Marvel Will Reprint Dark Horse STAR WARS Comics Via “Epic Collections”

By Adam Holmes on Wednesday, August 27th, 2014

Marvel may be the new Star Wars comic storytellers starting next year, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to get your hands on the classic Dark Horse stories anymore. Sometime in April 2015, Marvel will reprint a collection of Dark Horse Star Wars stories. Titled The Empire Vol. 1, this collection will focus on the early years of The Empire post-Revenge of the Sith. Stories in this first volume include “STAR WARS: REPUBLIC 78-80, STAR WARS: PURGE 1, STAR WARS: PURGE — SECONDS TO DIE 1, STAR WARS: PURGE — THE HIDDEN BLADE 1, STAR WARS: PURGE — THE TYRANT’S FIST 1-2, STAR WARS: DARTH VADER AND THE LOST COMMAND 1-5 and STAR WARS: DARK TIMES 1-5.”

As with every story from the previous Expanded Universe, this collection is labeled with the Legends banner, meaning it is not canonical to the Star Wars mythos. Regardless, Marvel doesn’t plan on stopping with one volume of Dark Horse tales. According to Marvel SVP of Sales & Marketing David Gabriel, Marvel has plans to rerelease more collections featuring the “adventures of the Rebellion, the Galactic Empire and more to the masses.”

We’ll be bouncing around to different periods of Star Wars history with each Epic Collection, constructing one huge tapestry, collecting full unbroken runs of all the greatestStar Wars comics from the past 35 years.

These stories may no longer be canon, but I’m glad Marvel isn’t brushing them under the rug as if they never existed. After all, Dark Horse reprinted old Marvel Star Wars stories from the ’70s and ’80s. Dark Horse had a decades-long run with Star Wars, and while not everything they published was gold, they still played a crucial role in building on the Expanded Universe. Good on Marvel to acknowledge that these stories have importance, although I wouldn’t expect every Dark Horse story to be reprinted. That being said, there will be hell to pay if I don’t get the more recent Darth Vader miniseries reprinted. If you haven’t read Ghost Prison, you’re missing out!