Star Wars Legends: Tales of the Jedi Omnibus #[nn]

History

The Tales of the Jedi stories, originally published by Dark Horse Comics starting in October 1993, grew out of Tom Veitch's long-held concept — dating to at least 1988 — of telling a Star Wars story set 4,000 years before the films; Lucasfilm approved the project, giving Veitch and his collaborators wide latitude to imagine a mythic Star Wars past. Kevin J. Anderson joined as co-writer with the Dark Lords of the Sith arc (1994–95) and went on to complete the series as sole writer through Redemption (1998), with the two authors' storylines dovetailing because Anderson was simultaneously writing his Jedi Academy Trilogy novels featuring Exar Kun's lingering spirit. The Dawn of the Jedi series came decades later: Dark Horse's vice president of publishing Randy Stradley had lobbied for an origins-of-the-Jedi story since at least 2003, but it wasn't until Celebration V in August 2010 that John Ostrander and Jan Duursema — the creative team behind Star Wars: Legacy — formally announced the project, which debuted in February 2012 and concluded in March 2014, just before Marvel reclaimed the Star Wars comics license in 2015. Marvel's 2024 omnibus marks the first time either series has been collected in Marvel's oversized hardcover omnibus format.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Published by Marvel Comics on July 30, 2024, as a single hardcover omnibus (ISBN 978-1302953959 for the standard cover; ISBN 978-1302953966 for the direct-market Dave Dorman variant cover).
• Collects the entirety of both the Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi series (Force Storm #1–5, Prisoner of Bogan #1–5, Force War #1–5, and #0) and the Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi series across all eight story arcs — Golden Age of the Sith #0–5, Fall of the Sith Empire #1–5, Tales of the Jedi #1–5, Freedon Nadd Uprising #1–2, Dark Lords of the Sith #1–6, The Sith War #1–6, and Redemption #1–5 — plus material from Star Wars Tales #23 and Dark Horse Comics #7–9.
• Primary writers are John Ostrander (Dawn of the Jedi) and Tom Veitch and Kevin J. Anderson (Tales of the Jedi); the principal penciller for Dawn of the Jedi is Jan Duursema, while Tales of the Jedi featured a rotating roster including Chris Gossett, Dario Carrasco Jr., Janine Johnston, David Roach, and others.
• The Tales of the Jedi stories introduced key Legends characters including Ulic Qel-Droma, Nomi Sunrider, Exar Kun, Naga Sadow, Freedon Nadd, and the siblings Gav and Jori Daragon, all of whom became foundational figures across the broader Old Republic era of Expanded Universe fiction.
• Dawn of the Jedi is set approximately 25,793 BBY — nearly 26,000 years before A New Hope — making it the earliest-set work in the Star Wars Legends continuity; it introduced the Je'daii Order on the planet Tython and depicted a pre-Republic era before the light and dark sides of the Force had become fully polarized.
• Dawn of the Jedi ended after three arcs because Marvel acquired the Star Wars comics license in 2015, cutting the series short before Ostrander and Duursema could tell additional stories they had planned.
• The Tales of the Jedi comics were a significant influence on the Knights of the Old Republic video game series (BioWare, 2003), which is set roughly forty years after the Great Sith War depicted in those stories and draws directly on their characters, locations, and lore.
• Both series were declared part of the non-canon 'Legends' continuity in April 2014 following Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm, though some world-building from Dawn of the Jedi (such as Tython being depicted as formerly oceanic) was later echoed in the canonical streaming series The Book of Boba Fett (2021–2022).

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Variants (1)