Marvel Comics announced the first Star Wars and Marvel crossover on August 11, timed to the 50th anniversary of A New Hope. The series is Star Wars | Marvel: Hope Assembles, written by Kevin Smith and drawn by David Marquez. Marvel first said it would run five issues. At New York Comic Con in October it grew to six, with the first issue due January 13, 2027 and the last in May.
The premise is a spell that drops the events of A New Hope into Marvel’s Earth-616, so that Luke, Leia, Han, Chewbacca and Darth Vader meet Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four and the Guardians. Marvel says the story will count as continuity.
C.B. Cebulski of Marvel said in the announcement: “It’s an idea we’ve wanted to explore since getting the Star Wars license back over a decade ago, but we knew we’d have to wait with the patience of a Jedi to make it happen.”
Smith’s statement in the announcement went another direction. “Back in the early ‘80s, I had a subscription to Marvel’s Star Wars comics. And as fun as it was to follow the continuing adventures of Luke, Leia, and Han, I always wished that Spider-Man or Doctor Doom could cross over into their cinematic saga. So when the opportunity arose to actually tell that story, nobody had to Force my hand! I’m ecstatic to be writing Hope Assembles for the 50th anniversary of Star Wars! Many thanks to Marvel Comics and Lucasfilm for trusting me to fly the Falcon and the Quinjet!”
That was the press release. The first pages of the comic itself arrived this week.
The three-page preview opens on the sequence that begins Star Wars. Imperial forces are closing in on Princess Leia’s ship, C-3PO and R2-D2 are worrying in the corridor, and Rebel troopers are bracing for the breach. It is the most recognizable opening in science fiction.
Iron Man comes through the flames.
“Hi! Uh...may the Force be with you. I’m looking for a princess.”
Then the punchline: “A Disney princess, come to think of it.”
The joke is that Disney owns both companies. The Rebels, who are about to be killed, are not in on it. When Tony Stark tells them “I’m one of the good guys!” Johnny Storm answers, “I mean, that’s debatable.” The troopers open fire. Stark asks the Human Torch for help, and Johnny shouts his catchphrase, “Flame on!”
Two pages later, Captain America arrives with Thor, Black Widow, Black Panther, the Thing and the Invisible Woman, and the shield goes through the Stormtroopers. Cap then says, “They got a name for these canned hams in the Star Wars movie?”
Ben Grimm replies, “You’re gonna love this, Cap...They’re called Stormtroopers.”
Cap: “Stormtroopers, huh?”
The Marvel characters know that Star Wars is a movie. The Star Wars characters do not know they are in one. Marvel’s press materials describe the setup as reality-altering magic, and a Darth Vader holding the Infinity Gauntlet is teased for later in the series.
Nobody who knows Smith’s work should be surprised. He built his career on Clerks, Mallrats and Chasing Amy, films packed with references to other movies and comics. His comics work includes runs on Daredevil, Green Lantern and Batman.
The closest precedent is Masters of the Universe: Revelation, the 2021 Netflix continuation he ran. The first episode killed both He-Man and Skeletor and left Teela to carry the story. Viewers review-bombed the series. Smith had already addressed the complaints in an interview before the show premiered.
“I know there’s some people that are like, ‘Hey, man, this show’s woke.’ I’m like, all right, great, then so was the original cartoon...Go watch it again. There are girls in every episode. Deal with it.”
He went on: “It’s been interesting, seeing who truly is a hardcore fan. Because anybody that’s like, ‘Oh, man, there’s not enough He-Man’ or something like that, doesn’t understand the show that we based it on.”
That is the writer Marvel picked for the first crossover between Marvel and Star Wars. The first thing he does with the opening scene of Star Wars is have Iron Man ask for a Disney princess. His announcement quote opened with a pun on the Force and closed with another on the Falcon and the Quinjet. The preview pages read as a continuation of the press release.
Readers reacted within hours of the preview going up. On X, the posts ran along the same lines.
@DragonZord979: “I knew this was gonna be bad as soon as I read that Kevin Smith was writing but this is way worse than I ever could have imagined.”
@Uncle_Joe_Gamer: “Kevin Smith writing Star Wars x Marvel lmao Disney is out of ideas and not even hiding it anymore.”
@WaltKowalskiFR: “Another Marvel project ruined by a Gen X writer and their forced Whedonism dialogues.”
@SampleguyComics: “Jesus Christ I have never been more cringed out than this very moment. Burn it all down.”
The top-voted comment in the Star Wars subreddit, from a user named elchampi, was shorter: “I like Marvel Comics. I love Star Wars. I hate this.”
Similar comments filled the thread. Some readers said the pages “feel like a parody.” Others said Marvel characters “knowing all about Star Wars just ruins the fun.” A user named PresentationOpen7879 argued that the meta angle “takes away from any genuine character interactions” between the two casts. The same objections appeared on the comic book and Iron Man subreddits, where readers questioned why the characters treat Star Wars as a movie they have already seen.
Marvel put the first Star Wars crossover in its history in the hands of the writer who answered Masters of the Universe fans with “Deal with it,” and the opening scene is a joke about Disney. Would you pay for six issues of the Rebels getting laughed at by the Avengers, or does a Star Wars story deserve a writer who does not wink at the reader? Tell us in the comments.
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This reminds me of the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon where Calvin imagines Tyrannosaurs in F-14s. Cut to an inset of Calvin and Hobbes holding toy jets and plastic dinosaurs.
Calvin: This is SO cool!
Hobbes: This is SO stupid.
I'm with Hobbes on this one. The entire concept is laughably stupid.
What other random things can they mash together and call it a day? How about Indiana Jones and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves? The X-Men and Willow? Finding Nemo and the Punisher? TRON and Winnie the Pooh?
I’m sure there are going to be people saying, “Multiple Marvel characters have referenced the Star Wars movies before, so this must be meta to preserve continuity!” Marvel won’t preserve continuity in history, character personality, or even character sexuality, but heaven forbid we ignore off-handed pop-culture references made to punch up a few scripts over the past 50 years.
If Kevin Smith would have quit comics after his Green Arrow run, he’d be remembered for solid, b-tier runs on Daredevil and Green Arrow. Now the best legacy he can hope for is being forgotten.