Marvel’s Star Wars Comic Book Series to End This November
Via io9/Gizmodo:
One of the most popular ongoing series at Marvel Comics—whose debut issue still holds the title as the only comic book this century to sell over one millioncopies—is coming to a surprise end. But it may not be that surprising, and it’s likely not the actual end.
Marvel’s solicitations for its November comics released today, including the month’s releases of Star Wars #74 and #75, by Greg Pak, Phil Noto, and Clayton Cowles. But, interestingly, the solicitation for the #75 declares that the issue is not just the end of the series’ current “Rebels and Rogues” arc—it’s the end of the series, full stop:
STAR WARS #75
- GREG PAK (W) PHIL NOTO (A/C)
- ACTION FIGURE VARIANT COVER BY JOHN TYLER CHRISTOPHER
- STAR WARS GREATEST MOMENTS VARIANT COVER by CHRIS SPROUSE
- VARIANT COVER BY GREG LAND
- FINAL ISSUE! IT’S A TRAP!
- The epic REBELS AND ROGUES storyline reaches its explosive end! Can THREEPIO save the rock people of K43?
- Is WARBA the master or the student? Which Champion falls?
- And how much of LUKE’S desperate plan has DARTH VADER foreseen from the beginning?
- The search for a new rebel base continues!
- 40 PGS./Rated T …$4.99
- Star Wars © Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All rights reserved. Used under authorization. Text and illustrations for Star Wars are © 2019 Lucasfilm Ltd.
We reached to Marvel Comics to clarify the details of the solicit, and a spokesperson for the publisher confirmed that Star Wars #75 is indeed the final issue of the series and that fans can expect to learn more about the future of the title next month.
It’s clear even beyond that information that this is not the end of Star Wars at Marvel Comics—it currently has a bunch of series, from Doctor Aphra to the Age of Republic/Rebellion/Resistance anthology, to upcoming tie-ins for The Rise of Skywalker and Jedi: Fallen Order, set in the galaxy far far away.
So the question becomes, is Marvel Comics ending Star Wars just to re-launch it after The Rise of Skywalker’s release? Given the publisher’s…fondness, diplomatically speaking, for relaunching series with new #1s at a pretty regular clip to capitalize on the extra draw seeing that number on shelves has among casual comics reading audiences, it’d be no surprise if Marvel thinks it can boost the already decent sales of the series even further with an eventual refresh.
What if Star Wars returns after Rise of Skywalker has been in theaters, and the reason for its relaunch is that it’s now set at an entirely different time frame, perhaps fast-forwarding to the time between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens? What if goes beyond even that, and—whatever revelations Episode IX has in store for the galaxy far, far away—a new Star Wars series could get the chance to explore it while the movie saga takes a momentary hiatus from the silver screen? Having to wait for the context of The Rise of Skywalker would seem like a legitimate reason to momentarily pause what is otherwise a very popular comic!
