The series chronicled their subsequent adventures for 107 issues and three annuals, including a six-issue adaptation of the 1980 sequel film The Empire Strikes Back in 1980–1981.

[1] Writer Roy Thomas met Lippincott around this same time, and was asked to write the comic at Lucas's request, based on his work on Conan the Barbarian.

[1] Thomas decided to accept the commission when Lippincott showed him a production sketch of the Cantina sequence, convincing him that the project was a space opera along the lines of Planet Comics.

[2] Lucas also requested artist Howard Chaykin,[2] who was allowed to visit Lucasfilm's offices on the Universal Studios Lot to gather reference art.

[8] Since movie tie-in comics rarely sold well at that time, Lee negotiated a publishing arrangement which gave no royalties to Lucasfilm until the series' sales exceeded 100,000.

[9][2] The series was one of the industry's top selling titles in 1979 and 1980,[10] with the 100,000 copy sales quota being surpassed, allowing Lippincott to renegotiate the royalty arrangements.

[14] Thomas continued the series with a Seven Samurai-style storyline focusing on Han Solo and Chewbacca, after being told not to use Darth Vader, cover the Clone Wars, or develop a romance between Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia.

[14] While generally following a single serialized storyline, the series occasionally included stories which take place before the events of the films, such as issue #17 (November 1978) featuring Luke Skywalker on Tatooine,[16] and #24 (June 1979) with Obi-Wan Kenobi.

[17] In 1979, Goodwin visited Lucasfilm's Los Angeles offices to collect contact prints and other reference for a six-issue adaptation of the 1980 sequel film The Empire Strikes Back[18] by artists Al Williamson and Carlos Garzon.

[19][20] The adaptation was released as a paperback book,[21][c] a magazine (Marvel Super Special #16),[23] an oversized tabloid edition,[24] and as issues #39–44 (September 1980–February 1981) of the series.

According to Ted Edwards, "The artwork reached a new high, with Williamson penciling and Carlos Garzon inking likenesses of the characters that had an accuracy never before seen in the series.

[27] The creative team was prevented from developing Luke's Jedi training or his relationships with Leia and Vader, or using Han, Jabba, Boba Fett, Obi-Wan, and Yoda.

[26][d] An unused John Carter, Warlord of Mars story, which had sat in inventory after Marvel had cancelled that series, was rewritten and redrawn, and published in Star Wars #53 (November 1981).

[27] Exploring a one-shot revival of the series, Marvel senior editor Mark Paniccia contacted Walt Simonson to see if he was interested in contributing.

Simonson said he would have liked to have created a sequel to Goodwin's oversized #50, "The Crimson Forever", illustrated by him, Al Williamson, and Tom Palmer.

[34] After the Rebel Alliance secures the Death Star plans and destroys the Imperial battle station, Han Solo and Chewbacca depart Yavin to repay Jabba the Hut, but space pirate Crimson Jack steals their reward money.

Han and Leia lead Jack to Luke, who has crash-landed and learned that, since the time of the Galactic Republic, the planet's denizens have been using jamming devices to bring down ships for salvage.

Luke, Leia, and the droids escape in a small craft; Darth Vader arrives and almost captures them, but Han disables his Star Destroyer's tractor beam.

Jabba catches Han at one of his hideouts, but ship-eating mites force the crime lord to take refuge on the Falcon—in exchange for cancelling the smuggler's debt.

Chewbacca and new ally Lando Calrissian set out after bounty hunter Boba Fett, who intends to deliver the cryopreserved Han to Jabba.

Aboard, Domina Tagge reveals that she hired bounty hunters[e] to steal the jewels from the temple, but the Empire took one and people began to succumb to the fever.

On the planet surface, they are picked up by a boat of ugnaughts and transported back to the platform; Luke arrives and uses the Force to make it appear that the rest of the bombs explode to scare away the Imperials.

Leia leads a procedure to hide the Rebel fleet inside the system's sun using a shield generator, then departs for the planet's surface to investigate the arrival of Imperial ships.

Domina Tagge and her bounty hunters resurface with a plan to capture the Crimson Forever jewels by encasing them in heavy metal, a delivery of which happens to include the robotic skeleton of Beilert Valance—who was defeated by Vader while protecting Luke's identity.

[47] Beilert Valance entered the modern Star Wars canon in the comic Han Solo: Imperial Cadet (2018),[f] and appears in the series Target Vader (2019)[g] and Bounty Hunters (2020–present).