'Star Wars' Comic Writer Kieron Gillen Announces Final Issue

Writer Kieron Gillen has written dozens of issues of various Star Wars comics, though he recently revealed that the upcoming Star Wars #67 would be his final issue written for the galaxy far, far away.

"I have three issues left to write in 'The Scourging of Shu-Torun.' That's issue 67, the end of my story, and I'll be off," the writer shared in his newsletter. "No present plans to write anything else in Star Wars – I suspect I've said all I've wanted to about these characters in comics. At least in this period, anyway."

It is important to note that Gillen specifies "no present plans," which allows the opportunity to return at some point in the future, if he so wishes.

Following Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm, Marvel launched a number of different Star Wars titles ahead of the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Gillen has been involved in various Star Wars titles since 2015, starting with his run on Darth Vader, writing 25 issues. Gillen also helped create an all-new character, Doctor Aphra, with the writer scripting the initial 20 issues of her debut series.

Gillen took over the proper Star Wars series back in November of 2017, with his final issue putting his tenure at nearly 30 installments. Issue #67 is slated to be released in March, with neither Marvel nor Lucasfilm confirming who would be taking over the series.

Marvel's Star Wars series have expanded on a variety of storylines in exciting ways, by elaborating on well-known events and detailing a number of unknown areas in the saga's timeline. Unfortunately, the saga's comic book titles have seen controversy lately, making fans apprehensive about what the future holds for the various books.

Last October, Lucasfilm announced that Chuck Wendig would be delivering readers the limited series Star Wars: Shadow of Vader in 2019. Weeks later, Wendig announced that he had been fired from the book.

"Today I got the call. I'm fired. Because of the negativity and vulgarity that my tweets bring. Seriously, that's what Mark [Paniccia], the editor said. It was too much politics, too much vulgarity, too much negativity on my part," Wendig wrote on Twitter. "My understanding over this call was that this was a Marvel decision, not an [Lucasfilm] decision, but I can't really confirm that. The editor said he had made the call. He seemed genuinely upset at my tweets and profanity, so maybe that's accurate. And again, that's his right to do so.

He continued, "If they honestly feel that my presence will damage the book, I don't want that. I want the book to shine, and artists like Juanan Ramirez and Greg Smallwood to do their amazing thing. Artists like that are gods in my mind, so I'm happy to not distract from their literal magic. But it does set a troubling precedent. One we've seen already – James Gunn, Jessica White, and so on – of folks fired because they riled up the wasp's nest of asterisk-gate."

Last month, the all-new Star Wars: Dark Visions book was announced as debuting later this year. It is unclear if this new limited Vader series has any connection to the canceled book.

Stay tuned for details on the future of Star Wars comics.

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