Marvel to Relaunch ‘Star Wars’ Comic With Time Jump

Marvel’s best-selling Star Wars comic book series is headed into new territory this January — although fans may find the destination not entirely unfamiliar. After four years of stories set between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, the comic book series will begin anew in the period immediately following Empire with a new creative team.

The series — to be titled, simply, Star Wars — will come from Star Wars: Darth Vader’s Charles Soule and artist Jesús Saiz, with R.B. Silva (Powers of X) providing covers.

Plot details for the new series remain under wraps, but one of the few teases Marvel has released is that Luke, Leia, Lando and Chewbacca will have a new Imperial threat to deal with, beyond even the constant presence of both Darth Vader and the Emperor: they’ll also have to contend with Imperial Commander Zahra, the “cunning and vengeful” leader of the Tarkin’s Will, an Imperial vessel with a particularly foreboding name.

This isn’t the first time that Marvel has told comic book stories set between the 1980 and 1983 cinematic installments of the Star Wars saga; the contemporaneous comic book series of that era filled in the blanks between movies, sending Lando and Chewbacca in search of Boba Fett while Luke and Leia tried to build new alliances between the Rebellion and new alien races. It’s unclear whether or not any of those story beats will be revisited in the new series.

Star Wars No. 1 will be released in January.