Im thinking of getting the Epic collection of Star Wars the Marvel years vol 1.I know the new ones are in Canon now I was wondering how does the old ones from the 80s stack up
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Im thinking of getting the Epic collection of Star Wars the Marvel years vol 1.I know the new ones are in Canon now I was wondering how does the old ones from the 80s stack up
They're fairly dated IMO, especially the first couple of post-Movie ones where they couldn't really use the Empire. They've got some interesting camp values, and there's also some interesting things that anticipated developments in the films; such as an administrator of questionable loyalties working with our heroes, fuzzy aliens who help the Rebels, bounty hunters, and even a second Death Star (sort of) that the characters infiltrate by posing as workers. They also introduced some interesting characters and planets that would show up in some later EU, such as Lumiya, Yinchorr, General Tagge's family etc (I think Kieron using Tagge as one of Vader's rivals in the recent comic series might've been a subtle nod to that).
I would start with stories which follow The Empire Strikes Back.
Loved this series first time around but I recently bought the last volume and was somewhat disappointed.
The Archie Goodwin / Al Williamson Classic series which was published as a comic strip is worth checking out.
Read a few of them. Wasn't a huge fan, but then again, it was more the writing style than anything else.
Those comics were incorporated into the Legends version of [I]Star Wars[/I], so, as noted above, they did impact a lot of the tie-ins in the '90s and early 2000s.
Archie's newspaper strips are better in quality for me-they were written after ESB so they're far more effective as a bridging chapter, and deal with several of the events leading up to that film, such as the rebels fleeing Yavin, how Luke 'led' the rebellion to Hoth, Vader's star destroyer being completed and the beginning of his search for Luke. Towards the end it also integrates some stuff from Return of the Jedi, such as the Mon Calamari joining the alliance. It's all been superseded by new canon of course (Not only Marvel's new stuff but Rogue One makes it quite clear the Mon Calamari joined before Yavin).
If exploring the original Marvel Star Wars run, I definitely agree with those who have said to start with the post-Empire Strikes Back stuff. That would begin with the yet-unsolicited Star Wars Epic Collection: The Original Marvel Years Volume 3 (The Empire Strikes Back was adapted in issues 39-44; the second Epic goes until issue 38).
To note: there are some good stories in the first 38 issues. I remember really liking issue 38. And Annual 1 includes one of the best artifacts of the time period: Luke meets some people who once had a visit from "Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader,...and the man whose lightsaber you carry!" At this time, Vader and Anakin were definitely different people. The Legends retcon was hilarious (the Jedi apparently have a special ritual of trust where they trade lightsabers for a time, so really the planet was visited by Obi-Wan, Anakin, and this other guy who was holding Anakin's lightsaber at the time).
But the first 12-20 issues are really dated. Really Marvel 70s. If you like that stuff, check it out.
The tone really changes after Empire comes out and book got a little more serious. There was some really fun stuff in those early issues though like the [B]Wheel Saga[/B] (issues 19-23), the [B]Valance the Bounty Hunter[/B] trilogy (issues 16, 27, and 29), the [B]House of Tagge[/B] arc (issues 25-37) being some of the standouts. One of the standouts for me after Empire is the [B]Shira Brie[/B] storyline (issues 56-63) which spins off to something even bigger latter on.