Italian Guerre Stellari #1

One of the cooler aspects of collecting foreign editions of U.S. Marvel Star Wars comic books is seeing the different cover art.  Marvel U.K. has many more covers than the U.S. Star Wars series because of the weekly nature of their publication.  The French publisher Edition Lugs commissioned painted covers for their Titans anthology title.  Spain's Ediciones Vértice has many unique covers for the 9 issues they published.  Not all the foreign publishers have original cover art however.  Both of Germany's series from Ehapa reuse the U.S. covers as does the Dutch publisher Juniorpress.  There are far more publishers that reused the U.S. covers than created their own covers.

The Italian publisher Arnoldo Mondadori Editore also reused the U.S. covers for the Guerre Stellari title, except for the first issue.  The first issue has a unique cover which looks to be inspired by several Star Wars posters.  Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and the Death Star are based on the Tom Jung/Hildebrandt Brothers Star Wars posters.  But, Darth Vader and the X-Wing Fighters are more reminiscent of the U.S. half sheet poster.  What is nice about Darth Vader on this cover is he is drawn competently, something that Marvel itself did not do in its initial issues.

Guerre Stellari #1a - Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, Italy (November 1977)
contains Star Wars #1 and 2

Several of the color choices from the cover are interesting.  The Tatooine landscape, including the artificial structures, is colored mauve.  The Death Star is green.  Leia's dress is red, not white.  The Brazil edition of the Star Wars movie adaptation also has Leia wearing red, not only on the cover, but throughout the entire comic.