Star Wars (Marvel 2015)

Star Wars is an ongoing Star Wars comic book series initially written by Jason Aaron with art by John Cassaday. The Marvel Comics series, which began publishing on January 14, 2015, and features the characters Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, Han Solo, Chewbacca, C-3PO, and R2-D2, takes place between the events of Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope and Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back.

Development
Marvel editor-in-chief Axel Alonso called up Jason Aaron to ask "Star Wars?," to which Aaron replied, "I'm in." He stopped writing Amazing X-Men to accommodate Star Wars into his schedule. Aaron and Cassaday agreed they wanted to write the comic by imagining what it had been like if they wrote the sequel to the original Star Wars. They toured Skywalker Ranch and visited the Archives for research while meeting with Lucasfilm over the comics.

Aaron described the series as being a team book, but also emphasized it as being Luke's journey, explaining how he identified with the character as a boy because had also grown up on a farm. He commented he wanted to show Han's past coming back to him in a manner without having him just confront more bounty hunters. Writing C-3PO to "just [get] that voice right" has been the hardest part of writing the comic. Aaron also promised flashback stories featuring Ben Kenobi, because "I always loved that character in the original film and we never really see much of that version, the Alec Guinness version."

Cassaday described drawing the galaxy's "junk-like" aesthetic as a "headache and an absolute pleasure all at the same time. Getting the details together has been time consuming and tedious, but once I got going, it’s been great fun."

Issue 6 was the last issue with art by Cassady, and each story arc afterward featured a different artist, including Stuart Immonen, Leinil Francis Yu, and Jorge Molina. With the 26th issue, Salvador Larroca became the main series artist and has drawn every issue since. As of issue 38 Kieron Gillen took over as writer, reuniting the creative team of Star Wars: Darth Vader. Gillen approached writing Star Wars the same way he approached Darth Vader, with a focus on showing the characters' transformation from A New Hope to The Empire Strikes Back. His run began with The Ashes of Jedha, where Luke, Leia, and Han encounter Jedha in the aftermath of its destruction.