Disney Pulling 'Star Wars' Comic Title from Dark Horse

It was inevitable. Once Disney bought Lucasfilm, they started pulling their new properties in from the various publishers and distributors who supported and sold and continued the Star Wars world in fans eyes.  The first casualty was the Cartoon Network when Disney pulled Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

It seems to be the thing to do, even if it seems a bit cold, that Disney pull all the content under their own distribution channels.  And for any comic fan out there, you know that Dark Horse has treated the Star Wars franchise pretty good, keeping the fun alive.  And doing so for more than twenty years!

Now we've learned that Disney is pulling the 'Star Wars' comic title from Dark Horse Comics and by 2015, will house the printed entertainment under the Marvel Comics banner.  (Yes, Disney bought Marvel too. But you already knew that.)

This is probably going to make the Dark Horse titles fairly popular in collectors circles, and of course, will add a large boon to the cache of Marvel Comic titles out there.

To be honest, I'm bummed for Dark Horse.  But more than likely, this move will also free up the world of Star Wars to have more comic titles out there.  And as any Dark Horse fan knows, they've been pretty good about translating movies to comics.

As the press release in my inbox said,


"Our goal was to create sequels and prequels to the films we loved, paying careful attention to quality and detail, essentially treating those films as though they were our own. Star Wars has been the crown jewel of this approach. We began chasing the title as far back as 1989, and with the launch of Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy’s Dark Empire, a new era in comics was born."


And I bet my left...  well, I'll just go out on a limb and guess that pretty soon you'll be seeing Marvel Comic Star Wars titles that tie in with the new Star Wars films that Disney/Lucasfilm will be cranking out every few years now.  I'm guessing tie-ins, connecters between films and even prequel titles to the movies.

To be honest, if done right, prequel and filler comics can be a handy extra dimension to a movie.  When I had received prequel comics to the Bruce Willis starring movie, RED, it did add a whole new level of dimension to the movie because I knew things about the characters that were lightly referenced but not expounded upon... in the film.

So that's that... Disney will be distributing Star Wars comics under the Marvel Comics banner.

On the bright side, until Disney buys Microsoft, Dark Horse will be cranking out Halo titles, the first being Halo Escalation.

More about Dark Horse

Founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson, Dark Horse Comics has proven to be a solid example of how integrity and innovation can help broaden a unique storytelling medium and establish a small, homegrown company as an industry giant. The company is known for the progressive and creator-friendly atmosphere it provides for writers and artists. In addition to publishing comics from top talent such as Frank Miller, Mike Mignola, Neil Gaiman, Brian Wood, Gerard Way, Geof Darrow, Guillermo Del Toro and comics legends such as Will Eisner, Neal Adams, and Jim Steranko, Dark Horse has developed its own successful properties such as The Mask, Ghost, Captain Midnight, and X. Its successful line of comics, books, and products based on popular properties includes Star Wars, Mass Effect, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Aliens, Conan, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Halo, Serenity, The Legend of Zelda, Game of Thrones and Domo. Today Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent comic book publisher in the US and is recognized as one of the world’s leading publishers of both creator-owned content and licensed comics material.

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