Marvel Special Edition Featuring Star Wars #1

History

The underlying adaptation was scripted by Roy Thomas and drawn by Howard Chaykin, working from an early draft of George Lucas's screenplay before the film had been completed. Stan Lee had initially declined the Star Wars licensing proposal brought to Marvel by Lucasfilm publicist Charles Lippincott, but Thomas personally championed the project and arranged a second meeting in 1976 that secured Lee's approval — reportedly clinched when Lee learned that Alec Guinness was involved. The treasury-edition reprint followed quickly on the heels of the original issues' explosive commercial success: the first 60-page Special Edition, collecting Star Wars #1–3, appeared in mid-1977 with Archie Goodwin serving as consulting editor-in-chief and cover art produced by Rick Hoberg (pencils) and Dave Cockrum (inks), an attribution later confirmed directly by Hoberg. The issue was issued in both a standard Marvel edition and a Whitman variant distinguished by the Whitman 'W' logo in place of the standard distributor logo.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Collects Star Wars (Marvel, 1977 series) #1–3 in an oversized 10×14-inch treasury format, reprinting the first half of Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin's six-part film adaptation.
• Written by Roy Thomas; penciled by Howard Chaykin; inked by Steve Leialoha; consulting editor Archie Goodwin — the same core creative team as the original single issues.
• Cover penciled by Rick Hoberg and inked by Dave Cockrum; the composition is an homage to the theatrical poster for the 1977 film. The attribution was confirmed by Rick Hoberg himself in 2015.
• Published in two simultaneous variants: a standard Marvel Comics edition and a Whitman Publishing edition identifiable by the Whitman 'W' logo replacing the Curtis/Marvel distributor branding.
• Preserves the deleted Biggs Darklighter scenes — set at Anchorhead/Toshi Station on Tatooine — that were cut from the film's final release print and were not widely seen again until the 2011 Blu-ray.
• Contains the chapter featuring 'Jabba the Hut' (one 't') depicted as a bipedal humanoid alien, because George Lucas had not yet designed the character's final look and could supply no reference art to the Marvel team, leading Chaykin to improvise a design from a background figure on set.
• Includes supplementary material not found in the standard single issues: black-and-white film stills, a cast-and-crew listing from the movie, a pin-up of the Rebel heroes, and a cover gallery of the original Star Wars #1–3 covers.
• The story content adapted from the original screenplay predates the final film and contains details — dialogue variations, visual differences in characters like Tarkin and the lightsaber colors — that reflect the script's state before post-production changes locked Lucas's final vision.

Cast · 15 characters

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