Star Wars (1977 comic book)

• 1. Introduction

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  On the 12th of April 1977, Marvel Comics put the first issue of Star Wars on sale. The film it was based on had not yet opened. Nobody at the newsstand knew whether this space fantasy would find an audience, and Marvel had negotiated a deal that gave Lucasfilm no royalties at all until sales cleared 100,000 copies. The gamble was mutual, and the stakes were higher than anyone let on. What would it take to persuade a skeptical publisher to bet the company on an unproven movie? How did a single comic book series help keep Marvel solvent for two consecutive years? And who were the writers, artists, and editors who shaped Star Wars on the page for nearly a decade before the films caught up with them?

• 2. A Reluctant Publisher

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  Stan Lee's first instinct was to say no. When Charles Lippincott, Lucasfilm's publicity supervisor, approached Lee at Marvel in 1975 about publishing a Star Wars comic, Lee refused to consider it until the film was finished. Writer Roy Thomas met Lippincott around the same time and was asked by George Lucas himself to write the book, based on Thomas's work on Conan the Barbarian. Thomas came around only after Lippincott showed him a production sketch of the Cantina sequence, which persuaded him the project belonged in the tradition of Planet Comics rather than in the realm of children's fantasy.

  Thomas arranged a second meeting in 1976 and brought Lee back to the table. According to the account that circulated afterward, Lee was won over when he heard that Alec Guinness was involved. Lucas also requested a specific artist: Howard Chaykin, who was granted access to Lucasfilm's offices on the Universal Studios Lot to gather reference art. The deal Lee struck was unusual. Because movie tie-in comics rarely sold well at that time, he negotiated terms that gave Lucasfilm no royalties until sales exceeded 100,000 copies. Once that threshold was crossed, the financial arrangements could be revisited.

• 3. Saving Marvel

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  Former Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter later stated plainly that strong sales of the Star Wars comics saved Marvel financially in 1977 and 1978. The comic book industry at that time was suffering broadly. Rising newsprint costs were squeezing margins, and the traditional retail channels that distributors had relied on for decades, newsstands and small independent shops, were shrinking. The direct market, in which comics were sold through specialty stores on a non-returnable basis, had not yet established itself.

  Star Wars arrived at exactly this moment of strain. The series became one of the industry's top-selling titles in 1979 and 1980. Sales surpassed the 100,000-copy threshold that Lippincott needed before he could renegotiate the royalty terms with Marvel. The comic provided Marvel with income that offset losses elsewhere, at a time when the company had few other cushions. The royalty renegotiation that followed gave Lucasfilm a financial stake that reflected the series' actual market power.

• 4. Creative Constraints

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  Roy Thomas began writing original stories with issue 7, dated January 1978. Lippincott had given Thomas a specific set of guardrails: no Darth Vader, no Clone Wars, and no romantic development between Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia. Thomas worked within those limits by centering a Seven Samurai-style storyline on Han Solo and Chewbacca. The trouble came from a character Thomas invented: a green rabbit named Jaxxon. Lippincott told Thomas directly that Lucas disliked the character, and the accumulated weight of these franchise restrictions contributed to Thomas's departure from the series.

  Writer Archie Goodwin and artist Carmine Infantino took over as of issue 11, dated May 1978. Goodwin proved more durable, guiding the series through some of its most celebrated work. When Louise Simonson joined as editor after Goodwin's eventual departure, she hired her husband Walt Simonson as penciler starting with issue 49. Writer David Michelinie joined the team with issue 51, dated September 1981. That creative team faced their own version of the same problem: they were blocked from depicting Luke's Jedi training, his relationships with Leia and Vader, and were prohibited from using Han, Jabba, Boba Fett, Obi-Wan, and Yoda. An unused John Carter, Warlord of Mars story that had been sitting in inventory since Marvel cancelled that series was repurposed, rewritten, and redrawn for issue 53, dated November 1981.

• 5. The Empire Strikes Back Adaptation

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  In 1979, Goodwin traveled to Lucasfilm's Los Angeles offices to collect contact prints and reference material for a six-issue adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back. The adaptation ran as issues 39-44 of the regular series, covering September 1980 through February 1981. It also appeared simultaneously in several other formats: a paperback book, a magazine edition as Marvel Super Special 16, and an oversized tabloid version.

  The art came from Al Williamson and Carlos Garzon. Williamson had been specifically requested by Lucasfilm, because Lucas admired his earlier work on EC Comics and Flash Gordon. The result was widely regarded as the high point of the series' visual achievement. According to Ted Edwards, Williamson's pencils and Garzon's inking produced likenesses of the characters with an accuracy that the series had never reached before. The Empire Strikes Back adaptation stands as evidence of what the series could accomplish when the right artist was matched to material that suited him.

• 6. Original Characters and Their Afterlives

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  Beilert Valance, a droid-hating cyborg bounty hunter introduced in 1978, predates Boba Fett's explicit appearance in the franchise. Some observers have argued that Fett's development was influenced by Valance and by Marvel's Punisher, a character Goodwin had previously written. Valance has also been noted for his resemblance to the central figure of the Terminator franchise, which debuted with the 1984 film. The connection is a matter of timing: Valance arrived years before either comparator.

  Jaxxon, the green rabbit character that Lucas had objected to, followed a stranger path. His remains appear briefly in the 2012 Clone Wars episode "A Sunny Day in the Void." After the licensed Expanded Universe material released up to April 2014 was rebranded by Lucasfilm as Legends and declared non-canon, Jaxxon was effectively freed from that designation. He went on to appear on a cover of Marvel's 2015 Star Wars series and took an active role in the Star Wars Adventures series. Hasbro eventually released a Jaxxon action figure as part of its Black Series line. Valance took a different route back: he entered the modern Star Wars canon in the 2018 comic Han Solo: Imperial Cadet and appeared in Target Vader in 2019 and the ongoing Bounty Hunters series that began in 2020.

• 7. Revival and Retrospect

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  Marvel senior editor Mark Paniccia reached out to Walt Simonson when exploring a one-shot revival of the original series. Simonson said he would have liked to create a sequel to Archie Goodwin's oversized issue 50, "The Crimson Forever," which Simonson, Al Williamson, and Tom Palmer had illustrated together. That wish shaped what was ultimately published. Writer Matt Rosenberg pitched the sequel story, titled "Forever Crimson," and it appeared in 2019 as issue 108.

  The publication history around the series was extensive beyond the main run. In 1983, Buena Vista Records adapted two issues into children's books with accompanying read-along tapes. The adaptation of A New Hope was rereleased with new colorations twice: first by Dark Horse Comics in 1994 with coloring by Pamela Rambo, and again by Marvel in 2015 with coloring by Chris Sotomayor, who also handled Marvel's 2015 rereleases of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi adaptations. Marvel collected the entire run in three hardcover editions in 2015. Beginning in 2016, Epic Collection: Star Wars - The Original Marvel Years began republishing the series with bonus content; six volumes appeared in total. The 2019 issue 108 was the first new entry in the series since the franchise returned to Marvel after more than two decades with Dark Horse, and a trade paperback collecting it alongside other Valance-focused issues appeared in early 2020.