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Star Wars Episode IV – A New Hope & Expanded Universe Stories (0 BBY – 3 ABY)

The Crushing Comics Guide to Star Wars – your guide to watching, reading, and collecting Star Wars Expanded Universe canon films, TV shows, novels, and comic books. Last updated April 2017 with titles scheduled for release through December 2016.

The film A New Hope occurs in 0 BBY, starting with the capture of Princess Leia by Darth Vader. This period of canon stories continues through the Empire’s rise and rule through 3 ABY, when the Empire attacks the Rebel base on Hoth.

Note that some short stories, comic strips, young readers adaptations and activity books, and web browser games have been omitted from this order.

Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope and its adaptations

Blu-Ray: Steelbook, Star Wars Trilogy Episodes IV-VI (Blu-Ray/DVD), Star Wars: The Complete Saga (Episodes I-VI)

DVD: DVD, Limited Edition DVD, Star Wars Trilogy Episodes IV-VI (Blu-Ray/DVD), Star Wars: The Complete Saga (Episodes I-VI)

Novel by George Lucas (ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster) (hardcover / paperback / digital)

Young Readers: A New Hope: The Princess, the Scoundrel, and the Farm Boy by Alexandra Bracken

Comic: Star Wars Episode IV – A New Hope (hardcover / paperback)
A recolored modernization of the original Star Wars (1977) #1-6 comic adaptation from Marvel.

Photo Comic: Star Wars Episode IV – A New Hope Photo Comic (2008)
A comic adaptation of the film using film stills rather than illustrations.

Graphic Novel: Star Wars: The Original Trilogy – A Graphic Novel (2016)
A graphic novel adaptation of the canon story of all three of the original trilogy of films in the style of Disney animation [Read more…] about Star Wars Episode IV – A New Hope & Expanded Universe Stories (0 BBY – 3 ABY)

Star Wars – The Rebellion, Expanded Universe Stories between Episodes III and IV (~6 BBY – 0 BBY)

There is no exact placement of the beginning of this period, but for the purposes of this guide it begins between 7 and 5 BBY, concurrent to the beginning of the Star Wars: Rebels TV show. For ease of organization, it also includes some Rebels prologue material that could be placed in the prior section. This period continues through Rogue One, whose prologue is in 13 BBY and which ends in 0 BBY just prior to the opening frames of A New Hope.

Note that some short stories, comic strips, young readers adaptations and activity books, and web browser games have been omitted from this order.

The Rebellion era canon story order

Junior Readers: Servants of the Empire: Edge of the Galaxy

Novel: Battlefront: Twilight Company (hardcover / paperback / digital) is set from 6 BBY through the end of Return of the Jedi in 3 ABY.

TV: Star Wars Rebels Season 1 (Blu-Ray / DVD). Episodes 1-2 were released as movie titled “Spark of Rebellion”

Click to expand a list of Young Readers novels and adaptations set during Season 1

Epilogues from the Kanan comic issues #6 and #12 occur during Rebels Season 1.

TV: Star Wars Rebels Season 2 (Blu-Ray / DVD)

TV: Star Wars Rebels Season 3

TV: Star Wars Rebels Season 4 [Read more…] about Star Wars – The Rebellion, Expanded Universe Stories between Episodes III and IV (~6 BBY – 0 BBY)

Star Wars Expanded Universe Comics (2015 – present) – Collecting Guide & Reading Order

Updated Dec 24, 2024! The guide to collecting Star Wars Expanded Universe comic books, the current in-canon comic books released by Marvel. Find omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback in reading order. Part of Crushing Krisis’s Guide to Collecting Star Wars Comics. Last updated August 2024 with titles scheduled for release through June 2025.

Marvel regained the license to print Star Wars comics in 2015 and launched the new Extended Universe with a big bang in the first weeks of 2015 – twin Star Wars and Darth Vader series set between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. Both series were critical and commercial hits.

Marvel’s focus remained mostly on comics set just before and after A New Hope expanding on the adventures of the familiar cast of the original trilogies, to which they added Kanan – The Last Padawan, a prequels-era series that stretched in The Clone Wars. Then, in the weeks leading up to The Force Awakens, Marvel breached a new period of continuity with Shattered Empire – the first comic in the new canon set after the original trilogy!

After The Force Awakens, Marvel began to spread out into other periods, with Poe Dameron further extending the decades after Return of the Jedi and series set earlier in Darth Vader’s time as a Sith Lord – still, all set within the time bounds of the film series.
[Read more…] about Star Wars Expanded Universe Comics (2015 – present) – Collecting Guide & Reading Order

Star Wars Legends Comics – The Old Expanded Universe by Marvel Comics and Dark Horse Comics

Updated Dec 24, 2024! The guide to collecting Star Wars Legends – the old Expanded Universe – comic books by Marvel and Dark Horse. Find every omnibus, Epic collection, hardcover, and trade paperback in reading order. Part of Crushing Comic’s Guide to Star Wars. Last updated August 2024 with titles scheduled for release through March 2025.

These 30 years of comics were removed from canon (along with nearly everything else that wasn’t a film or TV show) in 2014 when LucasFilms announced the impending Episode VII and the move of their comics license to Disney sibling Marvel Comics.

That means these stories have all been rendered out-of-continuity to the current Star Wars universe. Compared to current canon, these stories range from alternate retellings to complete fiction, much as we regard children’s stories and fairy tales.

However, just because these Star Wars Legends stories are no longer in continuity it doesn’t mean they are not worth reading. They include a massive 25-year effort to maintain an interconnect, cross-media canon that began nearly a decade before The Phantom Menance and stretched all the way through the announcement of the sequel trilogy!

Along the way, these comics – combined with other Expanded Universe works like novels, video games, and magazines – defined centuries of Star Wars canon (including the original Old Republic!), introduced memorable characters (like Thrawn and Mara Jade), and filled in deeper layers of tragedy and drama of the rise and fall of the Empire that the films alone could not construct.

These stories were once collected comprehensively and in impressively-detailed reading order by Dark Horse Comics in a set of paperback Omnibuses. When Disney moved the Star Wars license back to Marvel Comics in 2015, Marvel began to repeat that methodology (with some tweaks) into their own Epic Collection format.

Marvel’s Epic Collections are broken across the broad, identifiable eras of Expanded Universe continuity. While they largely maintain the Dark Horse Omnibus reading orders, they have made some tweaks to placement both for continuity and to maintain the relative parity in the length of their books.

With a dwindling amount of Epic Collections left to release, in 2022 Marvel pivoted into recollecting the Expanded Universe a second time – now into hefty oversize hardcover omnibus editions.

Many thanks to Kurtis from The Epic Marvel Podcast for his aid in some of the continuity and contents of books covered by this page!

The 2015 Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot Results (and, what’s been printed?)

April 21, 2017 by krisis

With voting open for the 5th Annual Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot, I’ve spent a lot of time talking about the 2016 secret ballot results, but that was the fourth year of the survey!

Last year I devoted just one summary post to what got printed and what disappeared, but to this point the only place to read the full results of prior ballots was to dig through dozens of message board posts.

Today and over the weekend, I’m going to work backwards through the results of the first three years of the ballot. There were 52 books on the 2015 ballot results due to a pair of ties. How many of those books have we seen printed since then?

Of 52 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibuses of 2015…

7 of 52 (13.5%) omnibuses were printed in 2016

Doctor Strange, Vol. 1, Master of Kung-Fu, Vol. 1, War of Kings, Avengers West Coast, Vol. 3 AKA by John Byrne, Spider-Man (1990) by Todd McFarlane, Captain America, Vol. 2, and Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, Vol. 1

10 of 52 (19.2%) additional omnibuses have been solicited to date

The 7 above, plus in 2017 Amazing Spider-Man, Vol. 3, Alpha Flight by John Byrne, Amazing Spider-Man by David Michelinie, Thor, Vol. 3, Daredevil, Vol. 1, Avengers by Jonathan Hickman, Vol. 1, Daredevil by Mark Waid (Vol. 1), X-Force, Vol. 2 (as Deadpool & X-Force), 27. Realm of Kings, Journey Into Mystery by Kieron Gillen

That means 17 (32.6%) of all 2015 Most Wanted Marvel Omnibuses have been printed as Omnibuses! But, what about the proposed material hitting other formats? [Read more…] about The 2015 Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot Results (and, what’s been printed?)