New Star Wars comic coming based on the original trilogy

My comic book reading days are mostly behind me, though I have picked up the occasional book from time to time (e.g. Y: The Last Man a few years back). I've never been interested in Dark Horse's Star Wars line of comics because, as far as I can tell, they always seem to be set in the prequel era or some other Expanded Universe setting that doesn't interest me at all.

But yesterday brought news that Dark Horse is introducing a new comic book in January, simply called Star Wars, which picks up the stories of the characters from the original trilogy immediately following the destruction of the first Death Star. From io9:

First off, what differentiates Star Wars from previous stories we've seen in the Expanded Universe? And why now for this series?

Randy Stradley: We — the Dark Horse editorial team and the folks at Lucas Books — felt that the time was right to rack focus back on the core characters of the Original Trilogy. It has been a few years since there had been any comics stories set in the era of the OT, as it's called, and the time was just right. Both we and Lucasfilm had ideas for how to return to the classic characters, and all told it took us about a year to work out a plan with which everyone was happy.

As for how this series is "different" from past entries in this time period, I guess the answer would be that we're trying very had to keep everything fresh — as if Episode IV had just come out in theaters. This is the Star Wars series for everyone who has loved the films, but has never delved into any of the comics or novels. There is no vast continuity that a reader needs to know beyond the events in A New Hope. This is the beginning of the adventures of Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie.

It sounds like a sort of relaunch of the old Marvel Star Wars--but probably without Jaxxon the giant green rabbit. If any Star Wars comic might appeal to me, this would be it.

io9: A First Look At The Brand New Comic Star Wars (With Darth Vader Illustrated By Alex Ross!)

Comments

[Will B]

The sounds excellent in principle! Would love to see something like the quality of the original Dark Empire series.