Marvel Is Getting The Rights To Star Wars Comics

It has been an interesting few years for Disney and their sudden goal to obtain every intellectual property available. Now, it seems that their conquest of Star Wars is extending beyond the purchase of Lucasfilm. The conquest was not a surprising or particularly difficult one, as Disney owns both Marvel, the publisher they are moving Star Wars to, and Lucasfilm, the company that basically gets to decide who gets the license for the comics.

Star Wars comics originally started as a Marvel property, with a nine year run and a fairly large fan base. The license moved over to Dark Horse, and many people liked the change. Dark Horse has been better known for adapting movies into comic books well, respecting continuity while still creating new and interesting stories. Of course, from a money making point of view, this is a completely logical step for Disney. If you own a money making property and a money making comic book publisher, you should probably put the two together to get the most possible money out of the fan base. To many, the move is disappointing. Mike Richardson of Dark Horse notes that the move will “end a partnership that lasted more than two decades”. The Marvel comics will start up in 2015.

I can’t give too much perspective on this, as I never really got into Star Wars comics. The one thing I can note is that it seems likely this is being done primarily for Disney to make a larger profit off of their intellectual property. This does cause some concerns, not only for the comics, but for their respect towards the fan base and universe as a whole (tipping the scales a bit on the “Will the new Star Wars movies suck?” debate). On the plus side, I’m sure there will be a huge collection of new toys!