Bantam gave it up, why not Dark Horse

Oh! What issues?

 

About Miller...Reaper beat me to it.

As for the main Q...No, DHC is obviously satisfying LFL who see no reason to cancel DHC's license.

Shipping problems aside DHC's product of the last 3 years is a step up from the 1999-2002 stuff which wasn't quite as good as the 1991-1999 period, but on the whole, it's all good.

Now if Marvel was to get the franchise they'd be an idealised reality courtesy of Darth Jaina before a few heroes remember the truth and defeat her but she utters the fateful words: No more Jedi... Whilst if DC got it their first act would be to have Pestage rape Mara and mind-wipe her...

JB

 

Taken from a creator site:

Duursema, Jan Pencil/Layout
Avengers (I) 369
The Incredible Hulk (II) 399 - 402
Magneto 0
Marvel Swimsuit Special 4
The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Hulk 2004 1
Professor Xavier and the X-Men 1 - 4, 6
Spider-Man Unlimited (I) 5
Star Wars 92
Uncanny X-Men 305
Wolverine: Knight of Terra 1
X-Factor (I) 91, 97, 99 - 104, 106, 108 - 111
X-Man 10
X-Men 2099 32 - 35
X-Men Unlimited (I) 2

Ink/Finishing
The Incredible Hulk (II) 399
Marvel Swimsuit Special 4
Spider-Man Unlimited (I) 5

Cover
The Incredible Hulk (II) 399
Marvel Swimsuit Special 3 - 4
Professor Xavier and the X-Men 1, 3 - 4, 6
Uncanny X-Men 305
Wolverine: Knight of Terra 1
X-Factor (I) 99, 101 - 104
X-Men 2099 33 - 34
X-Men Unlimited (I) 2

Feature
Magneto 0
Professor Xavier and the X-Men 2

 

Star Wars 92 = "The Dream" actually, this is a pretty good issue. It starts out with Luke having a dream/vision of his father, Yoda and Obi-Wan. It's found in the Marvel TPB #6.

 

Firstly, get back to your final studies! Secondly, why should it be given elsewhere? Dark Horse has produced multiple eras of the timeline and wide range of variegated talents. You cry like unweaned babies over an issue's week delay, when Aussies can wait up to 3 months for a book after you fairy folk. I've solved that problem, thankfully, but you want a new supplier unfamiliar with the demanding bawling of fandom, that this saber should be this colour, and that ship needs more dorsal bumps there?

If I can say 5/40 comics I didn't like, that says something.

 

Why change something that isn't broken? Dark Horse is doing just fine. From what I've noticed here in Lit, the posters tend to overall support the Dark Horse product more than what Del Rey has been producing. Dark Horse should keep it until they actually screw up the comics badly.

 

Having just done an interview with Jeremy where we discussed these very things:

Especially considering that DH seems to contimually create and then destroy their ongoings recently. Rougue Squadron, Tales, Empire, and Republic have all come to an end, what are the chances that KotOR, Rebellion and this new X-Wing series are gonna even last?

I'm not sure how this can be seen as "continually" creating and distroying ongoing series. (The "continually" and "recently" simply make no sense together, so I'll leave that be.)

The original XWRS was years ago, and was conceived as a series of mini-series, for lack of a better term (as Michael Stackpole and I discussed in a different interview earlier this year). All of Star Wars comic publishing from Dark Horse was confined to the concept of mini-series or mini-series with an overall title to tie them together until the creation of "Star Wars (Ongoing)," later known as "Star Wars: Republic" with the "Prelude to Rebellion" storyline back around 1998/1999. In that kind of format, barring "Republic," the notion of destroying ongoing series doesn't hold water.

In the more recent perspective, they'd split the "ongoing" concept into the more direct, continuous Republic starting with "Honor and Duty" and the more "mini-series within a larger series context" approach from earlier with Empire. (At least that's how they originally described it, rather than referring to it as simply launching a new Empire series.) In the meantime, Tales was ongoing, the Clone Wars Adventures books were ongoing, and then everything else was mini-series.

Of those four (Republic, Empire, Tales, and Clone Wars Adventures), one isn't ending anytime soon. Clone Wars Adventures will continue into 2006 for, I believe, at least two more issues.

For Republic, the end of the road was obvious. It followed the era of the Republic, leading us up through the aftermath of ROTS. That's not "destroying," but targeting a logical end.

That end, of course, was in large part due to a major relaunch of the DH SW line in 2006 for Dark Horse's anniversary. Republic is going away as it was meant to. KOTOR is emerging to bring stories that fans have seemed to have been clamoring for after the end of TOTJ ages ago and the launch of the KOTOR video game era.

As for Empire, all it's basically doing is swapping names and formats. It's becoming more like a mini-series, with a few issues released per year, then a hiatus, similar to a few other DH non-SW series. The stories are getting deeper, the storylines more impactful in such a chock-full era of storytelling, and the concept is simply being repackaged to note the format change by giving it a new title, Rebellion.

As for Tales, that came down to sheer numbers, but not sales numbers. The relaunch was coming. It was unlikely that Tales would get another year, thanks to the lackluster performance the last year or so under Land, which it hadn't been able to bounch back from under Barlow, at least not enough. The question then became trade paperbacks. Tales issues are collected by fours, one year per TPB. They could either go ahead with another year, forcing four more issues, some of which would butt heads with the massive relaunch or go ahead and end with a bang, giving it a (relatively) high level finish so it can slip aside to allow for the mainstream DH SW relaunch. If anything, it was the fans not rallying around the new Tales that "destroyed" the series chances for another year, but that decision was made in light of the good things to come, not out of a desire to kill Tales.

Remember: Just like Del Rey, Dark Horse is limited in the number of titles it can release each year, so that the market doesn't get oversaturated with SW materials. You wanted a new Boba Fett one-shot (Overkill)? You wanted more parody material, particularly out of Kevin Rubio, once Tales went away from parody material (Tag and Bink's new mini-series)? You wanted KOTOR era stories? *SOMETHING* had to go amid the relaunch.

But I guess you can't please all (any

 

Especially considering that DH seems to contimually create and then destroy their ongoings recently. Rougue Squadron, Tales, Empire, and Republic have all come to an end, what are the chances that KotOR, Rebellion and this new X-Wing series are gonna even last?

Vong Killer, do you call nearly 100 issues of Republic/Ongoing and years of it short?

 

Darkhorse editor Randy Stradley also did an issue of the Marvel series (wrote it) - #86 or 87 - the one with Leia and the stormtrooper.

 

Well I agree that the worst thing that could have happened was to have the license cancelled for WEG. Dark Horse has had its ups and down, but lately, there new line-up does not interest me enough to warrant buying there product. Also, over the last several months, I have not been overjoyed by there numerous delays. With video games becoming more and more fluid with storytelling interacting coupled with the improvement of graphics (X-BOX 360, and eventually Palystation 3) I don't know how long the star wars comics can really keep going on. I am also looking forward to the new star wars animation. After the success of the last ones, it appears that anything that can be animated and moves will be the next hot thing for star wars.

 

Dark Horse actually just had their license renewed a year or two ago because they made the best pitch to LFL, plain and simple.

And while I am one of the most vocal anti-Randy people around here for his horrible schedule keeping, the comics themselves are usually great (aside from the first dozen or so Empire issues). Hell, it looks they they FINALLY took my suggestion and are going to build a series around Sunber, which I suggested back when he first appeared. Add in KotoR and whatever Jan & John are working on and I'm perfectly happy.




Besides, when Marvel had the Star Trek license, Mr. Spock met Wolverine in a crossover, so no thanks.

 

Besides, when Marvel had the Star Trek license, Mr. Spock met Wolverine in a crossover, so no thanks.

They did the same with the Transformers license...

Spidey vs. Megatron?

It happened!

 

[image=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v325/ReaperFett/McCoy.jpg]

 

Gah!! I'd forgotten about that crossover!

Damn you all for bringing that back!

 

My favourite:

[image=http://image.milehighcomics.com/istore/images/fullsize/65960402534.1.DIRECT.GIF]

 

It's not as if DH hasn't had some dumb crossovers...




And read the comment at the bottom, it makes it even better

 

*dies laughing*

 

[image=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v325/ReaperFett/COMIC20superman20versus20muhammad20.jpg]

 

Oh my....

NO!!! Never!! No Crossovers!

Anyway, GL will NEVER allow it.

 

Too late!

 

I couldn't be happier with the way Dark Horse has handled the license, and I see no reason for them to give it up.

One of the great things about having been reading their Star Wars comics for so long is the level of trust that I feel in them. They have yet to let me down completely, though I have of course liked some books more than others.

 

No No and NO! No crossovers in star wars. I'll stay with the bad scheduling but I don't want Palpatine to meet Magneto. Never!!!!!!! For what it is worth, Dark Horse really does produce very good comic books that give worthyness to the star wars name. Most important, they have been consistent. Besides LucasArts (20 some years of video games), only Dark Horse has had the license for quite a while and it has been succesful.


Nathan-I hope your right about the Clone War Adventure Digests. I really like those. We know there is going to be a 5th book coming out in April, I really am hoping that they plan a 6th one. I love those. Nice compliment to the Clone Wars Cartoons from Genndy. My favorite stuff from all the clone wars. I have in my library both the two dvds that were released and the 4 digest together. The one thing that I will say is that if Dark Horse can come with this good content for the animation, imagine what they will do when the new animation comes out in 2007. I'm excited on this part.

 

With the Republic and Empire series both coming to a close, looking ahead at what Dark HOrse has in store is extremely disapointing. KOTOR is the only thing that "might" be ok and I'm not sure I'm very interested in that series unless the old republic series starts connecting to the movies in some sort of way, maybe someone will stuble across the prophecy at some point that would be awesome for KOTOR III.......

But back to the point... Other than that what do we have to go with? Rogue Leader? CLone Adventures? Tag and Bink? These are illustrated childrens stories their pushing on us because they're out of ideas. And DON'T even bring up the upcoming Darth Vader one shooter "Purge" because thats an idea from last summer when Dark Horse was still cooking and also way behind about three months behind in their Republic series if I recall.

So yes I agree if Dark Horse can't come up with quality ideas anymore than they should step aside,other than KOTOR and maybe Rebellion which we haven't even been showed so much as a peek, if you like childrens books I guess the next few months be bearable.

 

>>"unless the old republic series starts connecting to the movies in some sort of way"<<

Why does it need to connect to the movies? It's still Star Wars, even when it doesn't have X-wings and Rebel crests and familiar faces and all that. Rather they let the EU expand and grow itself nowadays, rather than remain shackled to these 6 - enjoyable, yes, EU standard, no - films that everyone seems to treat with some holy respect.