“Star Wars” is top-tier at Marvel. For now…
I can’t say that there was a whole lot of comics news that grabbed my attention coming out of Comic-Con this year. However, we were told in advance that Marvel would be unleashing their plans for “Star Wars” at the convention and they did not disappoint. Their announcements regarding the titles and the creative teams producing them were indicative of two things. The first is that the company is going to play it safe with the ground being covered in the franchise. As for the second, they’re making an effort to treat the franchise like the A-list media property that it is.
In case anyone hasn’t heard, the titles and teams are going to be:
Star Wars: Written by Jason Aaron with art (for the first arc at least) by John Cassaday. This will feature Luke, Leia, Han and co. going on adventures in the wake of the events of “Episode IV.”
Star Wars: Darth Vader: This comes to us courtesy of writer Kieron Gillen and artist Salvador Larroca. It’ll also be covering the post-”Episode IV” era, only from the point of you-know-who.
Star Wars: Princess Leia: This will be a five-issue miniseries from writer Mark Waid and artist Terry Dodson. Of the three series, this had the most specific plot details (relatively speaking) as it will be focusing on how Leia comes to grips with the destruction of her home planet.
Aaron! Gillen! Waid! Cassaday! Larroca! Dodson! I’d buy any comic from the teams that Marvel has assembled here. Whether it’s a licensed one set in the “Star Wars” universe, another Marvel superhero title, or a creator-owned joint. Dark Horse has always seemed to shy away from pursuing A-list talent for their books, with the Brian Wood/Carlos D’Anda “Star Wars” title being an exception. More often than not we wound up getting talented mid-tier creators who liked to push the franchise in interesting directions. It was an approach that worked more often than not.
With these creators, Marvel looks to be sending the message that they’re taking the franchise seriously and want to supercharge its commercial potential. The only issue I can see here is whether or not these teams will be around for the long haul. Aaron and Gillen both have their own Marvel books as well as creator-owned side projects. Do they have a “Star Wars” story they want to tell or will they just be around for the first arc and before handing things off to someone else? It’s impressive that Marvel was able to get these creators for these books, but now the question becomes whether or not they’ll be able to keep them.
In fact, there’s still the longer-term picture to worry about. While Marvel has made these titles immediately appealing, the real question is if they’ll still be putting A-list talent on them five years from now. You only have to look at what happened with their “Halo” and “The Dark Tower” books to start feeling concerned about “Star Wars’” long-term plans at the company. Both of those titles started off with lots of hype, but saw steadily diminishing sales over the years to the point where “Halo” is now being published by Dark Horse, and “The Dark Tower” is getting its first miniseries in over a year with barely any buzz to accompany it. Can we expect a similar fate for Marvel’s “Star Wars” comics in the future?
Well, there is a key difference here in that Marvel owns the rights to these comics since they’re part of the Disney family. That could encourage them to keep putting noteworthy creators on these titles. Frankly, I’m kind of surprised that Bendis wasn’t part of this initial lineup (but he has plenty of Marvel books to work on at the moment, along with catching up on his various creator-owned titles). Even with all of this speculation, the fact remains that Marvel has assembled a team of creators that will make these new “Star Wars” titles must-reads in my opinion.
Of course, there’s the fact that these titles are treading some very familiar ground here. Familiar enough to make Brian Wood do a double-take at what we’ve heard about the directions for these titles so far. Consider that we’re getting three titles that focus on the post-”Episode IV” adventures of its principal cast, Darth Vader’s efforts to get past the shame of his defeat, and Leia coming to grips with the destruction of Alderaan. We’re already getting all of these things in Wood’s own “Star Wars” title! Aaron, Gillen and Waid are certainly smart enough to come up with their own spins on these things, but the impact of the announcement is diminished a bit by the fact that the company seems to be directly treading on territory that has already explicitly been covered by Dark Horse.
Maybe once “Episode VII” comes out we’ll start getting comics filling in the period between it and “Episode VI.” This would be along with “kicking out” and “writing in” all of the events from the Expanded Universe that have already been documented in other books, comics and various media. In the end, though I’m onboard for these new “Star Wars” comics based on the creative teams involved, it sounds like it’ll be a while before they’ll be able to exist outside the shadow of the many comics that have already been made about the franchise.