How Star Wars and Roy Thomas saved Marvel Comics

In his blog post entitled “Roy Thomas saved Marvel”, former Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter (who was an associate Editor in the mid-70s) recalls the struggle Marvel was enduring due to weak titles suffering from bad content strategy that resulted in declining sales. As a way out of financial misery, Roy had suggested to license an upcoming science fiction movie called Star Wars and publish an adaptation thereof

While Jim and Roy didn’t see each other eye-to-eye and due to their disagreements Roy ended up writing exclusively for DC Comics in the early 80s, the following excerpt from Jim’s blog post says it all about Roy’s initiative and its success that continued well into the next decade:

“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.

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.”

- Jim Shooter: Roy Thomas saved Marvel

This was a time when Disney didn’t own Marvel and Star Wars. Just imagine where Marvel would be today had it not been for this deal worked out by Roy

Thank You Roy Thomas

May The Fourth be with you all

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