Jaxxon, the mercenary rabbit, first appeared in the original Marvel Comics Star Wars, Issue #8, published in November 1977. The issue was written and drawn by Howard Chaykin, co-written by Roy Thomas and inked by Tom Palmer. Jaxxon was a great character, and fit right in with that Star Wars cantina full of strange aliens in the original movie. Officially a Lepi smuggler working with Han Solo on an early job, a la Seven Samurai, Jaxxon was a 1970s early dose of snarky and cantankerous, a giant Harvey in a spacesuit with the attitude of Howard the Duck. He was tough, smart, and funny, and long before the third movie trilogy he was the first character we met who ate background characters (he hated carrots, but liked his dewback steaks).
If you missed last year’s annual for Marvel’s Star Wars Adventures series, you may not know Jaxxon is officially a canon character now. And he’s back this summer when the next comic book annual arrives from IDW Publishing. The creators promise plenty of Jaxxon in his next story, and even better, he’s featured on the cover. And it’s not just any cover, it’s a cover drawn by one of our all-time favorite artists, Stan Sakai, who readers of borg will have seen turn up recently in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Usagi Yojimbo, Radically Rearranged Ronin Ragdolls, and of course the series readers know him best for, the new reboot of his solo series Usagi Yojimbo.
Every creator at Marvel has seemed to want to bring Jaxxon back, from Jason Aaron to John Tyler Christopher, to Chip Zdarsky, with the artists featuring him on their variant covers for the main monthly series and tie-in titles, plus he made the recent non-canon Star Wars, Issue #108. The new, second annual story for the cartoony, young adult-focused Star Wars Adventures comes from the same team to bring Jaxxon back to the Marvel Comics pages last year, writer Cavan Scott and artist Alain Mauricet, this time pairing Jaxxon with Lando Calrissian on his next gig.
Here are just a few of those covers in case you missed them, and a preview:
