‘Star Wars’ Month — Marvel, Let Your Comic Books Get Weird

Long before Marvel Comics as a whole began to live there, their Star Wars line perfected dancing through the raindrops — finding a space within the movie canon that allowed them to tell new stories, without it mattering to the canon.

We’ve already seen numerous stories that were said to be “totally canon” contradicted by the films and shows. While they said they were canon, they never actually were and it’s understandable why. No way the feature production side of things is going to hamper themselves based on what was done in a comic book, a medium that is not comparable in size and scope to film in any fashion.

So, for this Star Wars Month Entry, I say screw the canon. It’s time for comic books to get weird and wild.

Back in 2015, the ongoing Star Wars series launch was a big time hit for Marvel. Coupled with ongoing series featuring Darth Vader and Poe Dameron, the sky was the limit. Various minis came out from other canon eras, and we even got to see multiple lengthy ongoing series starring original character Doctor Aphra, one of the breakouts from that aforementioned Darth Vader series.

What began with the likes of Jason Aaron, Kieron Gillen, Mark Waid, John Cassaday, Salvador Larocca, and Terry Dodson just continued to grow, changing creative and editorial hands many times.

Over the years there have been diminishing returns as the books keep restarting, and the main Star Wars series continues to dance between movies. Here at last, with the post-Star Wars: Return of the Jedi comics seemingly coming to an abrupt end, a perfect moment has arrived to wrap it up and go hog wild.

Forget trying to weave into canon since the canon will ignore the comics.

Writers should be allowed to play with various toys and eras, telling whatever stories they want, no matter how weird or bold they get. One of the things that Star Wars comics had going for them under Dark Horse was how much they deviated and played with things — comics set far in the future with new characters, ones set in alternate timelines, and so much more.

Give us our modern version of Jaxxon T. Tumperakki, the green bunny humanoid that isn’t a bunny who was part of Marvel’s old Star Wars comics.

We seemingly can’t get Mara Jade in the Lucasfilm offerings, various writers of in-canon novels have been told no. What better place to see her bad ass self-show up again than some comics books.

Let’s get some extended universe novels level of weird and wild here. Some clones that add in extra letters to a name to remind us that they are the evil clone. Nothing says evil like too many U’s showing up in a name. I’m looking at you, Luuke.

Star Wars is a property that has so much potential laying upon the table underserved and underutilized. Too much is built around the same Jedi and Sith and lightsaber heavy elements we’ve seen time-and-time again. Trust me, I love some lightsabers and Force stuff, but it’s the things that get off the beaten path that intrigue me even more.

Hell, give us a book where somehow the various characters of different eras end up in a space together on a mission. I don’t care how it’s explained really, as long as it’s fun.

Money on the table Marvel and Lucasfilm, what about an Absolute or Ultimate style Star Wars? A fresh clean slate to do whatever while utilizing the same characters, themes, and such but in crazy new ways.

Just think about it at this point. Because there’s bound to be a market for something that is a bit more unique, rather than just doing its best to avoid getting hit by boulder sized raindrops that’ll take it’s head off.

Ditch the anchor of canon and embrace freedom.

This is most certainly the way.