Star Wars Comics

I've been enjoying Legacy too. I tend to wait for all the issues of a story arc (or the trade paperback) before reading them. I see it more as more of an adventure serial rather than an epic story arc, so I don't have such high expectations.

If you can stand the prequel era setting, you might enjoy the first half of the Star Wars: Republic run before it gets into the Clone Wars. The Legacy writer and artist did some story arcs and you can see some similar elements in both series (Quinlan Vos, for example). The are some decent writers involved although the quality varies from arc to arc. The Quinlan Vos, Aayla Secura, Sharad Hett and A'Sharad Hett storylines are pretty good. Aayla Secura was created for the comics and made it into the prequels after George saw one of the covers with her.

xhonzi said:

 

Am I missing anything?

 The original Marvel "Star Wars."

100+ underratted issues of just sheer swashbuckling fun.

I'm a big fan of the Marvel comics as well. :) But I grew up with them in the house. Not owning the movies, it was nice to pick up and read the comics when I wanted a Star Wars fix. The most interesting thing about the Marvel new hope adaption is that it includes all the scenes missing from the films cinematic release. Including Lukes dialogue with Biggs and Jabbas extortion attempt with Solo in the hanger. (Although Jabba is portrayed as an alien seen in the background in New Hope, forget what it's supposed to be called, looked like a pugdog with a mustache.)

The Marvel comics are cool. There's plenty dumb stuff but overall they're more in tune with the old OT mentality than EU stuff (comics or otherwise) from more recent times are. Shira Brie is cooler than Mara Jade.

The Legacy comic is well done but it's not really very Star Wars and it's VERY comic-booky. The Knights of the Old Republic comic is good. I don't see what's wrong the sidekick character in that. It's a good-natured comic. Generally I think a lot of Dark Horses's comics have been overrated. Dark Empire was pretty mediocre and didn't capture the characters at all. Dark Empire II at least had good art. Tales of the Jedi had a good overall story idea but wasn't well done. The Republic comics, set in the PT era have some good stuff and some bad. The problem with them is they're following the movies' lead in portrayal of the jedi and then taking it even farther, so the jedi come off self-important, pious, self-righteous and false. Even Quinlan Vos does a bit. The Vos character from there caught Lucas's attention and nearly appeared in ROTS (he did get mentioned by Kenobi) and it's speculated that he's going to appear in the live action show. Lucas decreed that he shouldn't be killed off in the comic when the jedi are getting offed by the clones. Aayla Secura from that comic was put in two of the prequels and gets a death scene in ROTS.

One of the best Star Wars comics from Dark Horse was a one-shot called A Valetine story or something like that. It was in the Heart of the Rebellion tpb. It has Leia and Han on Hoth and it really captures the essence of the characters. The character portrayal is better than most comics and is animate.

xhonzi said:

I read all of Dark Horse's Tales of the Jedi series when it ran from 1994 to 1998.  I really dug the series at first, but felt that it diminished over time (a factor of the amount of KJA involvement, I'm sure).  Still, these are probably my favorite SW comics.

I also really liked (85-90%) of the first Dark Empire series, found Dark Empire II to have some great ideas and some terrible ones, and thought Empire's End was just plain terrible.

Then I didn't read any Star Wars comics until Legacy started coming out.  I first came into contact with Legacy in an animated web-ad for Star Wars miniatures.  Is anyone else reading these?  There's 40 or so issues out, and it's been very good so far, IMO.  The only problem I have is that there were 30 issues when I started reading them a year ago and I saw the series as starting out really strongly and having lots of potential.  (I was at issue six or seven, so there were 23 issues just sitting there waiting for me to read them.)  Now that I'm all but caught up, I still feel like the series has a lot of potential, but that it's not necessarily any closer to actually delivering on it.  Perhaps that has to do with the serialized nature of a monthly comic vs a 6 issue limited run or a movie or something.  Still, it has been a breath of fresh-air for this SW fan who had learned to stop reading the books and was trying to "unlearn what I had learned 1999-2005."

I recently picked up Rogue Squadron Omnibuses 1 and 2.  I've heard those are good.

I don't like Dark Times, which I've read I think a little more than half of.  I had to read a pair of issues from Rebellion while reading Legacy (the Vector crossover).  It seemed alright.  Vector started with 4 issues in Knights of the Old Republic, which I couldn't stand.  I had heard that this series was good, so I was surprised that I didn't like it more than I did.  The sidekick character gives Jar Jar a run for his "Worst Star Wars character with no redeeming qualities" award.

I never read the PT comics.  I think I sat down at Barnes and Noble with one once, but found it to have the PT taint all over it.

Am I missing anything?

Tales of the Jedi had a good overall storyline but the execution wasn't that good. Rogue Squadron is crap. Bland as hell. Legacy is good but not very Star Wars. Dark Times has some good and some bad. Knights of the Old Republic is good. I don't see what's so bad about any of its sidekick characters. Rebellion/Empire is kind of bland and can have a revisionist take on the OT period. There are various other Star Wars comics, but I can't list them all. Go to wookieepedia and look up "list of comics" if you want to find out what Star Wars comics there have been.

Anyway, Dark Horse Star Wars comics is just the come-lately stuff. The comics of the OT era, the true Star Wars eu, are the Marvel comics.

xhonzi said:

Back to the Marvel comics... are these collected somewhere?  My googling says "no."  And my magic 8 ball says "Ask again later."

Yes, there's a series of trade paperbacks called Classic Star Wars: Along Time Ago. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Classic_Star_Wars:_A_Long_Time_Ago...

Vaderisnothayden said:

xhonzi said:

Back to the Marvel comics... are these collected somewhere?  My googling says "no."  And my magic 8 ball says "Ask again later."

Yes, there's a series of trade paperbacks called Classic Star Wars: Along Time Ago. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Classic_Star_Wars:_A_Long_Time_Ago...

 And they rule!!!

Yeah. :D

Dark horse is about to start reprinting all the marvel stuff in the omnibus series, including obscure stuff that didn't get reprinted the first time, like marvel UK stories.

xhonzi said:

Vaderisnothayden said:

xhonzi said:

Original post *snip*

Tales of the Jedi had a good overall storyline but the execution wasn't that good. Rogue Squadron is crap. Bland as hell. Legacy is good but not very Star Wars. Dark Times has some good and some bad. Knights of the Old Republic is good. I don't see what's so bad about any of its sidekick characters. Rebellion/Empire is kind of bland and can have a revisionist take on the OT period. There are various other Star Wars comics, but I can't list them all. Go to wookieepedia and look up "list of comics" if you want to find out what Star Wars comics there have been.

Anyway, Dark Horse Star Wars comics is just the come-lately stuff. The comics of the OT era, the true Star Wars eu, are the Marvel comics.

 Lolz.  Isn't this the same response you gave me back in November?  Waaaaaay back in post #6.

Well, at least you are consistent.  :)

 Oh. Right.

xhonzi said:

TheBoost said:

Vaderisnothayden said:

Yes, there's a series of trade paperbacks called Classic Star Wars: Along Time Ago. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Classic_Star_Wars:_A_Long_Time_Ago...

 And they rule!!!

 Ouch!  That first volume is really expensive!  Everything else seems to be available at reasonable prices.

 

Well the new omnibus volume that's out in June should have everything that's in that volume at a lower price (except maybe the covers).

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Omnibus:_A_Long_Time_Ago..._Volume_1

I don't like the way the omnibuses are shrunk down and don't have all the covers. 

Glad to hear they're rereleasing the Marvel comics again. I wanted to check them out, but the price on the TPBs from less than 10 years ago were getting steep.

Krakatoa is a scary name. I keep expecting a volcanic eruption.

Various Marvel comics got the spirit of the movies right rather better than the overrated newspaper strips.

Personally I don't care about George being unhappy with stuff, seeing as he seems to have been unhappy with the OOT too.

The planned Marvel Dark Empire came after Marvel's main run was over. A Marvel Dark Empire would have been a different animal from the main Marvel comics we know, not necessarily sharing their virtues (which were very tied to their time period). And we can't be sure what it would have been like exactly, because we only saw the Dark Horse version.

As for the Vong, Marvel's idea was just another alien invasion story, not the first Marvel had. It wasn't an endless series of novels and general bullshit like the NJO series ended up being.

The Marvel stuff can't be just categorized all one way. The material varied immensely over the years. Some was more intelligent and some was dumber, but I certainly don't see that newspaper strip was any better in that area. The Marvel stuff was certainly more in tune with the spirit of Star Wars than the 90s eu and Dark Horse stuff. That Marvel didn't fit in with story that Lucas would reveal later doesn't bother me, because I don't have much respect for the story Lucas revealed later. I think it's only reasonable that they include the Marvel stuff in their canon, considering they've included so much modern shit and the Marvels are truer to the Spirit of Star Wars.