In April 1977 Marvel Comics released the first issue of their six part adaption of STAR WARS, a movie that was being released a month later and which none of us walking around in the Bronze age had ever heard anything about. A lot of folks say it came out with the movie’s release, some say it came out after, but it didn’t– I was there. One of my closest friends who bought and read comics was a sci-fi nut and he kept our group up on whatever was coming out that he was excited about, and I remember him talking about STAR WARS during April School Vacation in 1977. I flipped through the first issue as he excitedly talked about Luke Skywalker– I was drawn to the dark villain, Darth Vader, and I was curious how he was drinking what looked like a styrofoam cup of coffee with a fully masked helmet on.
My right minded friends and I laughed at this sequence, convinced that once again, like when he recommended we watch this great sci-fi show with him called DOCTOR WHO, that he was once again chasing a dog (this was the age of the big haired Doctor and cheap special effects). We used to taunt him by calling Star Trek “Star Track” which would give him fits. We were rotten kids.
It turns out the Marvel Comics, drawn by Howard Chaykin, were done by reading an early version of the script and working from stills provided by the movie company so it really wasn’t Howard’s fault that Vader was attempting to drink a cup of joe.
We saw the movie shortly after it opened and it had become a phenomenon, lines double wrapped around the theater and it was an absolute blockbuster. A few of my friends stuck with and enjoyed the Marvel Comics stories, I stayed with it through the adaption and even the next issue past, curious what would happen to the Star Wars crew in the next movie (if there was going to be a next movie, this was also the era of no guarantees for sequels) and I found the stories outside of the adaption to be a bit of a stretch, and I jumped ship when the giant Green Bunny made it’s appearance in STAR WARS #8.
Carmine Infantino took over the art with issue #11 with writer Archie Goodwin as the stories explored various areas of the Star Wars universe. It came back to the film franchise with #39 as the adaption of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK took over with amazing art by Al Williamson which ran through #44. Writer David Micheline and artist Walt Simonson took over with #51 and Ron Frenz became the regular artist with #71.
The series continued for several more years ending at #107.
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