Star Wars Weekly was the original iteration of Marvel UK’s Star Wars comic publication, launched on 8 January 1978, soon after the film was released in the UK.
Following the British tradition of weekly anthology titles, Star Wars Weekly reprinted stories from Marvel Comics' American Star Wars (1977) comic, but split each episode across several issues, with the rest of the pages filled by other space-related/adventure-related strips previously published by Marvel Comics in America and so likely new to a younger British readership.
These included Warlock, Star-Lord, Micronauts, Killraven, Sword in the Star (from Marvel Preview) and anthologies of science fiction one-shots under “Tales of the Watcher”. However, one property which was not included in Star Wars Weekly was Battlestar Galactica, which Lucasfilms apparently considered too similar to Star Wars.
According to Dez Skinn, who became Marvel UK’s Editorial Director in late 1978, Star Wars Weekly was by far the British company’s most profitable title, helping keep the whole operation going. (The same could be said of the Star Wars comic book in America.) Indeed, at one point, the US parent company had offered their British imprint up for sale, but only British company IPC Magazines expressed any interest—and only in buying Star Wars Weekly, which was outselling their own originated (and so much more expensive to produce) science fiction weekly comic 2000AD.
As part of Skinn’s “Marvel Revolution” to revitalise the company’s publishing line, he attempted to increase the number of photographs used on the front cover and also interior features on the film. However, by late 1979 the company’s limited resources for originating new material had been shifted to supporting new titles, Hulk Comic and later Doctor Who Weekly.
After issue #117 (published 21 May 1980), Star Wars Weekly began reprinting the Marvel Comics adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back, and was relaunched as Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back Weekly, although the numbering system continued unchanged.
Media
Issues
Story breakdown
A list of the issues of the series, and the US Marvel Comics stories they reprint:
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