10 Surprisingly Good Licensed Comic Books

Star Wars is the granddaddy of most modern fandom, and there have been Star Wars comics as long as there have been movies. The franchise initially belonged to Marvel, but after the adventures of Luke and his friends would fall out of fashion in the late eighties and early nineties, the licence would ultimately end up at Dark Horse.

Once George Lucas decided that all Star Wars products would belong to a single shared narrative, every comic gained significance. Only a few would genuinely have lasting repercussions, such as Dark Empire, as most would do little more than flesh out background characters and events from the films.

The publisher would scrap all existing titles and start afresh to celebrate the franchise being at Dark Horse for 15 years. The first of these new titles was Star Wars: Legacy, a story set 3000 years after the battle of Endor. This time it would star Cade Skywalker, who was not only closer in character to Han than Luke, he had turned his back on his legacy - even going so far as to use drugs to block his connection to the Force.

This story was both far enough removed from the continuity that it could do anything it liked and break the rules as it saw fit. Further still, it also allowed it to cherry-pick the best pieces from the various points in the franchises history and use them in interesting new ways, such as the Yuuzhan Vong.