Category: books and comics

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Valentine’s Day mush besets Star Wars

Well. Valentine’s Day. If you’re like me, you’re going to spend a lot of time rolling your eyes at everything and anything today. (Speaking of! Going to be live on the Tosche Station podcast tonight! Talking about Marvel romance novels! Ranting is almost guaranteed!) Anyway, onto business:

See Wedge and Iella full size at SuvuduAt the Star Wars Blog, Jennifer Heddle writes a tribute to the original Star Wars couple, Han and Leia. Who isn’t pro Han and Leia these days? (We don’t want to know.)

Over at Suvudu, Tricia Barr takes a look at Star Wars power couples. Includes refreshingly not-overboard artwork of Wedge Antilles and Iella Wessiri from Chris Trevas!

And for those looking for a little less kissing, io9 presents the 7 greatest bromances in space. Obi-Wan and Anakin are repping for the Wars, which… Okay.

In a video for StarWars.com, Bonnie Burton looks at romance in a galaxy far far away, while Amy Ratcliffe has a look at fans who found love through the franchise.

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Roundup: Star Wars authors consider future movies, Ewan down with a return to the desert

X-Wing: Mercy KillPonders. Christian Blauvelt asks eight Star Wars authors (Drew Karpyshyn, Paul Kemp, Troy Denning, John Jackson Miller, James Luceno, Michael Reaves, Christie Golden and Aaron Allston) what they’d like to see in Episode VII and the other new films. Lots of love for the EU and female characters, naturally, which is more than I can say for most of the other wishlists that have been popping up daily.

Spin-offs. Ewan McGregor continues to voice his willingness to return as Obi-Wan. “I don’t know what he did in the desert,” he tells MTV. “We could make up some stuff.”

Superfans. Kevin Smith is (still) very excited. Though his casting for a young Han Solo is… the worst I’ve seen yet. Hopefully for the LULZ.

Video. J.J. Abrams D.I.C.E keynote speech.

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Calamari wishes and Carbonite dreams: Best #StarWars, #EpisodeVII and #SWEU tweets for Feb. 4-10

@wonderella: Disney's filling in the gaps in the Star Wars saga! Finally we'll see Han's adventures between Empire and Return of the Jedi.

Last week, we learned that Star Wars solo films are a real thing that’s actually happening, although no one has confirmed who they’ll actually feature…. But naturally Han Solo was trending for a while because, well, the internet. (Suck it, Boba Fett!) All that and the usual below the cut.

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Stradley reveals the origins of Legacy’s return

Legacy #2Comic Book Resources interviews Dark Horse’s Randy Stradley about their Star Wars line, Brian Woods’ eponymous series and the return of Legacy.

He hints that Wedge will be getting more facetime in the Woods’ series, and how the upcoming Darth Vader and the Ninth Assassin came about…

And of course, there’s Legacy, which apparently owes it’s return to the retailers asking for more. Stradley talks about why it’s going in a different direction than the original:

For one thing, I felt too many direct comparisons between creative teams would dilute fan enthusiasm for the series. I also felt that by the end of his arc, Cade Skywalker had become too involved with the movers and shakers within the galaxy. I couldn’t see where to take him. That’s when it struck me there had been no Solos in “Legacy.” What were the Solo descendents doing 140 years after “A New Hope?”

There’s more, of course, on Dawn of the Jedi and Dark Times: Fire Carrier… Plus Dark Horse still has “a huge announcement coming up in the next few weeks.”

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Fantasy Flight slips Mara Jade into Star Wars: The Card Game

tcg-mara-teaseLooking for some new Mara Jade artwork? Fantasy Flight Games slid a few image of Mara Jade into the base set of Star Wars: The Card Game, which came out in December. The game features artwork on all of the cards, ranging from concept art from Ralph McQuarrie to new artwork done for Fantasy Flight. While not directly named on any cards, Mara Jade makes her appearance as the Emperor’s Hand on two cards in the Sith deck sets for the Dark Side player.

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Hasbro’s new Mara Jade figure moves to Black Series

We were a tad worried about the latest Mara Jade figure when Hasbro cancelled the Droid Factory line, but the word out of Toy Fair today places her back among the upcoming releases – in the Black Series wave 2. It doesn’t appear she’s getting a size upgrade – the series will contain standard 3¾” figures as well as the new 6″ ones – just geared towards “collectors,” which I’m guessing means the figure will be even harder to find and cost more than it would have before. (Sigh.)

Thanks to @ASMzine and @Yakface for the heads-up and answering my not-a-collector questions, and Jedi News for their liveblog, which confirmed that the figure is the Fan’s Choice version we saw last year.

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Roundup: Will Episode VII feature a Lord of the Rings transplant as the big bad?

John Noble in FringeActors. An Australian DJ (?!?) is claiming that John Noble will be playing the villain in Episode VII. You probably know Noble as Fringe’s Walter Bishop, or from Lord of the Rings, where he played Denethor, perhaps Middle-Earth’s least stable father figure. Like Walter Bishop, I have my skeptic face on.

Abrams alumni Keri Russell would be down for Star Wars, because once again, who’s going to say they don’t want to be in Star Wars?

And finally, Ewan McGregor doesn’t know anything about the new movies, but it seems like he’s still game. He’ll be talking about his new film, Jack and the Giant Slayer, on Ellen this Friday.

The once and future directors. HuffPo’s Mike Ryan has a great article exploring the Star Wars directors thus far. And at the Star Wars Blog, Bonnie Burton has the relevant quotes from her past interviews with J.J. Abrams.

Solo, solo. Hollywood.com’s Christian Blauvelt talks about casting (and writing) a younger Han Solo with Scoundrels author Timothy Zahn. Since the conversation naturally turns to casting Thrawn, Zahn spoke a bit more about casting his characters back on January’s book tour for Scoundrels.

Video. J.J. Abrams talks about Star Wars, Star Trek and the mystery box in a TED Talk from 2007. (via)

Money matters. George Lucas has filed to cash out his Disney stock – the 37,076,679 shares that were half the purchase price for Lucasfilm. (Note: The move doesn’t mean he has to or even will sell immediately, just that he can.) In any case, it was announced early on that Lucas would donate the company’s purchase price to fund “educational issues.”

Lists. Empire has nine characters who deserve a spin-off. They’re all dudes, naturally, but step over to Alyssa Rosenberg’s blog for five women who should be in Episode VII.

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EUbits: Crucible tweaks Han, Maul’s Lockdown gets a release date

One Han, Two Hans. New version is on the left.Adjustments. The Han on the Crucible cover got a slight tweak. (Why yes, it is a slow week for EU news!) The important thing is, the release date remains the same: July 9.

Street dates. Speaking of upcoming releases, pencil in Joe Schreiber’s Maul: Lockdown for a January 21, 2014 release. Not because we don’t believe it’s coming, but because this far out, dates are subject to change. And on that note, 2014 is now an actual thing on our release schedule. Meanwhile, if you don’t want to wait most of a year to read about Maul, Aaron Goins has a list of 7 tales you can check out right now.

Comics. Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman chat about their forthcoming Legacy: Prisoner of the Floating World at Geek of Oz.

Reviews. Over at Big Shiny Robot, James gets enthusiastic about the happenings in Agent of the Empire: Hard Targets #4 and Dark Times: Fire Carrier #1.