Both Marvel Comics and Dark Horse have had their respective runs with the Star Wars franchise for many years at this point. Marvel kicked things off in the early days before the license was given to Dark Horse, but that all changed when Disney acquired the franchise and gave the property to its subsidiary.
Now that things have come full circle, it's a great time to analyze the strengths of both the Marvel and Dark Horse Star Wars comics and what both brought to the overall franchise. Neither side was perfect, but both deserve recognition.
10 Marvel Was First
It's hard to deny the impact that early Marvel Star Wars comics had on the franchise. For nearly ten years, Marvel waved the franchise flag with an impressive 107 issues that not only kept Star Wars alive in the hearts and minds of the public after the movies had ended, but may have staved off its own bankruptcy.
Indeed, things were going sour for Marvel at the time, and the injection of sales from Star Wars comics helped the company find solid footing again. How ironic that the two would be inextricably paired via Disney in the years to come.
9 Dark Horse Re-Energized The Comics
Although Marvel had done an impressive job with Star Wars, the lack of source material meant that stories were starting to get stale. When the torch was passed to Dark Horse in 1991, they immediately knocked it out of the park with the post-ROTJ story Dark Empire. From there, Dark Horse took to working alongside new canonized (at the time) source material from the Star Wars novels which quickly grew in popularity.
Dark Horse adapted several of those stories in comic book form which turned out to be a bonus for fans of the series. In essence, Dark Horse's claim on the franchise came at precisely the right time in Star Wars history when fans were clamoring for new material that expanded on a galaxy far, far away.
8 Marvel's S-Canon Stories
Early Marvel Star Wars comics explored material that is now considered to be S-Canon, which is a reference to "Secondary Canon." This class of canon wasn't particularly interested in maintaining continuity (as many works of the late 70s/early 80s can attest) which meant that authors had relatively free reign to do as they pleased.
As such, the original Marvel comics are by and large ignored as official canon, especially in the wake of George Lucas's controversial Star Wars Special Editions, not to mention the prequels. That being said, it was an exciting time for fans who had (literally) nothing else to go on for over a decade.
7 Dark Horse Adopted C-Canon Stories
By contrast, Dark Horse focused more on C-Canon stories, which are generally considered to be more faithful to the franchise bible (though not entirely). Much of their work consisted of adapting novels by notable authors Timothy Zahn, Alan Dean Foster, and Kevin J. Anderson.
At the time, these were all considered official canon by LucasFilm, and therefore true to form. Certain elements such as planet names like Coruscant would even make it into the films as 100% established. Dark Horse enjoyed the fruits of the Star Wars expanded universe before Disney retconned them back into Legends status with the acquisition of the franchise.
6 Marvel's Artwork Is Superior
Dark Horse and Marvel both had some seriously talented artists sketching their panels, but Marvel's is in a league entirely its own. This is especially true in the new age of Star Wars canonized comics that follow Disney's creative direction. It's hard to find a Star Wars comic coming out of Marvel that isn't spectacular to behold.
Stories with notably amazing art include the Darth Vader series which continues to be a monumental hit. Dark Horse is no slouch either, especially their adaptation of George Lucas's original 1974 screenplay The Star Wars, but Marvel has them beat by a slight edge.
5 Dark Horse Had Better Stories
New Marvel Star Wars comics are playing within a relatively narrow field in comparison to the wild west of 1990s canon. As such, its stories aren't as interesting overall when compared to the Dark Horse run. Once again, it's important to note that Dark Horse was adapting new source material literally hot from the presses while injecting its own creative stories into the mix.
By contrast, Marvel has had to play largely outside of Expanded Universe (ie: Legends) material in favor of a rather rigid bible. Many of its stories are spent trying to retcon glaring oversights from the feature films, while struggling to break out with inventive new material.
4 Marvel Had Better Vader Stories
While not perfect, Marvel's treatment of Darth Vader has been relatively spectacular from the start. Vader is such an iconic figure for Star Wars fans, and there's plenty of room to tell interesting stories about his post-ROTS birth and rise to prominence as a Dark Lord of the Sith.
Multiple stories have expanded on Vader's frightening powers and abilities which now run alongside material from TV shows, video games, and follow-up movies like Rogue One. The only major missteps (and they are big) involve any plot threads having to deal with character inconsistencies (ie: Vader recognizing C-3PO).
3 Dark Horse Had Better Maul Stories
Dark Horse set the bar when it came to stories about Darth Maul, and fans took notice very quickly. The Son of Dathomir series is considered to be the pinnacle of storytelling regarding the character and brought back all the elements required for an excellent Star Wars story.
Other works such as Death Sentence would drop at the right time, running parallel with events taking place on the Clone Wars animated series. Marvel would pick up the character of Maul when the rights were transferred, but Dark Horse kicked the character off in a big way, which probably had a lot to do with his longevity throughout both The Clone Wars and the Rebels animated follow-up series.
2 Marvel Follows New Canon
Love it or hate it, Marvel Star Wars follows official canon for the first time, and it's hard to imagine the license transferring to another company any time soon. With Disney owning both Star Wars and Marvel, the company can keep things in-house when it comes to churning out comics.
There are signs of trouble, however, especially if the recent rumors regarding an ideological division between LucasFilm alum Kathleen Kennedy and Mandalorian showrunner Jon Favreau prove to be true. Fans have not taken kindly to the former, while Favreau recently came out and said that he stands behind traditional fans who felt disenfranchised with Disney's initial handling of Star Wars. How that affects the comics remains to be seen, but one thing is for certain - Marvel will work hand-in-hand with the top brass for the foreseeable future.
1 Dark Horse Focused On Legends Canon
Disney's acquisition of Star Wars hasn't met with the best of results, and that's putting it mildly. The decision to exorcise Expanded Universe material from canon caused a major uproar among decades-long Star Wars fans who felt the material was far better and more easily adaptable into a series of feature films. Disney has succeeded with films like Rogue One and TV shows like The Mandalorian, but the failure of the mainstream sequel trilogy has Disney on edge.
Dark Horse focused heavily on adapting Legends material for their comics, and fans embraced it wholesale. It's not hard to see why, especially when one examines the strength of stories like Heir to the Empire, the Jedi Academy trilogy, and more. Many elements and characters from these stories (such as Grand Admiral Thrawn) have been adapted into Disney's official canon, but Dark Horse really brought it to the forefront. Much of the material is now out of date, but it resonates just as strongly with fans.
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