Star Wars Legends: Forever Crimson

by Archie Goodwin (Text), Matthew Rosenberg (Text), Walter Simonson (Illustrations)

A Star Wars saga decades in the making! Meet the droid-hating Valance the Hunter - who's hot on the trail of Luke Skywalker! Will his destiny end by fi nding the rebel hero - or in a deadly confrontation with Darth Vader? Then, on a routine X-wing patrol, Luke and his squadron fi nd a derelict Imperial Star Destroyer, with everyone on board dead - and their skin turned crimson! When the virus responsible leaves Luke in a coma, Han Solo and his allies face a race against time to cure the mysterious malady! Then, in the landmark Star Wars #108, return at last to the classic Marvel galaxy of a long time ago - continuing the stories of Valance and the Crimson Forever! And you won't believe which classic characters return! COLLECTING: STAR WARS (1977) 16, 27, 29, 50; STAR WARS (2019) 108

Genres: Star Wars, Graphic Novels, Comics, Audiobook

152 pages, Paperback

Published January 21, 2020

About the author

Archie Goodwin was an American comic book writer, editor, and artist. He worked on a number of comic strips in addition to comic books, and is best known for his Warren and Marvel Comics work. For Warren he was chief writer and editor of landmark horror anthology titles Creepy and Eerie, and for Marvel he set up the creator-owned Epic Comics as well as adapting Star Wars into both comics and newspaper strips. He is regularly cited as the "best-loved comic book editor, ever."

Reviews

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book collects four issues of the original 70s/80s run of Marvel Star Wars comics plus the special revival issue #108 published in 2019.
Here we get the story of the droid-hating bounty hunter Valance and how an encounter with Luke Skywalker awakens his compassion and leads him into a confrontation with Darth Vader. Then, after the events of 'The Empire Strikes Back', the vengeful Domina Tagge plots to unleash a terrible plague upon the galaxy in order to destroy both the Empire and the Rebellion. Finally, after the rise of the New Republic Domina Tagge's scheming inadvertently brings about the resurrection of the long-missing Valance.

The quality of the old Marvel Star Wars comics varied greatly and they suffered from some pretty major flaws. Despite all of that I loved them and really enjoyed the 'A Long Time Ago...' books which collected them.
So, whilst it's a shame that the Star Wars licence got taken away from Dark Horse, I like that Marvel reclaiming the licence led to this book, which is something of a love letter to those classic comic books of the 70s and 80s. It's particularly pleasing to see the creation of a single revival issue following on from 1986's #107 (and featuring Jaxxon!), the only new entry into the Expanded Universe (AKA Legends) canon since (evil) Disney bought Star Wars.

For fans of Marvel's current crop of Star Wars series, this would be the perfect place to find out where characters like Valance, featured in 'Bounty Hunters', and Domina Tagge, featured in 'Doctor Aphra', first tangled with the heroes of the Galaxy Far, Far Away.

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[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well done redemption arc for Valance the Hunter. Some history about Mandalorians that I didn't know was written so early into the Star Wars universe as well.

[Raul Fernandez · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first foray into Legends comics. It was fun. I did enjoy the last issue best, it really tied up the story nicely and didn't feel out of place at all.

My Rating: 3.75 Stars

[Nicolas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this pulpy era of the Star Wars comics. I saw shades of Star Trek & Buck Rogers in these issues and it was all fun.

We cover it in depth for a Star Wars Day edition of Howe's Things: https://soundcloud.com/allthebooks/fr...

[kesseljunkie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yeah. Part of the rating is the fanboy in me. But I re-read this after rediscovering it at the bottom of a pile and of all Star Wars books could be this good I’d read them all. Terrific storyline, resurrecting old fan fave
characters in a fresh way...honestly it’s why The Mandalorian has worked so well. It’s new while honoring what made me love the franchise in the first place.