How to Start Reading Star Wars Comics
Comics are complicated. Star Wars is complicated. I’ve got you.
Hello and welcome to PART 3 of my ultimate Star Wars catch up guide! Please make sure you’ve covered all of part 1 (which already includes some books and comics):
and also part 2 (which also includes some comics), before proceeding:
Part 2 also contains important information about the best (and cheapest) ways to find Star Wars books and comics!
Embarking on a Star Wars comics journey is a real endeavor. If you’ve gotten this far, you’ve should have already read some comics like the High Republic, so you should be a little familiar. I’ll also include some of the ones I mentioned previously here for reference. Now it’s time to get caught up on the rest!
FYI: Just like with the novels, there are comic & manga novelizations of the films that are really great and include expanded info that you can read if you’d like, but I won’t be including them here for expediency. This is also a relative chronological order, to keep series together. You’ll see, especially in crossovers, where things overlap/backtrack/etc, so I’ll be breaking up those big continuing runs that cross over the best I can.
As you read, it is also helpful to keep the Wookieepedia page “Media” section bookmarked, just to make sure you don’t miss any issues. That section will have a chart with every issue, which issues are collected into which trade paperbacks, and which issues are collected into larger omnibuses. I’ll link to each here, as well as the trade paperbacks to purchase on Bookshop if they are available.
The Age of the Republic
3. Jedi of the Republic — Mace Windu
4. Star Wars Adventures: The Clone Wars — Battle Tales
5. Jedi: Fallen Order — Dark Temple
6. Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir
7. Kanan — (This takes place half in the Clone Wars and half during the Rebellion).
8. Age of Republic (a series of short stories in the prequel era)
The Age of the Empire
2. Age of Rebellion, an anthology of stories in the Empire era
6. Star Wars: Rebels (an anthology collection of one-shots about the Ghost crew that originally appeared in Star Wars: Rebels Magazine and Star Wars: Rebels Animation Magazine)
9. Vader: Dark Visions
10. Sana Starros — Recognize that last name from the High Republic? The Starros family has deep roots in the history of the galaxy…
11. Rogue One — Cassian & K2SO Special
12. Guardians of the Whills: the Manga
13. Obi-Wan
14. Princess Leia
15. Star Wars Adventures: Smuggler’s Run
16. Lando
17. Chewbacca
18. Star Wars Adventures: The Weapon of a Jedi
19. Han Solo
20. Star Wars (2015)/Darth Vader (2015)/Doctor Aphra (2016)
- SW: Skywalker Strikes
- DV: Vader
- SW: Showdown on the Smuggler’s Moon
- DV: Shadows and Secrets
- SW Annual #1
- DV Annual #1
- Vader Down — this is the first crossover of these series, here is the reading order:
- SW: Rebel Jail
- DV: The Shu-Torun War
- SW: The Last Flight of the Harbinger
- DV: End of Games
- SW: Yoda’s Secret War
- SW Annual #2
- DA: Aphra
- The Screaming Citadel — this is the second crossover of these series, here is the reading order:
- DA Annual #1
- DA: The Enormous Profit
- SW: Out Among the Stars
- DA Annual #2: Winloss and Nokk
- SW Annual #3
- DA: Remastered
- SW: The Ashes of Jedha
- DA: The Catastrophe Con
- DA: Worst Among Equals
- SW: Mutiny at Mon Cala
- SW: Hope Dies
- SW: The Escape
- SW: The Scourging of Shu-Torun
- DA: Unspeakable Rebel Superweapon
- SW: Rebels and Rogues
- DA Annual #3
- DA: A Rogue’s End
- SW: Rogues and Rebels
- Optional: They adapted Aphra’s story in these first series into an audio drama (which you can get the script to read along if you’d like), called Doctor Aphra:
21. Target Vader
22. Yoda
23. Empire Ascendant
24. Star Wars (2020)/Darth Vader (2020)/Doctor Aphra (2020)/Bounty Hunters
- SW: The Destiny Path
- DV: Dark Heart of the Sith
- BH: Galaxy’s Deadliest
- DA: Fortune and Fate
- SW: Operation Starlight
- DV: Into the Fire
- BH: Target Valance
- DA: The Engine Job
- War of the Bounty Hunters — This is the first crossover event of these 4 ongoing series, plus the War of the Bounty Hunters mini series and a series of one shots. Here is the ever-helpful Star Wars reading site Youtini’s issue by issue reading order:
- Crimson Reign — This is the second major crossover event. It’s a crossover of these 4 ongoing series, plus the Crimson Reign mini series. This is a good issue by issue reading order:
- The Hidden Empire — This is the third major crossover event. It includes the Hidden Empire mini series, the four ongoing series, and the Star Wars: Revelations one-shot. Keep an eye on the “media” section of each series’ Wookieepedia pages, but here’s a good reading order as well:
- Dark Droids — This is the current crossover event, which will include the Dark Droids mini series, the four ongoing series, the D-Squad spinoff mini series, and more. Here is a good reading order so far:
25. Tie Fighter
26. Shattered Empire
This is just a starting point. This doesn’t include a lot of my favorites (and the Age of Resistance era, which I’m still building depending on the current media being released). Once you’ve finished these, you should consider doing a canon run challenge with me! Youtini’s complete issue by issue canon comics timeline is a great backup when you get lost, and of where to look next:
and Star Wars Canon Timeline is so easy to use because you can sort by each kind of media (books/comics/games/etc), and in whatever order you want:
And if you disagree with me, please go ahead and yell at me in the comments. (Or feel free to ask questions).
May the Force be with you! (Or for light and life, as they would say in the High Republic, or ride the storm, as the Nihil would say, or may warrior’s fortune smile on you, as they would say in the Chiss Ascendancy, or ret’urcye mhi, as they would say on Mandalore.)
Hey, thanks for trusting me on your Star Wars journey! Now that you’re caught up, you might like to listen to the rest of my podcast I host with my friends, RuPalp’s Podrace, where we have critical discussions about the latest SW media coming out, and then play stupid little games for the rest of the episode. Subscribe in your favorite podcatcher! (Mine is Pocket Casts).
Here’s a sampling of episodes to see what we’re all about!
