Star Wars Comics Part 2: The Early Dark Horse Run (1991-1994)

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well for a Wednesday. I'm back for the second part in my look at the early Star Wars comic books. This final part takes us into the 90's when Dark Horse Comics got the license to publish Star Wars comics. I'm only looking at the first few years of Dark Horse's line as they published Star Wars comics long enough that looking at 23 years worth of Star Wars comics would get way too complicated. So let's take a look at the beginnings of Dark Horse's Star Wars run. Let's get into it.

Published on December 12th, 1991, Dark Empire #1 was the first issue published by Dark Horse. Having originally been pitched to Marvel in the late 80's, following the end of Marvel's original run that began in 1977, as I covered last time, it wasn't until Dark Horse got the license that Dark Empire got published.

Unlike the Marvel line of Star Wars comics, which had one ongoing monthly series, with a couple of other monthly series near the end, Dark Horse chose a different approach. Instead of a singular ongoing monthly series, Dark Horse chose to produce several limited series or miniseries. Dark Empire ended in October, 1992 with issue #6.

While Bantam Spectra had embraced their publishing program following the release of Heir to the Empire in 1991, Dark Horse was actually slow in greenlighting more Star Wars comics in the wake of Dark Empire's success. In fact, it wasn't until October, 1993 that the first issue of the next Star Wars series, Tales of the Jedi, was published. Even though George Lucas had prohibited other writers to tell stories set before the events of Star Wars (1977), particularly ones set during the Clone Wars, as he was seriously considering making the Prequel Trilogy movies, and he didn't want the stories being told in the novels and comics to hinder the story he wanted to tell in the movies. However he did allow Tom Veitch to tell stories set thousands of years before the events of the original movie, during the height of the Jedi Knights and the Old Republic.

After issue #5 Tom Veitch finished telling his original story in the Tales of the Jedi series. Also, by then, it was 1994 and George Lucas had not only announced that he was returning Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi to theatres in 1997, but that he was also starting to work on the first movie in the Prequel Trilogy.

Early in 1994, a new Star Wars comic book series began publication. The comics were still in prequel territory, and this series was more like a Marvel series, as it was focused on R2-D2 and C-3PO as the original Droids comic book series had been. Unlike that series though, this series was completely original and had no ties to the 1985 cartoon series, it was even set about ten years after the cartoon. 

The series ended with issue #6. I think one of the reasons that Dark Horse wasn't as quick to publish more Star Wars comics following the success of Dark Empire is that George Lucas became more hands on with the publishing side of things, particularly the comics, so he had to approve everything thanks to the resurrected Emperor plotline. As I said it was almost a full year following the release of Dark Empire #6 when Tales of the Jedi #1 was published. I also think it has to do with the fact that Dark Horse was a much smaller publisher in the late 80's and early 90's as it had only started in February, 1986. 

Plus, Star Wars comics aren't that well known outside of the fandom, particularly in 1991-1994, when things like, Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn, The Death of Superman, The Infinity Gauntlet, and Batman: Knightfall were happening at DC and Marvel. Not to mention the first round of publications from Image Comics were coming out as well, like Spawn, Youngblood, The Savage Dragon, WildC.A.T.S., ShadowHawk, and CyberForce. So between George's more hands on approach, the competition from other companies, and the fact that Dark Horse was publishing the Star Wars comics instead of DC or Marvel, there were many factors that were part of why there were no Star Wars comics published for almost a year following the release of Dark Empire #6.

While Droids was in the middle of its run, Veitch continued his Tales of the Jedi series, with a two issue arc called The Freedon Nadd Uprising. One of the reasons I think Tales of the Jedi wasn't an ongoing monthly series is it allows the writers to choose how long their stories would be. If a story only takes two issues to tell, then the story would only take two issues to tell. But, if the story needed six issues to be told, then it could be six issues. It also separates the arcs out, as the publisher wasn't having to worry about the numbering. The first issue of the arc was also part 1 of the story and that's it. None of that insanity of part 1 of Knightfall being published in Batman #492 the way comic books had been doing it for decades by this point. 

The next Tales of the Jedi series to be published by Dark Horse was Dark Lords of the Sith, which was written once again by Veitch, but he had a co-writer in Kevin J. Anderson, the author of the Jedi Academy Trilogy novels, which were also coming out at this time. Anderson was collaborating with Veitch on this series because it tied into Anderson's novels, by telling Exar Kun's story that the novels had only just scratched the surface of.

 The final issue came out in March, 1995. I don't remember if Anderson continued with the series after this arc, but this was the end of the initial series featuring Exar Kun.

To wrap up 1994, Dark Horse published the first issue of the sequel to Dark Empire, Dark Empire II. As I mentioned in my overview of the Dark Empire Trilogy, this sequel felt almost unnecessary given that Luke and Leia had defeated the resurrected Emperor in Dark Empire #6, which had been published a little more than two years before the first issue of Dark Empire II was published, as this issue was published in December, 1994, while Dark Empire #6 had been published in October, 1992. I can't find anything on the history of Dark Empire II, as Wookieepedia doesn't have any behind the scenes information on the comic, and I don't have any issues of The Lucasfilm Fan Club Magazine/Star Wars Insider that might cover it in their comic book section, "Straight from the Horse's Mouth" as it was called at the time. 

 The final issue of Dark Empire II, issue #6, was published in May, 1995. Again, Dark Horse's strategy works well for the Star Wars comics. Particularly the ones being published in the early to mid 90's, when Dark Horse was just getting started with publishing Star Wars comics. More comics would be published in 1995, and by the time the marketing campaign for Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace started in late 1998 and early 1999, Dark Horse was publishing alot of Star Wars comics, as they were not only involved in that marketing campaign since Episode I had several comic book tie-ins, including a four issue comic book adaptation of the movie, but they were also involved in crafting the story that would become The New Jedi Order novel series, starting with Vector Prime in 1999.

That's it for me for this week. I've got lots going on next week, so I don't know if I'm going to post anything yet. We'll see. Regardless, I have a few posts in mind for the next several weeks, though I won't reveal what those posts are just now. Also, don't forget that in two weeks I'm returning to The VHS Club podcast to discuss the history of VHS, our personal histories with the format, and VCRs. I'm really looking forward to it. But,  until then have a great rest of your week and a great weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.