue containing comics from two American issues. In 1985, the Star Wars title merged with the Indiana Jones title under the new title Månadens äventyr ("Adventure of the month"), where every other issue "starred" 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 somewhat complex: 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 published in the same collection, Comics Star Wars, by Planeta DeAgostini, each with its own translation. A total of twelve hardcover issues were published, containing from eight to eleven stories each.

Italy

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

A fourteenth issue was released as a special edition: the adaptation of Return of the Jedi, titled Il ritorno dello Jedi.

The stories have been republished several times, typically using more recent translations rather than the original ones.

Denmark

Stjerne Krigen was the title of the six-issue Danish edition of Marvel's series. The series featured comic books with covers that differed from those in other countries, except for the first issue, which displayed a modified version of the movie poster.

Sources

Notes and references

Appearances