Marvel Comics released several previews of its variant covers for next month’s launch of Princess Leia, the third of its four planned Star Wars comics, and what makes these offerings stand out is what they don’t feature.

The Slave Leia outfit.

The only trace of that costume is in the image by artist Mark Brooks, which boasts a panoply of Leia’s roles in the original trilogy films. Even then, the outfit is shown from the neck up.

The first issue of the Mark Waid-written and Terry and Rachel Dodson-illustrated five-issue mini-series is out in comic shops on March 4.

Like its shelf mates — Star Wars and Darth Vader — the comic is launching with numerous variant covers, all of them featuring Leia as a warrior, strategist and leader, facets of the character that make her a role model for any Star Wars fan, regardless of whom they may be.

The covers released by Marvel reflect that, as does some of the pages previewed by the publisher.

Which is exactly the point behind the mini-series to begin with.

From the start, Marvel has made no secret that this story focuses squarely on Leia’s “quest to help her people” and “her struggle to find her place in the galaxy.”

Like the other two series, it’s set immediately after the events of A New Hope, so time-wise, it makes perfect sense that none of the 10 covers would feature the outfit she wore during The Return of the Jedi.

The book, colored by Jordie Bellaire and edited by Jordan D. White, is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of readers for its first issue — so far, it’s gotten more than 250,000 pre-orders ahead of its release, as reported by Comicbook.com — which is a stalwart number for any title, and putting it just behind Darth Vader’s estimated 300,000 copies and the more than a million copies of the first issue of Star Wars.

With Eisner Award-winner Waid writing, don’t expect a lightweight story.

Waid, whose work with Marvel, DC and his own Thrillbent, has drawn plaudits and sales, is known for crafting stories that defy description. Dodson is revered for the work put in on DC’s Wonder Woman and Harley Quinn titles, as well as his ongoing work for Marvel on Uncanny X-Men, the 1996 Storm mini-series written by Warren Ellis and the Marvel Knights Spider-Man series with writer Mark Millar.

Princess Leia is poised to be a comic book that engaged not only existing fans of Star Wars, but new ones, too and it has the potential to reaffirm to a new generation of readers how and why Leia’s leadership, strength and tactical brilliance forms the foundation of the Rebel Alliance.

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Matt Moore has been perpetrating journalism since 1985, reveling in Star Wars since 1977 and reading comics since 1974.

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