By Joshua H. Stulman 

“May The Fourth Be With You!” May 4th has become a defacto celebration of everything Star Wars. This is mainly due to the pun derivative of the Star Wars greeting “May the Force Be With You!” But actually the phrase is very appropriate for May because May was the traditional month that all of the original Star Wars movies were released. After the Disney purchase of the franchise, they moved the date of the new Star Wars trilogy to the more lucrative Christmas season. 

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In honor of May the Fourth, we are releasing some great gems from our vast Star Wars collection! 

For Comics, we have some vintage Star Wars comics from the original Marvel series that ran from 1977-1985. 

Star Wars fans have former Marvel Editor In Chief and writer Roy Thomas to thank for convincing Stan Lee to do the Star Wars book to begin with. As the story goes, a young George Lucas was looking to get a comic book adaptation of his yet to be released Star Wars movie.  Thomas set up a meeting with Lucas and Stan Lee. Not knowing who Lucas was, Stan Lee kept the director waiting for over an hour while finishing up some office work. 

Roy Thomas served as the writer for the 6 part adaptation but the book was so popular that Thomas was allowed to continue to tell the story after the destruction of the Death Star. Thomas continued the adventures with artist Howard Chaykin that saw Han Solo attempt to resolve his debt with Jabba, as well as Leia’s continued leadership in the Rebellion. 

Legendary DC artist Carmine Infantino (Flash, Batman) became the regular artist shortly after and drew the early adventures all the way up to the Empire Strikes Back adaptation (#39-44). 

After the release of Empire Strikes Back , Marvel hired Walt Simonson and later Ron Frenz who had a more realistic rendering style. These stories focused on parts of Leia and Lando’s quest to find Han Solo. 

Although George Lucas tightly controlled the story content, writer/editor Ann Nocenti was allowed to tell the story of Leia and Luke’s  attempt to restore the Republic after Return Of The Jedi. These issues are perhaps the most interesting because they introduce new villains including Darth Vader’s Sith apprentice as well as the return of Boba Fett and other Mandalorians. These stories ran from #81-107. Issues 100 to 107 are considered harder to find as less of these were produced nearing the cancellation of the series in 1985. 

Please feel free to check out our great selection of Star Wars Vintage Action Figures and Comics! CLICK HERE

Joshua H. Stulman

Owner, BrooklynComicShop