UPDATE NOTE: UPDATED Q3 FIGURES ARE DISPLAYED IN THE COMMENTS.

January 2015 marked the start of a new era of Star Wars comics as the publishing rights moved from Dark Horse after the purchase by Disney. Since the beginning of the year, four books have been released in the Star Wars line: Star Wars, Darth Vader, Princess Leia, and Kanan. Those four books have been a juggernaut in the comic book world over the past six months. Using the monthly Diamond sales on single issues (which is not a perfect gauge, but the best estimates that we have), the Star Wars line would be the third largest publisher based on revenue in the business only behind Marvel and DC.

The Star Wars series itself has sold more than every publisher in 2015 except the Big 2 and Image. Going forward, the line will also be bolstered by Lando in July so it has the potential to continue its torrid pace in the sales charts.

What is most amazing though is whenever the Star Wars line is compared to total sales for all of 2014. 3.65 million units and $15.9 million in sales is more than all but the Big Two and Image sold for the entire year.

The success of Star Wars does raise some questions for Marvel going forward. Currently, these four books that comprise their Star Wars line make up approximately 19% of total revenue for the year. That percentage will decrease as Secret Wars continues to produce large numbers, but it is still remarkable to think that 4 books that are essentially licensed property are generating a fifth of the revenue for the publishing side of the company.

It will be very interesting to see how Marvel handles this success of the Star Wars universe. Will they be putting their creative efforts into expanding the universe instead of trying to develop lesser characters in the Marvel U? Will the top creators be ushered away from the Marvel books to headline the Star Wars Universe?

I have yet to read any of the Star Wars books because I have never been very interested in that Universe, but I am interested in seeing how it plays out from the business side to see how Marvel capitalizes on this property that has fallen in their laps.