This will come as a surprise to pretty much no one after the announcement that Disney had purchased the rights to the Star Wars franchise, but it seems that the comics are moving over to Marvel (also owned by the House of Mouse) in 2014.
According to reliable Disney blog Blue Sky Disney, there will be no new contracts signed with Dark Horse Comics once their current contract expires in 2013.
“One of the things that many people wondered after Disney bought Lucasfilm was how long will this relationship continue” Honor Hunter writes for the blog. “Especially since the Mouse owns Marvel, the largest comics publisher in the world. Well, it appears we now have the answer. The Suits in the know have determined that no new contracts will be given to Dark Horse after the current ones expire. So all new projects after 2013 will be handled internally by Marvel.”
Dark Horse have been producing Star Wars comics since 1991 after purchasing the rights from Marvel.
Hunter continues, “It’s not known yet if titles will be worked into the regular line up, or will Marvel create a special branch of the company that deals with Star Wars. It’ll take a couple of years for the old deals to work [their] course, but the stories that Dark Horse have coming down the pipeline will be the last.”
“And you can expect anything new from Marvel dealing with Star Wars to arrive around 2015.”
Seems like the perfect year to start the comic proceedings wouldn’t you say? It might be a stretch to imagine Spider-Man teaming up with Luke Skywalker, but you could bet your mortgage there will be some movie tie-in comics.
Originally published December 20, 2012. Updated April 10, 2018.
