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.
In other words: They’re covering the same old ground they did in the 70s. Bravo. Really: Bravo. Never change a system that used to more or less run 35 years ago…
The one thing that’s interesting is that they want to tie these series together a little. One story, two perspectives, etc. That, at least, might be worth reading. But all in all this is the least creative way ever to get going again.