First Look At New Star Wars Comic Set After Episode IV: A New Hope

By David Wharton | Updated

This article is more than 2 years old

It would be something of an understatement to say that people have been talking a lot about Star Wars lately. The out-of-nowhere news that George Lucas was selling the Star Wars franchise would have been stunning enough, but when it was revealed that Disney was planning another trilogy and various spinoff movies? There had to be some glee-induced geek heart attacks out there. Well, while we’ll all spend the next few years speculating and greedily pouncing upon any Star Wars tidbit, you can plan a return to Lucas’ universe a lot sooner than 2015, courtesy of Dark Horse’s new Star Wars ongoing comic, which is set in the aftermath of the very first Star Wars film.

Written by Bryan Wood (DMZ, Northlanders) and featuring covers by Alex Ross, the new Star Wars series picks up right where Episode IV left off, with the Death Star demolished and Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie heroes of the Rebellion. Wood explains that the comics will effectively pretend that it’s still 1977 and that they are being written from that point of view. Wood told The Nerdist that “in the characters’ minds, nothing has happened since the events of the first film. Luke and Leia don’t know they’re siblings, Vader doesn’t know Luke exists, and so on. Which is a challenge.”


While there have been literal tons of Expanded Universe books and comics and games over the years, they haven’t explored the time between the original three movies as much. Wood is a solid writer, so this one should be worth adding to your pull list or your iPad or what-have-you. It’ll also be a good wait to keep you on a steady dose of Star Wars until Episode VII arrives in 2015.

Dark Horse’s Star Wars #1 will be released on January 9, 2013. You can check out some of the issue’s pages below, and you can see more and read the entire interview over at The Nerdist.