In a move that should shock no one, another part of the Star Wars empire has been taken over by another Disney company. Disney’s comic book company, a little publisher called Marvel, will be taking over the Star Wars licence starting in 2014.

Star Wars comics are currently published by Dark Horse Comics and have been since 1991. This move ends a relationship that’s over twenty years old and hasn’t run out of steam yet. In the last year, Dark Horse has started publication of two critically acclaimed series, Star Wars (set between Episodes IV and V) and The Star Wars (based on George Lucas’ original draft for the movie franchise).

The official press release doesn’t indicate the future of  any active Star Wars series when the switch happens from Dark Horse to Marvel. Carol Roeder, Director of LucasFilm franchise publishing, referred to the move to Marvel as “a new age of adventures within the Star Wars universe” while Executive VP of Disney Publishing Worldwide Andrew Sugerman made mention of telling new stories. Considering the Disney takeover led to the cancellation of projects at LucasArts and LucasFilm Animation, I’m not holding out hope that any Star Wars series will continue in 2015.

The writers of the ongoing Star Wars series and Star Wars: Legacy both confirmed earlier that they have been informed that their series will be ending around August of this year.

So it looks like we’ll get a clean slate of Star Wars comics come next January. Whether Marvel can continue the great work we’ve come to expect from Dark Horse remains to be seen. The number of Marvel series I’ve started and stopped doesn’t leave me hopeful.

Source: StarWars.com, Comic Book Resources