Reviews of Star Wars & Star Trek graphic novels?

[Eridanis]

As a moderate fan of both franchises, I'm intersted in picking up some of the graphic novels that have been published over the years. However, there are so many (especailly the SW ones!) that I don't know where to start.

What are the best graphic novels for SW and ST? Are there any worth the cover price, or is it a waste of time & money? Or is there a site that has good reviews?

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Star Trek, I can't help you with...but Star Wars...

The best of the best stuff is the early 90s Tales of the Jedi comics that started the entire Knight of the Old Republic era. The comics are a hundred times more Star Wars than the two games, and I believe they actually started reprinting them not too long ago so they shouldn't be too hard to track down.

Another good one(well, two) is Crimson Empire and Crimson Empire II. Followed a former member of Palpatine's royal guard after Return of the Jedi. Very good stuff.

The Star Wars Inifinities are pretty good, too. With each taking a point from the movies and changing it(What if Luke didn't destroy the Death Star? What is Luke died on Hoth? What if the plan to rescue Han from Jabba failed?). They're very interesting changes to the movies and really run with things.

In the same time frame, the Shadows of the Empire comic is great, and if you can track down SotE: Evolution, I'd grab that one, too. A good continuation of a loose thread left in the story.

That's pretty much what I can think of right off the top of my head. Some others are out there, Rogue Squadron, Tales, etc, that are good, but don't stick out as much as the above do, for me. I would NOT recommend Dark Empire, Dark Empire II, or Empire's End. Its a fairly important story to the EU, but its just...bad. The art is a nice, unique style but the story pretty much kills everything that happened in the movies. It goes relatively ignored in the EU these days...passing mentions, but never anything too specific.

 

[stevelabny]

I've read a lot of these back when DH first got the SW license, but none really left too much of a lasting impression on me.

Except maybe the Star Trek / X-Men crossovers. :-D

But I'm silly like that.

Dark Empire was one of the first and best of the Star Wars stories. Although I was never quite as into it as others were.

Union is about Luke's wedding.

Chewbacca is a memorial to everyones favorite wookie.

Darth Maul had pretty art.

I've never really got into the Expanded Universe Star Wars stuff too much. And I don't consider myself a trekkie. So I don't know how much this is gonna help.

 

[Ghostwind]

For Star Trek, there aren't a lot of graphic novels out there. They are currently publishing the collected Gold Key issues of the original series in graphic novel format. They are dated but keep the flavor of the series. If you can find it, I highly recommend Debt of Honor. A really good Star Trek story.

 

[Silver Moon]

Except maybe the Star Trek / X-Men crossovers.

I was philosophically opposed to the whole concept of those crossovers, but they did a great job with them, espeically the first one. The Next Gen one works better if you read the sequel to it done as as a text paperback.

As for other Star Trek graphic novels, they did a great Next Gen one that was a sequel to the classic Trek episode Wolf in the Fold set in a Victorian England holodeck program.

If you're a fan of the Peter David "New Frontier" series of novels he did a very good tie-in graphic novel for that series.