Kieron Gillen

"I've always been interested in how the antagonists and villains work, and what makes people bad, and all these kinds of things."

―Kieron Gillen^[src]

Kieron Gillen (born September 30, 1975) is a British comic-book author and former computer-game and music journalist who has written Marvel Comics' Darth Vader series and Star Wars Annual 1. On September 19, 2016, it was revealed that he would write a new ongoing Star Wars series entitled Star Wars: Doctor Aphra, featuring the character Chelli Lona Aphra from the Darth Vader series.

Gillen's first comic-book project was the 2006 Image Comics series Phonogram, drawn by regular collaborator Jamie McKelvie.

In 2009, Gillen began writing for Marvel Comics. He has written for Thor (volume 3), Uncanny X-Men (volumes 1 and 2) and Iron Man (volume 5). His most popular work for the company was Journey into Mystery, focusing on the misadventures of Kid Loki, and the subsequent Young Avengers (volume 2), drawn by McKelvie. Gillen and McKelvie are currently collaborating on another creator-owned comic published by Image, The Wicked + The Divine.

The Empire Strikes Back was the first film Gillen ever saw at the cinema, and he compared its impact on him to that of Tolkien.^[1] As a journalist, Gillen wrote a highly enthusiastic review of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, which he described as reigniting his love of the saga, having played mediocre Star Wars games that were given more positive write-ups for simply being Star Wars, or fans who were "cursing George Lucas' name only to—a handful of months later—go out and buy the DVD anyway 'for the extras.'" He later wrote, "Star Wars isn't great because it's Star Wars. Star Wars is great because it is Great. A Star Wars that isn't Great isn't Star Wars in any meaningful way."^[2]

On January 9, 2019, Gillen revealed that after the May 2019 release of the sixty-seventh issue of the Star Wars comic-book series, he will leave the Star Wars universe to embark on other projects because he has told all the stories he desired.^[3]