Not only did Star Wars dominate the box office in a major way over the past decade, but it also ruled the world of comics, as Diamond Comic Distributors confirms that the best selling single comic book issue of the decade was Marvel’s Star Wars #1 based on total unit sales. From writer Jason Aaron and artist John Cassaday, the series marked a new era for the galaxy far, far away, as the 2015 storyline explored the events following Star Wars: A New Hope. A Star Wars title also scored the 10th-best selling comic book of the decade with the debut issue of Star Wars: Vader Down.
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Before the original Star Wars even landed in theaters, the studio knew that the film would appeal to the comic book crowd, with the first Star Wars comic hitting shelves weeks before the film debuted in hopes of generating excitement for the property. Thanks to the success of not just the comics themselves but also of the original trilogy of films, the Marvel Comics series continued through 1986, with fans turning to those stories for the continued adventures of the beloved characters.
In 1991, Dark Horse Comics began delivering fans new stories for the franchise, which it continued doing up through 2014.
Part of what made the storyline that launched in 2015 such a success was that, following Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm in 2012, it deemed that any stories outside of the six live-action films and the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars were no longer canonical, which included the events of all previous Marvel and Dark Horse comics. This meant that not only was this new storyline the first new canonical Star Wars comic, but it also solidified the narrative of what happened to Luke, Leia, and Han following their fateful encounter with Darth Vader on the Death Star. After four years and 75 issues, Marvel’s Star Wars came to an end last December.
Luckily, fans didn’t have to wait long for a new canonical comic book adventure, as a new volume of Star Wars launched earlier this year. Similar to the concept of the previous iteration of the series, the current narrative takes place immediately after the events of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and will likely lead right into the events of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.
The next issue of Star Wars hits shelves on January 29th.
Are you surprised the book was so popular? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!
