Do you think the Star Wars comics will be worth all the hype?

I loved that arc too! And there was an extended story set before and during A New Hope focusing on Briggs which was interesting. Plus they were doing stories focusing on Leia long before Marvel's planned mini.

Personally I think that DH Star Wars got off to a super strong start with stuff like Dark Empire, Crimson Empire and Tales of the Jedi. The stuff between Episode I and Episode II was mostly boring except for the first Quinlan Vos story, though that was probably mostly due to what they had to work with. Alot of the Clone Wars stuff was cool and should never have been retconned by the CGI show. I also enjoyed the comics surrounding the Great Galactic War and the New Sith Wars; shame all of it is being shoved to one side.

[QUOTE=Derek Metaltron;828188]I was thinking more of the 'Star Wars' series with the Alex Ross covers which was cancelled. How well did that do incidentally?[/QUOTE]It started off around 50K, #1 was actually under ordered in its first month, and held on above 40K for at least the first 7 issues. When it ended at issue 20 it had 26K in sales. I think part of the reason for the drop off was due to the fact that the series was a lame duck. The other reason is because it was boring as watching paint dry. The same hindrance it had that Marvel will have is how do you tell an exciting, if not meaningful, story in that period? Can they avoid the trap of dragging out a single story over 5 or six issues? If they can't capture the attention of readers with something new each issue then people will just drop off like everything else.

[QUOTE=Venomous Mask;828239]Personally I think that DH Star Wars got off to a super strong start with stuff like Dark Empire, Crimson Empire and Tales of the Jedi. The stuff between Episode I and Episode II was mostly boring except for the first Quinlan Vos story, though that was probably mostly due to what they had to work with. Alot of the Clone Wars stuff was cool and should never have been retconned by the CGI show. I also enjoyed the comics surrounding the Great Galactic War and the New Sith Wars; shame all of it is being shoved to one side.[/QUOTE]

I remember the first SW comics I read was the Mara Jade stories where she was after the Black Shadow organisation during and following the events of ROTJ, and those were great. I think the Ki Adi Mundi stories set after Phantom Menace were good though, and that Boba Fett/Darth Vader story which name I forget involving some guy on a volcano planet with a casket was well written. Didn't really read most of the Clone Wars stuff.

People seem excited based on the creative teams and the fact that it's Star Wars, but I haven't seen any indication that expectations are unreasonably high. Maybe I'm reading the wrong blogs.

[QUOTE=Expletive Deleted;828271]People seem excited based on the creative teams and the fact that it's Star Wars, but I haven't seen any indication that expectations are unreasonably high. Maybe I'm reading the wrong blogs.[/QUOTE]When I think about hype it is more about what comes from the mouths at Marvel. Things like the 1 million copies ordered would still be higher than anything else in 2014 or most anything else at all in the last decade without the variants because the demand is there for a Marvel Star Wars comic and this will be the '77 volume all over again.

[QUOTE=cranger;828243]It started off around 50K, #1 was actually under ordered in its first month, and held on above 40K for at least the first 7 issues. When it ended at issue 20 it had 26K in sales. I think part of the reason for the drop off was due to the fact that the series was a lame duck. The other reason is because it was boring as watching paint dry. The same hindrance it had that Marvel will have is how do you tell an exciting, if not meaningful, story in that period? Can they avoid the trap of dragging out a single story over 5 or six issues? If they can't capture the attention of readers with something new each issue then people will just drop off like everything else.[/QUOTE]

They should focus on characters doing their own thing instead of the big 3 being always together.

[QUOTE=cranger;828339]When I think about hype it is more about what comes from the mouths at Marvel. Things like the 1 million copies ordered would still be higher than anything else in 2014 or most anything else at all in the last decade without the variants because the demand is there for a Marvel Star Wars comic and this will be the '77 volume all over again.[/QUOTE]

Aren't there 1 mil copies because they will be given out for free in Disneyland by Disney?

There's a yes and no answer to the OP's question. Yes, the book could be great, if the creative team stays strong and comes up with a good plotline.

No, to the extent that the book is playing it very conservatively and covering previously trodden ground. The problem with putting this book in the setting that it's in is that it's very low-risk. We already know what the ultimate fates of Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie, and Vader will be, so the tension in this book will by its nature be very limited. Yes, this book can do some gap-filling, but it's ultimately going to feel very unimportant.

Contrast this with Marvel's original series (which I didn't read) and Dark Horse's series (originally called "Star Wars," later "Star Wars: Republic") which were both coming out during the movies. At the time for both series, they were the only Star Wars available between films. If you wanted to know what your core characters were up to between movies, this was pretty much the only way to access them. I can't speak to Marvel, but Dark Horse's stuff did a nice job moving the story between Episodes II and III while still telling their own thing. During those three years, we saw stuff that eventually showed up in the films like the introduction of Grievous, the Episode III Clonetrooper armor, and Anakin's scar. From 1999 to 2005, Dark Horse did a great job of moving things along and you legitimately felt like you were moving towards Episode III.

With Marvel's current series--I will be surprised if interest lasts, because there's little at stake. It'll basically be finding stuff for the characters to do between Yavin and Hoth. In spite of Dark Horse's 2013 series (which people suspect was created specifically to try to keep the license with DH), Dark Horse had [U]already[/U] tried this from 2002 to 2008 with its [I]Star Wars: Rebellion[/I] series which was set before, during, and after Episode IV. It wasn't bad, but it had rotating creators and was always trying to find its voice in what a lot of fans already considered to be a "very crowded" period. (Before the Disney reboot, there was an absolute glut of stories set between Yavin and Hoth.)

One other thing Dark Horse did very well was to tell stories set away from the Luke-Leia-Han crowd and explore different aspects of the Star Wars Universe. Some of them stayed grounded in the familiar time periods--for example, John Ostrander had two series called [I]Agent of the Empire[/I] about a James Bond-type of Imperial Spy who occasionally bumped into Han Solo and Boba Fett. Good stuff, and it only touched upon the films just enough to remind you what universe you were in. Other stuff treaded into stuff well outside the familiar, like the [I]Dawn of the Jedi[/I] series which explored the origins of the Jedi and Sith, [I]Knights of the Old Republic[/I] which dabbled in the popular computer game, and [I]Legacy[/I] which looked at the galaxy 100 years after the films. (I know the old canon is out the window, but I cannot stress enough how awesome a story [I]Legacy[/I] was.)

I'm not overtly pining for Dark Horse to come back--they did great stuff, but their era is done thanks to marketing forces beyond their control. I bring them up to stress that they had a lot of creative freedom to do stuff that fanfiction writers only dream of. Marvel's stuff will--for now--be confined to a very "safe" era of storytelling which I fear will become pretty boring after awhile.

I think most of the hype is just coming from Marvel themselves in the way they act like these are the first new Star Wars comics to come along since their first series ended.

My favorite stuff from the Dark Horse era would definitely include Legacy, Dark Times, and Knights of the Old Republic. I also loved the Tales of the Jedi series. The entire Ulic Qel-Droma and Nomi Sunrider story from the first Tales of the Jedi mini series all the way through to the Redemption mini series is some pretty great stuff.

[QUOTE=resipsaloquitur;828879]Contrast this with Marvel's original series (which I didn't read)[/QUOTE]

Don't bother, it's incredibly mediocre.

[QUOTE=Zero Hunter;828998][b]I think most of the hype is just coming from Marvel themselves in the way they act like these are the first new Star Wars comics to come along since their first series ended.[/b]

My favorite stuff from the Dark Horse era would definitely include Legacy, Dark Times, and Knights of the Old Republic. I also loved the Tales of the Jedi series. The entire Ulic Qel-Droma and Nomi Sunrider story from the first Tales of the Jedi mini series all the way through to the Redemption mini series is some pretty great stuff.[/QUOTE]

This is something that gets on my nerves. I can accept that a new timeline has been formed and that the EU is not relevant to the new films, but the attitude that the new comics are the first in over three decades I find to be highly insulting.

I hope not. I want the star wars comics to be a success.

I read much-but-not-all of Marvel's stuff when Dark Horse reprinted it in the early 2000s. I hated it.

I won't completely knock it--obviously, somebody somewhere has a certain fondness for it. I'd guess the reason why is because, as I said, back in '78 it was the only Star Wars available between films. I did find much of it silly--the art was terrible in a lot of it, they kept going back to Tatooine, it took forever for them to get from "Empire" to "Jedi," and oh my goodness, Jaxxon. And "Jabba." And Leia as a lounge club singer. Oh, it was bad.

Part of the early stuff's problem is that the only Star Wars in existence was the three movies (and at earlier points, only one or two movies), so the creators were limited in what they could show. You keep going back to Tatooine because, well, Tatooine was the only planet we got a good look at in Episode IV. Or you could create new stuff, but it wasn't in the movies, so it didn't feel "right." It's hard to capture Lucas' vision when he only gave so much of it.

Dark Horse had a substantial advantage in later years in that [I]so much[/I] of the Expanded Universe had been developed by the 2000s. If Black Sun or Kyle Katarn showed up in a Dark Horse comic, that was OK because by then, the EU had become its own thing that still felt consistent with the 3 or 6 movies that we had. Heck, the EU and Dark Horse even borrowed from some of the old Marvel stuff. Dark Horse used "the Wheel" space station from one of the early comics and the Zeltrons in the [I]Legacy[/I] series, while Shira Brie became a major player in the "Legacy of the Force" novels.

The old Marvel stuff is best looked at for its historical value--the quality is questionable, but it had an influence in what came later. The Dark Horse stuff may have the same impact in future products. (Notably, Dark Horse gave us Aayla Secura and Quinlan Vos*, who were both used in the films/Clone Wars cartoon. It also gave us Darth Maul with robot legs, YMMV on that.)

* Ok, technically Vos was developed from a dude in the background in Episode I. So Vos' initial existence was really on film, but Dark Horse literally [I]took some random dude in the background[/I] and made him into one of their most compelling characters.

No. At least not the ones in production (or soon to be in production.)

variant speculators are ruining the casual fan experience.