SDCC: Marvel doing Princess Leia miniseries, Darth Vader and Star Wars ongoings

Marvel’s Cup O’ Joe panel tackled Star Wars first thing, but several sites were up just ahead: Newsarama and Coffee with Kenobi. There’s a new Star Wars ongoing, along with Darth Vader and Princess Leia showcases. StarWars.com has an article – with interviews and preview pages – up now as well.

Star Wars will be a ongoing monthly written by Jason Aaron with art from John Cassaday. It will begin two weeks after A New Hope, per the panel. Another monthly, Star Wars: Darth Vader will be from writer Kieron Gillen and artist Salvador Larroca, and sounds like it may be dealing with a chunk of underworld types as well, though Gillen says the “push and pull between Vader and the Emperor is at the heart of the book.” Both ongoings will begin in January.

Come March, Mark Waid is writing the Princess Leia mini-series, with art by Terry Dodson, also set after ANH – although it does sound like it might have flashbacks of her time on Alderaan, which is something we haven’t seen done before. Here’s some detail, which doesn’t support the flashback theory we had earlier, but IS something we haven’t really seen done in the Legends EU:

…Our story is about Leia not long after the end of Episode IV deciding, “Well, as the princess, there are still responsibilities that fall to me, like making contact with any stray Alderaanians out there who may not know what happened. It is my job as princess to deliver the bad news. It is my job to bring those who survived by being in other places, together. It is my job to help preserve some sort of cultural heritage of my people, so that everything my planet stood for and everything my people stood for doesn’t get forgotten.” So it’s a five-issue story [arc] that takes her across the galaxy in search of others of her kind to try and pull them together.

I totally don’t find that interesting because of my suspicions that some version of ‘New Alderaan’ is going to play into Episode VII. Not at all.

Jordan D. White is editing all three titles for Marvel. And yes kids, these will all be considered canon.

UPDATE: USA Today interviews Waid, Aaron, and Gillen. CBR also talks to all three writers.

Tweets below the cut, per usual.

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SDCC: Del Rey announces Asajj Ventress and Quinlan Vos novel by Christie Golden

delrey-asajj

Killing two birds with one stone, Del Rey has annouced a new novel starring Asajj Ventress and Quinlan Vos for next summer. Christie Golden is writing, but it’s based on unaired scripts from The Clone Wars S7, a storyline scripted with George Lucas. It will deal with some very “adult themes,” though probably not the sexy kind.

Meanwhile, comic fans, Pablo said that we can expect to hear from Marvel about their Star Wars plans at their Cup O’ Joe panel on Saturday (2:45 PDT/5:45 EDT.)

Dan Brooks once again live-blogged at StarWars.com, and TFN has audio. Head below the cut to see the tweets – some interesting things were said about the state of canon and the Legends label.

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Out this week: Del Rey sampler, Son of Dathomir #3

del-rey-samplerWell, now that we’ve got had our first look at a new/old upcoming comic, let’s see what you can actually pick up this week…

Today, send your eBook reader of choice to your eBook retailer of choice to download the free sampler containing previews of all four of Del Rey’s announced upcoming books. It gives us our first look at John Jackson Miller’s A New Dawn, James Luceno’s Tarkin, Kevin Hearne’s Heir to the Jedi and Paul Kemp’s Lords of the Sith. I skimmed it last night, and let’s just say that ‘underwhelmed’ seems to be the word of the day…

Meanwhile, comic readers will have Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir #3, the second-to-last issue, waiting for them on Wednesday.

Rebels takes the lead for Star Wars at SDCC

star-wars-rebels-sdcc-20141The Rebels panel is the highlight of SDCC for Star Wars fans, StarWars.com revealed this afternoon.

Producers Dave Filoni and Simon Kinberg, as well as most of the main cast, will be at ‘The Heroes of Star Wars Rebels‘ on Thursday at 6:00 p.m.. There’s rampant speculation that the villain’s voice (as rumored…) will be revealed, but as of yet that’s it… Hell, I’d settle for an actual release date at this point.

Episode VII is sitting it out yet again, but the rest of the slate includes a dedicated book panel (2:00 p.m. Friday) with John Jackson Miller, Shelly Shapiro, Frank Parisi, Jennifer Heddle , Pablo Hidalgo, Vanessa Marshall and Dave Filoni. Hopefully they reveal some books beyond the four we know about…

J.W. Rinzler is also moderating panels on Star Wars Storyboards (with Joe Johnston on Friday at 11:00 a.m.) and kid’s book The Adventures of Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight (with author Tony DiTerlizzi n Friday at 3:00 p.m.)

Get an early look at Miller’s A New Dawn at SDCC

a-new-dawn-sdcc-cropDel Rey will be holding giveaways for special (paperback) advance editions of John Jackson Miller’s A New Dawn, the first of the new canon novels, at San Diego Comic-Con next month. Miller will also be on hand for signings.

The special edition of the book will also contain excerpts of the other forthcoming novels that have been announced so far: Tarkin, Heir to the Jedi, and Lords of the Sith.

A New Dawn will be out in hardcover/eBook on September 2, followed by James Luceno’s Tarkin on November 4.

Extended blurb for Hearne’s Heir to the Jedi

hearne-luke-heirStar Wars Books UK spotted a longer, more detailed blurb for Kevin Hearne’s Heir to the Jedi on Amazon UK:

The Galactic Civil War rages on after the destruction of the Death Star and Luke Skywalker struggles to learn more about the Force without the aid of Obi-Wan Kenobi – or indeed without any aid at all. But the few memories he has of Obi-Wan’s instruction point the way to a stronger control of the Force, and he is encouraged to pursue it by a new friend in the Alliance. When Luke, R2-D2 and his new ally are tasked with liberating a valuable asset from the Empire and delivering her to a safe planet where she can aid the Alliance, their journey across the galaxy is fraught with peril – and opportunities for Luke to discover the mysteries of the Force.

This is our second blurb for the book. Originally contracted and announced as the third Empire and Rebellion novel, it’s now part of the first wave of fully canon novels. Heir to the Jedi is scheduled for a January release.