The Darth Vader comic will end with #25, Marvel announced at IGN today. The ongoing by writer Kieron Gillen and artist Salvador Larroca debuted with the company’s 2015 relaunch of the Star Wars comic line.
“It was a situation where, you know, we’ve always said all the way through, from Darth Vader #1, that this was a story with a beginning, a middle and an end,” Gillen said. “And we kind of looked where we were after Vader Down, and we realized we were probably actually nearer to the end than we thought we were.”
Marvel has three ongoing Star Wars titles at the moment, with Star Wars and Poe Dameron (which replaced Kanan) being the other two. The end of Vader means we’ll likely see another soon.
You’ll never believe what’s on the comic shipping list for Wednesday… It’s the much-delayed C-3PO special, which tells the story behind his red arm in The Force Awakens. Less surprisingly, Darth Vader #19.
Also now available is the free eBook sampler from Del Rey, which contains an excerpt of Claudia Gray’s May 3 novel Bloodline and several short stories.
Out in paperback on Tuesday is Aftermath by Chuck Wendig, the first of the new canon novels to take place after Return of the Jedi. I gave it a B+ back when it first came out, and the sequel is out in July.
On Wednesday, comic fans will be able to get their hands on Darth Vader #18.
Today brings the paperback of Christie Golden’s Dark Disciple, the only novel (so far) based on unproduced scripts from The Clone Wars. And on Wednesday, there’s Darth Vader #17 at the comic shops.
A new story arc begins in this week’s only new release, Darth Vader #16, out Wednesday.
On the book front, February is a bust, and March brings only the paperbacks of Christie Golden’s Dark Disciple and Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath.
Our next new novel is out May 3, and we just got a cover and excerpt for it last week: Claudia Gray’s Bloodline. It’s the first post-Return of the Jedi novel to focus on one of the big 3 in the new canon.
Just over a year out from launch, IGN interviews Jordan D. White, who’s in charge of Star Wars at Marvel Comics, about the line – including why they all began in the same time period at first – and what’s coming up in the future.
On why they chose Poe Dameron for the line’s first The Force Awakens ongoing:
Ideally, a miniseries tells a very specific, self-contained story. “Here’s this event.” You know, “Here’s the time when Lando tried to steal the Emperor’s yacht.” “Here’s the story of how Princess Leia dealt with the destruction of Alderaan in conjunction with her place in the Rebellion.” And then once it’s finished, it’s finished. If we were to, as some people have suggested, talk about turning that into an ongoing, it would be, “Well, okay, now we need to come up with a totally different story and direction for it to go in, because that is done.” Whereas as ongoing series, again, you want to come up with something that can generate story after story.
When you look at the main characters of The Force Awakens — all of whom are super awesome, by the way — Poe is definitely the one whose previous stories are adventure stories.
He also teases upcoming miniseries, “some that are going to surprise people” and “some that people are not going to be expecting.”
His Jar Jar idea – which remains vague, just in case – isn’t going to happen “any time soon.” But there’s stuff in the pipeline for “fans of every era of Star Wars.”
The article also previews some interior art from Darth Vader #16.
On Wednesday, the Vader Down storyline wraps up in Star Wars #14 and Darth Vader #15. There’s also the second Darth Vader collection, Shadows and Secrets, in trade… And although it shipped last week, Obi-wan & Anakin #1 was actually supposed to go out this week, so if your comic shop got the memo you may not have been able to find it on sale.
In other book release news, Del Rey officially announced today that Claudia Gray’s New Republic: Bloodlines and Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath: Life Debt have both been pushed back two months each. (Something that’s been reflected on our book release schedule for a while now.) Bloodlines is now due out May 3, and Life Debt on July 19. They’re our next two new novels, though there are a handful of paperback rereleases in the meantime, including the first Aftermath on March 29.
Just over a year out from launch, 
