Obviously, Marvel is famous for its huge range of comic book heroes, but it’s also, for a very long time, been the home of comic book adaptations of big TV and movie properties. Marvel was the official comic book home of The Transformers from 1984 through the early 90s; they published Star Trek comics from the late 70s to the early 80s and also in the late 90s. And the late 70s even saw them release comics based on Doctor Who. Even now, after the Disney/Fox acquisition, Marvel publishes comics based on beloved IPs they didn’t create – including recent series within the Alien and Predator franchises.
But the biggest Golden Goose Marvel has ever held the comic rights to is undoubtedly Star Wars. For ten years starting in 1977, Marvel Comics published over 100 issues of a Star Wars series that included adaptations of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. For the past decade or so, Marvel has been publishing in-canon new Star Wars stories, but back in April 1977, a full month before Star Wars hit theaters, Marvel’s adaptation gave the world some of the first images of the famous faraway galaxy heroes and villains. And yet, despite other Marvel properties crossing over in the 1970s and 1980s (Spider-Man hung out with the Transformers in the pages of Marvel comics), there’s never been a crossover between Marvel Comics characters and Star Wars characters. That is, until now.
