As you no doubt have heard by now, Disney, which purchased Lucasfilm in late 2012, has decided to transfer the comic license for Star Wars to Marvel in 2015. What does that mean for Dark Horse? Well, we wish we were retaining the license of course. We feel we have done a pretty good job for Star Wars these past twenty-one years. But Dark Horse will carry on. 2013 was our best year ever, and we have some big plans for later this year. You just wait and see.

 

What does this mean for fans? Obviously it means our current slate of Star Wars books will be wrapping up. We still have a couple of new projects coming up, but by the end of 2014 our Star Wars output will be reduced to collecting the last of the uncollected pamphlet comics. This means you have about a year in which to complete your collections of the current trade paperbacks, hardcovers and omnibus editions!

No wonder Dawn of the Jedi ending felt rushed.

No wonder Dawn of the Jedi ending felt rushed.

While I don't doubt Marvel will be able to put out their own solid products under the SW banner, I have to say DH losing the license might be the one thing that genuinely stinks about the Disney acquisition. It makes perfect sense for Disney from a business perspective, to the point that it was a flat-out inevitable development, but even so...

To me, Dark Horse's output has been the most consistently positive additions to the EU and the Star Wars brand for the past two decades (I know Dark Empire is divisive, but I didn't mind it, and even setting that aside there's been 19 years of solid products since Empire's End finished that series off).

It's a real shame to see them parting ways.

While I don't doubt Marvel will be able to put out their own solid products under the SW banner, I have to say DH losing the license might be the one thing that genuinely stinks about the Disney acquisition. It makes perfect sense for Disney from a business perspective, to the point that it was a flat-out inevitable development, but even so...

 

To me, Dark Horse's output has been the most consistently positive additions to the EU and the Star Wars brand for the past two decades (I know Dark Empire is divisive, but I didn't mind it, and even setting that aside there's been 19 years of solid products since Empire's End finished that series off).

 

It's a real shame to see them parting ways.

Why did they transfer to Marvel? So they can retcon Dark Horse stuff? Or DH was releasing products too slow?

Why did they transfer to Marvel? So they can retcon Dark Horse stuff? Or DH was releasing products too slow?

Because Disney owns Marvel.

This way they get to capture 100% of the upside instead of having to split the profits with an outside company (especially a direct competitor with one of their subsidiaries), plus they get to move the IP to an exponentially larger label (DH is the third biggest comic company in America, but it is absolutely dwarfed by DC and Marvel).

Because Disney owns Marvel.

 

This way they get to capture 100% of the upside instead of having to split the profits with an outside company (especially a direct competitor with one of their subsidiaries), plus they get to move the IP to an exponentially larger label (DH is the third biggest comic company in America, but it is absolutely dwarfed by DC and Marvel).

Ah thanks for clearing that up. I wonder if the DH stuff will be retconned once Marvel has it.

Ah thanks for clearing that up. I wonder if the DH stuff will be retconned once Marvel has it.

They not gona retcon it just because it's DH, if they do it's because they want to do something of their own with that timeline.

Ah thanks for clearing that up. I wonder if the DH stuff will be retconned once Marvel has it.

It's a definite possibility, though my guess is it will be in roughly the same boat as the rest of the EU overall. The new Marvel comics are sure to follow whatever continuity is established by the upcoming movies.

Several of Dark Horse's comics included things that originated during the original Marvel run from the '70s and '80s like the Zeltrons (Delilah Blue in Legacy, and Chantique and Antos Wyric in KOTOR) and the Nagai (Darth Nihl in Legacy), so there doesn't seem to be any special copyright barriers between the companies.

But at the same time I definitely am not expecting Episode VII to make any references to Palpatine resurrecting himself into clone bodies, any more than they're likely to mention the Yuuzahn Vong.