Believe it or not, we’re nearing the end of the titles that received one vote in my Final ’90s Countdown survey! (And again, that’s no comment on the quality of the books, but rather the available variety of beloved comics people voted for.)
Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi (Dark Horse, 1993-1994)
The first thing that surprised me when I started doing my research on this title was just how few of them there were, and how short of a run they had. The first mini-series, Tales of the Jedi but later referred to as Knights of the Old Republic, ran five issues from ’93 to ’94. Then there were another half dozen or so mini-series, ending with Tales of the Jedi: Redemption in 1998. In my memory, it always felt like there was so much more than that, probably because I’m recalling the many times at the old job having to sift through the section and restock missing issues.
Anyway, I’m presuming the then-impending release of Episode I: The Phantom Menace may have put a minor kibosh on Extended Universe material dealing with the history of the Star Wars Universe. Or they just had the story they wanted to tell and it was told. I hear that happens too, sometimes.
Now a small problem here is while I did read some of the comics, I think this was about the time I began to realize that there was just no way I was going to be able to keep up with all the narrative Star Wars material. Look, I was eight when the original Star Wars came out, I sat in theater seats for multiple showing, I was all-in on this weird space thing. And as Star Wars books and comics an’ such came out, I did my best to keep up with all of them. (Though even the Marvel comics I kinda faltered on, later completing a run as an adult.)
But with this then-new renaissance of Star Wars material, with the new novels and comics and such, I kept up with everything.
Until I didn’t. And Tales of the Jedi was one of the breaking points. (X-Wing Squadron, too, come to think of it.) It wasn’t a matter of quality or anything, it was more a matter of just time and money. I couldn’t read everything, and I certainly couldn’t afford everything, so cuts were made. And TOTJ, which was okay but didn’t involve the characters I knew from the films, got the cut.
As such, it’s been a while since I’ve read it, and very little of the comics’ contents remain in my brain. I can tell you, thanks to my careful and diligent research, that the titles take place during two significant events in the Star Wars Universe: the Hyperspace War and the Sith War, which were thousands of years prior to the Original Film Trilogy. And these were written by Tom Veitch and Kevin J. Anderson, and as such I’m sure they were fine.
A lot of the Extended Universe material was…rejiggered slightly once Lucasfilm started doing new Star Wars content again. (Look up “Jaster Mereel” and how that was thrown into flux once we met Jango Fett in the films.) The TOTJ material had at least the advantage of being set so far back in time that even the prequels didn’t overlap much, though (again, not having read them in a very long time) I suspect what we learn of the Sith in the movies may contradict what we learn of them in these comics.
It’s pretty much moot at this point, as with the purchase by Disney, any Extended Universe material previously published has since been relegated to non-canon “Legends” status. Dark Horse even followed up these books with stories set even further back in Star Wars history: multiple minis of Dawn of the Jedi, taking place 35,000 years before the Original Trilogy. After the third series, Marvel acquired the Star Wars license, with a new canon “historical” series of books and comics under the banner of “High Republic” being released. These were set a more modest 100 to 500 years before the Original Trilogy.
Like I said, I started to fall off reading the ancillary Star Wars material with TOTJ, and that’s continued on ’til today, to the point where I only read the occasional SW thing. I tried to start with the new Disney-era novels, but decided “no, I already did this once, not again.” As such, I don’t know much of the TOTJ material has filtered into newer Star Wars releases. I’ve often lamented “if Young Mike knew that there were Star Wars characters Old Mike knew nothing about, he’d be very disappointed.”
At any rate, all the Tales of the Jedi series got their own individual paperbacks, as well as two omnibus trades, from Dark Horse. And from Marvel, the entire TOTJ line was reprinted in a series of three “Epic Collections.” The third Epic reprint also contains stories from Dark Horse Comics (the anthology series) and Star Wars Tales.
Outside of comics, West End Games published a sourcebook based on TOTJ for their Star Wars Role Playing Game. There were even a handful of Knights of the Old Republic video games from Bioware.
When this comic was coming out, I remember it being quite popular, in no small part because it provided some world-building for a fictional universe that was in need of some. I remember some of the comics even being (cough) “hot” to a certain extent. Even today any back issues I get in of any of the TOTJ minis fly out the door. After so many years, it still captures interest.
I think Dark Empire was the first Star Wars comic series by Dark Horse in 1991. I’m not sure about TotJ, but Droids mini and Freedon Nadd Uprising were also very early on in the comics resurrection of the franchise.
Oddly enough, Kevin Smiths Clerks was keeping the Star Wars legacy torch aflame in the drought years of the late 80’s/early 90’s with the independent contractor dialogue.
I read the first two issues of one of the Tales… minis out of curiosity, but it was too expensive for teenage me to keep up with. What interests me is that the mini I bought some of was pencilled by Christian Gossett, who went on to do a comic called Red Star. I dug that book, with computer effects applied to the art that looked better than anything else involving technology up to that point.
philfromgermany – Yes, Dark Empire was Dark Horse’s first SW series, which, if I recall correctly, was orignally announced by Marvel before they dropped the license. So only a couple years in, Dark Horse going into the deep history of the milieu, without any of the established characters, was a pretty big swing.
Yeah, there are in-house ads announcing Dark Empire as a three-issue prestige-format series from Marvel, due to release in either 1989 or 1990. Tom Veitch actually pitched it to Marvel earlier in the 1980s when they still had the ongoing series.
Not sure how it found its way to Dark Horse, but it came out in 1991. It was published almost simultaneously with *Heir to the Empire* by Timothy Zahn, the first new Star Wars novel in many years, and it’s kind of funny that both Veitch and Zahn were invited to include references to each other’s stories (which were developed independently of one another) in their own. Veitch did so; Zahn did not, because he apparently didn’t like Dark Empire very much.
Hence Han and Leia only have one kid in Dark Empire (a baby son named Anakin) whereas in *Heir to the Empire* they have twin toddlers (Jacen and Jaina). There’s a somewhat awkward bit of narration in Dark Empire about how the latter two have been sent away to be raised in a secure location to explain why they’re otherwise totally absent from the comic.
Tales of the Jedi came in 1993 then continued through to 1998. It’s one of my all-time favourites (I am the one vote it got here, haha) but I think it’s kind of obscure even to Star Wars fans. Massively overshadowed by the KOTOR video games, which changed up the aesthetic a lot to make it closer to the then-new prequel movies.
Fun fact: in Dark Empire, one of the notorious plot points is that the Emperor(‘s clone) succeeds in turning Luke Skywalker to the dark side. In Tales of the Jedi, the main character is a guy called Ulic, who looks sort of like Luke and whose name is sort of like the syllables of Luke’s name switched around, who goes to the dark side. I guess Tom Veitch just liked the idea of Dark Side Luke, hahaha.
Knights of the Old Republic was the BEST of Dark Horse’s SW titles, but they were generally good overall.