The Star Wars universe will continue to shift more and more towards Disney in 2015 with all of the comic books and graphic novels moving from Dark Horse to Marvel…
The purchase of Lucasfilm by Disney not only meant more Star Wars films being made, but a lot of property from the history of George Lucas’ films being shifted under their new owners.
The latest move will see all of the Star Wars comic books and graphic novels shift back to Marvel (Disney owns them as well) starting in 2015. For the last 20 years, the Star Wars comic books have been run under the Dark Horse label, but that deal will come to an end after next year.
“Dark Horse Comics published exceptional Star Wars comics for over 20 years, and we will always be grateful for their enormous contributions to the mythos, and the terrific partnership that we had,” said Carol Roeder, director of Lucasfilm franchise publishing, Disney Publishing Worldwide. “In 2015, the cosmic adventures of Luke, Han, Leia and Chewbacca will make the lightspeed jump back to Marvel, to begin a new age of adventures within the Star Wars universe.”
Dark Horse first received the licensing rights to Star Wars for comic books in 1991 and they’ve released a ton of related material including Dark Empire, Star Wars: Legacy and most recently The Star Wars — an 8 part series about the original script George Lucas wrote for the movie before several revisions and changes happened that became the film we are all familiar with today.
The move back to Marvel will put the Star Wars universe front and center with one of the world’s biggest comic book companies, but also featured tie-ins with the new Star Wars Episode VII currently in pre-production under director JJ Abrams.
“We here at Marvel could not be more excited to continue the publication of Star Wars comic books and graphic novels,” said Marvel Worldwide Publisher and President, Dan Buckley. “The perennial brand of Star Wars is one of the most iconic in entertainment history and we are honored to have the opportunity to bring our creative talent pool to continue, and expand Star Wars into galaxies far, far away.”
The newest Star Wars comic books will pick up at Marvel in 2015. Expect more announcements about possible series and tie-ins to the movies to be made in the coming months.
“For obvious reasons, we have prepared for this eventuality by finding new and exciting projects to place on our schedule for 2015 and beyond,” Dark Horse founded Mike Richardson wrote on Friday. “Will they take the place of Star Wars? That’s a tall order, but we will do our best to make that happen. In the meantime, 2014 may be our last year at the helm of the Star Wars comics franchise, but we plan to make it a memorable one. We know that fans of the franchise will expect no less. The Force is with us still.”
Dark Horse remains the publisher of all of their Star Wars titles through the end of the year.
