Star Wars #4

History

The series was initiated when Marvel editor-in-chief Axel Alonso called writer Jason Aaron directly and asked a one-word question — 'Star Wars?' — and Aaron immediately accepted, stepping back from Amazing X-Men to make room on his schedule. Aaron and artist John Cassaday approached the assignment by asking themselves what it would have felt like to write the direct sequel to the original 1977 film, a philosophy that shaped the grounded, post-A New Hope setting of the 'Skywalker Strikes' arc that issue #4 continues. Colorist Laura Martin joined Cassaday on interior art throughout the arc. Aaron has since reflected publicly that the creative team was able to plant unusually large canonical stakes — including Vader's first awareness of Luke's identity — partly because the Disney-era Lucasfilm story pipeline was still being assembled at that moment, giving the book more latitude than it might have received had it launched later.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Published April 22, 2015 by Marvel Comics; written by Jason Aaron, with interior art by John Cassaday and colors by Laura Martin; cover by John Cassaday.
• Issue #4 is the fourth of six chapters in the 'Skywalker Strikes' story arc, the debut arc of Marvel's 2015 Star Wars ongoing series set canonically between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back.
• The issue runs three parallel plot threads: Luke traveling to Obi-Wan Kenobi's home on Tatooine; Darth Vader meeting with Jabba the Hutt (with Bib Fortuna present) to negotiate Imperial supply terms; and Boba Fett working Mos Eisley, questioning a Rodian contact and zeroing in on the name 'Kenobi' as a path to the pilot who destroyed the Death Star.
• This is Boba Fett's first appearance in the 2015 Marvel canon Star Wars series, introduced here as already acting on Vader's interest in identifying the Rebel responsible for destroying the Death Star, a hunt that will converge with Luke at Obi-Wan's hut in subsequent issues.
• The Vader–Jabba negotiation scene — in which Jabba tries to leverage the Empire's supply dependence and Vader flatly refuses to be intimidated — is a canonical expansion of the Imperial-crime-syndicate power dynamic only hinted at in the films.
• Luke's pilgrimage to Obi-Wan's Tatooine home, which begins in this issue, directly sets up the discovery of 'The Journals of Ben Kenobi,' a box inscribed 'For Luke,' a narrative device that Jason Aaron used to tell standalone Obi-Wan stories throughout his multi-year run on the title.
• The full 'Skywalker Strikes' arc, comprising issues #1–6 including this issue, was collected in the trade paperback Star Wars Vol. 1: Skywalker Strikes (ISBN 0-7851-9213-1).
• The 2015 Marvel Star Wars series, of which this is part, was the first Star Wars comic published as part of the unified Disney-era canon, replacing the previously separate Dark Horse Comics continuity which was rebranded as 'Legends.'

Cast · 13 characters

Full credits

Key issues in Star Wars

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#2 1st appearance — Chewbacca

Variants (9)