Last month Dark Horse held a digital "farewell" sale for all its Star Wars comics. Come January, Star Wars comics would officially become Marvel's domain, and with it more than two decades of tales from a galaxy far, far away would be wiped away in order to make room for new stories that would count as official Star Wars canon.
Or so we thought. Turns out in addition to publishing new, in-continuity Star Wars tales, Marvel also gained the rights to republish the Dark Horse stories as well.
Some of those comics are currently available for purchase over on Comixology, but nowhere will you find the Dark Horse logo. Instead, it's been replaced with Marvel's own, as if the entertainment giant has always been the sole publisher of Star Wars comics like The Thrawn Trilogy, Shadows of the Empire and Knights of the Old Republic. Marvel will begin reprinting some of the expanded universe stories in collected format later this year. Even if the stories are no longer official canon, they still provide some great character moments and flesh out the history of the Republic in ways that were at the time exciting.
Sure, there was plenty of dumb stuff too, like Darth Maul getting robot legs (which somehow did become official canon) or an army of Emperor Palpatine clones. But for every bad story there were plenty of good ones.
Now the great assimilation (to borrow from another "Star" franchise) is complete. A new generation of Star Wars and comic book fans will grow up none the wiser to the fact that Marvel (and parent company Disney) didn't always own the rights to Star Wars.
Marvel is playing it safe this first year by releasing comics that take place during the Original Trilogy and star all the classic Star Wars characters. One would assume Marvel will branch out and cover more aspects of the Star Wars universe in the coming years, ranging from the prequels to the new trilogy, but for now those wanting for something out of the ordinary will just have to re-read their favorite Dark Horse stories.
The time has finally come for us all to accept that the Dark Horse chapter of Star Wars has come to a close, and now the era of the Entertainment Empire begins.
