Cue the “Star Wars” theme music, please:

There are few who now recall how Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia Organa once helped save Marvel Comics from utter destruction.

In 1975, Marvel was the top comics company, but dwindling retail outlets and rising newsprint costs threatened it and the entire industry. There was even talk of shuttering the company if conditions didn’t improve.

But the Marvel editor and writer Roy Thomas in 1976 persuaded his skeptical bosses to gamble on a six-issue adaptation of a new George Lucas movie scheduled to be released the next year. “The ‘Star Wars’ people found me,” Mr. Thomas said in a recent phone interview. “And I was open to the idea. I liked space opera. I’d always enjoyed Planet Comics as a kid.” (Planet Comics was a long-running home for science fiction in the early days of comic books.)

There are a couple of details in the Marvel-"Star Wars” deal that seem quaint, if not downright insane, in 2014. First, Marvel paid zero in licensing fees. Second, the Lucas camp wanted the comic book out before the movie’s release. “George Lucas and his people were just happy to have a comic book out there for advance publicity,” Mr. Thomas said. (Such licenses today tend to be in the six-figure range, and also include a royalty arrangement.)