Disney have been on a buying spree the past few years, first snapping up Marvel Comics and all their ensuing properties, and recently offering George Lucas a frankly ludicrous sum to get control of the Star Wars franchise out of his sweaty, midichlorian-soaked hands. Since then fanboys and girls have been speculating as to whether Disney's impressive portfolio of fictional characters will ever crossover, inspiring one of the best scenes from the most recent series of sitcom Parks & Recreation. We're still no closer to a Donald/Howard The Duck team-up film but we do finally have news of a new series of Star Wars comics to be published by Marvel. Hooray! Up until the Disney deal Dark Horse had published a Sarlacc Pit's worth of Star Wars comics that elaborated on the Expanded Universe that was also built through spin-off novels, video games and TV shows. All that's been struck from the canon now, however, and in its place - amongst other things - are the three onoging comic books by Marvel. First up is the straight Star Wars title that will be written by Thor's Jason Aaron and drawn by John Cassaday, which will take place between the first two films and see our heroes tangling with Darth Vader and his Imperial pals. From the looks of it, though, the real action will be in the two other series, which occupy a similar place on the fictional timeline. Kieron Gillen and Salvador Larroca partner up for a Darth Vader comic that explores what the Dark Lord Of The Sith got up to after the first Death Star got blown up and he was sent careening off into the stratosphere, spinning wildly in his TIE fighter. Gillen has also recently been tapped to pen a Angela solo book, based off the newly introduced Thor character. The final of the trio of books to be announced was Mark Waid (woah that guy's busy) and Terry Dodson's Princess Leia. Which is pretty interesting, because you'd think the obvious route would be a Han Solo or even Luke Skywalker solo series - but nope, Leia gets the spotlight for once, and we're rather interested in seeing what she does with it. This five issue miniseries follows in March, with Star Wars dropping in January and Darth Vader the month after. That all seems so far, far away...
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
