When Jim Shooter was associate editor of Marvel Comics in 1976 and 1977, the place was a mess, and sales were bad and falling. Then Roy Thomas saved Marvel by breaking with their accepted wisdom and agreeing to adapt a silly-sounding sci-fi movie:
There was a lot of opposition to Star Wars. Even Stan wasn’t keen on the idea.
Even I wasn’t. I had no prejudice against science fiction, but wasting time on an adaptation of a movie with a dumb title described as an “outer space western?”
I was told — don’t know for sure — that George Lucas himself came to Marvel’s offices to meet with Stan and help convince him that we should license Star Wars. I was told that Stan kept him waiting for 45 minutes in the reception room. Apocryphal? Maybe. Roy would know. But if so, it still reflects the mood at the time.
(ASIDE: Lucas, by the way, again, as I am told, but I’m pretty sure this is true, was a partner in Supersnipe Comic Book Emporium, a comics shop on the Upper East Side. A clue to his persistent interest in comics and a comics adaptation.)
I don’t know how Roy got it done. I was just the associate editor, and not privy to much of the wrangling that went on. But, Roy got the deal done and we published Star Wars.
The first two issues of our six (?) issue adaptation came out in advance of the movie. Driven by the advance marketing for the movie, sales were very good. Then about the time the third issue shipped, the movie was released. Sales made the jump to hyperspace.
Star Wars the movie stayed in theaters forever, it seemed. Not since the Beatles had I seen a cultural phenomenon of such power. The comics sold and sold and sold. We reprinted the adaptation in every possible format. They all sold and sold and sold.
In the most conservative terms, it is inarguable that the success of the Star Wars comics was a significant factor in Marvel’s survival through a couple of very difficult years, 1977 and 1978. In my mind, the truth is stated in the title of this piece.
This is the same Roy Thomas who brought Conan to Marvel:
There’s a 3 page article in Marvel Vision #23 titled ‘Roy Thomas: Conan’s Right Hand Man’ where he looks back at nearly thirty years in the business as of 1997. After discussing the circumstances involved in acquiring the rights to Conan the Barbarian, Roy talks a bit about Star Wars. Here’s a transcript of the revelant material:
Roy was also responsible for bringing “Star Wars” to Marvel. One night in 1976, Roy received a visit from his friend, Ed Summer, who brought with him a young filmmaker by the name of George Lucas, along with Lucas’s right-hand man, Charlie Lippincott. Roy knew George’s work: “He had done this wonderful movie I loved called ‘American Graffitti’. Charlie and Ed told me they would like me to see if I could get Marvel to do a comic about ‘Star Wars’, before the movie comes out. Of course, I had never heard of it. Contrary to later rumor, there was not a lot of advance publicity about ‘Star Wars’.”
At first, Roy was not interested, but then he saw a pre-production painting of the cantina scene. As a long-time fan of space opera, Roy was hooked. Roy later learned that Marvel had already rejected “Star Wars” once, in keeping with former Marvel publisher Martin Goodman’s old anti-sci-fi credo: no rockets, rayguns, or robots! Roy convinced the powers that be at Marvel to adapt STAR WARS, though circulation director Ed Shukin kept saying “Why are we doing this? We’re gonna lose money on this!”
Of course, “Star Wars” went on to become the biggest movie of all time. Roy scripted one more STAR WARS comic book adventure beyond the movie adaptation, but ultimately left the book because he didn’t enjoy the same freedom he had with Conan.
“Lucasfilm told us ‘You can’t use Darth Vader, you can’t do anything with the romance between Luke and Leia (though we know why now!)…it just wasn’t any fun.” Lucasfilm also objected to Roy’s green rabbit character, who was deemed “too humorous.”
Having brought both Conan and “Star Wars” to Marvel “makes me look very prescient,” admits Roy.