Marvel Is Releasing Star Wars Legends: The Newspaper Strips Omnibus — A 1,096-Page Time Capsule From the Early Years

Marvel Comics is digging deep into Star Wars history this summer with the release of Star Wars Legends: The Newspaper Strips Omnibus, a massive 1,096-page hardcover collecting classic Star Wars newspaper strips and related comic material originally published between 1979 and 1984.

For longtime fans, this isn’t just another reprint. It’s a preservation project—one that captures a formative era when Star Wars storytelling expanded week by week in newspaper comic sections long before the franchise became a multimedia juggernaut.

A Forgotten Corner of Star Wars History

In the years following A New Hope, Star Wars storytelling didn’t live only in theaters or paperback novels. It also appeared in daily and Sunday newspaper strips, reaching readers who might never have picked up a comic book.

These strips explored new planets, side missions, and character moments featuring Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca, Darth Vader, and others—often filling in the gaps between the original trilogy films. They were episodic, adventurous, and sometimes experimental, reflecting a time when the boundaries of the galaxy far, far away were still being defined.

Marvel’s new omnibus brings all of that material together in one definitive volume.

What the Omnibus Collects

According to Marvel, Star Wars Legends: The Newspaper Strips Omnibus assembles the full run of Star Wars newspaper strips published from 1979 through 1984, including both daily and Sunday installments.

The collection includes work from legendary creators such as Russ Manning, Archie Goodwin, Al Williamson, and Alfredo Alcala, whose art and storytelling helped shape early licensed Star Wars comics. Their styles sit somewhere between classic adventure strips and modern comic storytelling, giving the material a distinct visual identity that still holds up today.

The stories are presented in chronological order, allowing readers to experience the strips as an ongoing narrative rather than isolated curiosities.

Why This Release Matters

Marvel has reprinted Star Wars comics many times over the years, but newspaper strips have always occupied an unusual space. They’re canonical to the Legends timeline, yet they often feel more intimate and character-driven than larger comic arcs.

By collecting them in omnibus form, Marvel is doing more than catering to collectors—it’s preserving a piece of pop-culture history that might otherwise remain scattered across aging newsprint or long-out-of-print editions.

At over a thousand pages, this volume also underscores how ambitious early Star Wars publishing really was. Long before streaming shows or cinematic universes, these strips were quietly expanding the galaxy one panel at a time.

A Legends Release, Not Canon—And That’s the Point

It’s important to note that this omnibus is clearly branded Star Wars Legends, meaning the stories are not part of current canon. But for many fans, that’s a feature rather than a drawback.

Legends material offers a snapshot of how Star Wars was imagined when there were fewer rules, fewer roadmaps, and more creative freedom. The newspaper strips in particular reflect a moment when writers and artists were inventing lore in near real time, responding to fan interest and cinematic releases as they happened.

Who This Book Is For

• Longtime Star Wars fans curious about the franchise’s earliest expanded storytelling
• Comic collectors looking for a substantial archival release
• Legends readers who enjoy exploring alternate paths and forgotten corners of the galaxy
• Art and comics historians interested in newspaper strip storytelling at its peak

At 1,096 pages, this isn’t a casual pickup—it’s a shelf-dominant statement piece.

A Summer Release Worth Watching

Marvel has positioned Star Wars Legends: The Newspaper Strips Omnibus as one of its major archival releases of the year, and it’s easy to see why. Few projects capture the intersection of Star Wars, comics, and pop-culture history quite as cleanly as this one.

For fans who want to see where expanded Star Wars storytelling really began—before timelines were locked and canon was codified—this omnibus offers a rare opportunity to go back to the source.

Sometimes, the most interesting stories aren’t the newest ones. They’re the ones hiding in the margins of yesterday’s newspaper.

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