Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics is one of the largest companies in the world of comic books. They were the company to first release comic books for the Star Wars saga, with their Star Wars series.

Marvel began in 1939 as Timely Comics, publishing popular superhero titles. In the 1950s, as Atlas Comics they published mainly other genres such as romance, crime, western, and war stories. By the 1960s, the superhero genre was becoming popular again, and the newly named Marvel Comics started creating a number of new superhero titles written by Stan Lee and illustrated by Jack Kirby. During the 1970s Marvel's sales were declining and the company was in trouble caused, in part, by poor distribution.

In the late 1970s the company's fortunes turned around with the smash success of the Star Wars film adaptation, which it began publishing in 1977 after prodding by Roy Thomas, as well as burgeoning successes like The Uncanny X-Men and Daredevil. Jim Shooter, editor-in-chief of Marvel from 1978 to 1987, would later say in an interview regarding the importance of Star Wars to the plight of the company, "Star Wars single-handedly saved Marvel... And that kept us alive."



Marvel also published stories in Britain under the imprint Marvel UK. In addition to reprinting the American Star Wars comics, the UK series produced a number of original stories.

Marvel continued to publish Star Wars comics until 1986, and the Droids and Ewoks series until 1987. The comic-book license for Star Wars was later picked up by Dark Horse Comics, which began producing Star Wars comics in 1991 with the publication of Dark Empire. Dark Horse would later reprint much of the Marvel-produced Star Wars material under the title Classic Star Wars.

In 2009, Marvel was bought by The Walt Disney Company. Their former collaborator, Lucasfilm Ltd., followed suit three years later, when George Lucas sold the rights to his company to Disney.

On January 3, 2014, an announcement was made that the Star Wars comics license was moving from Dark Horse back to Marvel in 2015.

Series

 * Star Wars (April 1977 – June 1986)
 * Ewoks (May 1985 – July 1987)
 * Star Wars: Droids (April 1986 – June 1987)
 * Star Wars: Kanan (April 2015 – March 2016)
 * Star Wars: Darth Vader (February 2015 – October 2016)

Miniseries

 * Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (October 1983 – January 1984)
 * Star Wars: Princess Leia (March 2015 – July 2015)
 * Star Wars: Lando (July 2015 – October 2015)
 * Star Wars: Shattered Empire (September 2015 – November 2015)
 * Star Wars: Chewbacca (October 2015 – December 2015)
 * Star Wars: Obi-Wan & Anakin (January 2016 – May 2016)
 * Star Wars: The Force Awakens (June 2016 – November 2016 )

One-shots

 * Vader Down, Part I (November 2015)
 * Star Wars Annual 1 (December 2015)
 * Darth Vader Annual 1 (December 2015)
 * The Phantom Limb (April 2016)

Ongoing series

 * Star Wars (January 2015 – present)
 * Star Wars: Poe Dameron (April 2016 – present)

Miniseries

 * Star Wars: Han Solo (June 2016)

Ongoing series

 * Star Wars: Doctor Aphra (December 2016)

Miniseries

 * Star Wars: Darth Maul (February 2017)

One-shots

 * Star Wars Annual 2 (November 2016)

Forthcoming collections

 * Star Wars: Darth Vader Volume 4 &mdash; End of Games (November 2016)
 * Star Wars: Heroes For a New Hope (November 2016)
 * Star Wars: Episode III &mdash; Revenge of the Sith (November 2016)
 * Star Wars: The Force Awakens (December 2016)
 * Star Wars: Poe Dameron Volume 1: Black Squadron (December 2016)
 * Star Wars: Kanan Omnibus (December 2016)
 * Star Wars: Volume 4: Last Flight of the Harbinger (January 2017)
 * Star Wars: Han Solo (January 2017)
 * Star Wars: Darth Vader Volume 2 (February 2017)
 * Star Wars: Legends Epic Collection: The Newspaper Strips Volume 1 (Febuary 2017)
 * Star Wars: Legends Epic Collection: The Empire Volume 3 (Febuary 2017)
 * Star Wars: Legends Epic Collection: The Old Republic Volume 2 (March 2017)
 * Star Wars: Legends Epic Collection: The Rebellion Volume 2 (May 2017)
 * Star Wars: Volume 2 (June 2017)