- Kevin Smith is writing a five-part comic book series titled Star Wars/Marvel: Hope Assembles, marking the first official crossover between Star Wars and Marvel, set to launch in January 2027.
- The comic will feature familiar Original Trilogy heroes like Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, and Han Solo fighting alongside Avengers like Captain America, Hulk, and Iron Man, as well as familiar villains like Darth Vader teaming up with Marvel’s biggest bad guys, including Thanos and Doctor Doom.
- Marvel has wanted to do a crossover with Star Wars for over a decade, and the project was finally greenlit by Lucasfilm ahead of Star Wars’ 50th anniversary celebrations in 2027, with Kevin Smith writing the comic and David Marquez handling the art.
For better or for worse, Disney owns some of the biggest intellectual properties in the entire world, including both Star Wars and Marvel. Before the ink was even wet on the Marvel acquisition, many fans were clamoring for a crossover between these two worlds. Sadly, the closest thing we got to a proper crossover was these characters appearing together in video games like Fortnite and Disney Infinity. Now, however, we’re getting a proper crossover from pretty much the last person you’d expect: Kevin Smith, the Clerks director who first made us think about the plight of all those poor construction workers the Rebels killed in Return of the Jedi.
Entertainment Weekly is reporting that Smith is writing a comic book that will serve as the first official crossover between Star Wars and Marvel. It’s a five-part series titled Star Wars/Marvel: Hope Assembles, and it launches in January 2027. So far, there are no details as to the actual storyline, but early preview art indicates that familiar Original Trilogy heroes like Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, and Han Solo will fight alongside familiar Avengers like Captain America, Hulk, and Iron Man. Meanwhile, familiar OT villains like Darth Vader will fight alongside Marvel’s biggest bad guys, including Thanos and Doctor Doom. If successful, this comic might be the first of many wild crossovers to come.
A “Forced” Crossover?
Kevin Smith seems fairly excited to be working on this project. In a prepared statement to Entertainment Weekly, he wrote, “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.” Continuing, he wrote, “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!”
As Smith alludes to, Star Wars/Marvel: Hope Assembles is coming out in 2027 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Star Wars, which first hit theaters a long, long time ago in 1977. It will be the first of many major celebrations, including the original, non-Special Edition of A New Hope returning to theaters. According to outgoing editor C.B. Cebulski, Marvel has wanted to do a crossover with Star Wars for over a decade. They were just waiting for “the green light from Lucasfilm,” and the publisher finally got it ahead of Star Wars’ upcoming anniversary.
Rebels, Assemble
Smith will be writing the comic, while the art will be handled by veteran Uncanny X-Men and Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man artist David Marquez. While Smith is mostly a movie director, he has written several comics over the years, including Marvel comics such as Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil that Men Do and Daredevil (Smith even has a cameo in the 2003 Daredevil film). He also wrote a 10-issue Green Arrow miniseries, Quiver, and more recently wrote a Daredevil/Green Arrow team-up story for the anthology comic Deadpool/Batman. So while Kevin Smith may seem an odd choice to many, his prior comics experience makes him uniquely qualified to write this Star Wars/Marvel crossover.
The exact release date is unknown, but fans can expect to see Star Wars/Marvel: Hope Assembles on store shelves in January 2027. Closer to the release date, we’ll likely know more about what brought these very different worlds together. Is it multiversal shenanigans caused by the M’Kraan Crystal? Something to do with The World Between Worlds? Or will someone just pop up and say, “Somehow, crossover returned?” No matter how it happens or even how good it ends up being, this sounds like one crossover that two fandoms will never forget.
