It is corporate synergy at its finest, and it something that other companies can only hope to accomplish. These are the kinds of statements that can be made about the success of Marvel’s newest ‘Star Wars’ comic-book line. With both ‘Star Wars’ and Marvel under the Disney banner, it was a no brainer that with a new film coming out Marvel would be allowed to begin creating and distributing new stories from ‘a galaxy far, far away,’ and the comics have been an enormous success to the company. At this point in time, sales of the new ‘Star Wars’ comics amount to about 20 percent of Marvel’s comic sales each month, which is pretty astounding when you consider that the ‘Star Wars’ comics are only about 5 percent of what Marvel is putting out there.

With all of this in mind, it is also a no-brainer that Marvel would be releasing a ‘Star Wars’ sampler to coincide with the release of ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens.’ Within, fans and newbies alike will be treated to previews of the first issue of the current ‘Star Wars’ series, along with previews of spin-off titles ‘Darth Vader,’ ‘Princess Leia,’ ‘Lando,’ and ‘Journey to ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ – Shattered Empire.’ (also reportedly there will be the upcoming crossover ‘Vader Down’ previewed in the sampler). Marvel’s hope is that the sampler will be “perfect for distribution at movie theaters and other promotional events,” and will help lure in even more readers to their new ‘Star Wars’ comics, which, from what I have seen, have been fairly high in quality.

The first series, simply titled ‘Star Wars,’ was released in January and sold over 1 million copies that month, quickly resulting in 2 more franchise series’, ‘Darth Vader’ and ‘Star Wars: Kanan’ (which ties into the Disney XD show ‘Star Wars: Rebels‘) As stated above, it is amazing to see Disney managing Lucasfilm and Marvel to such success working together, though as always there is the fear that they might be flooding the market with too much at the moment. But with ‘The Force Awakens’ just around the corner, I doubt any fan would complain about having too much ‘Star Wars’ material on the shelves, as all the tie ins do help pass the time before we can finally see what the future has in store for the franchise when JJ Abrams’ film is released on December 17th.

Source: Hollywood Reporter