Amazon recently announced plans for a new Stargate live-action TV series that will stream on Prime Video. Following the news, we thought it would be a good time to revisit the many Stargate comics that have been released since the mid-1990s.

Stargate is a military science fiction franchise in which humans use a device known as a Stargate that opens portals across great distances. The Stargates, which were built by an ancient alien race, allow people to instantly travel far across the cosmos.

The franchise began in 1994 with the Stargate movie written by Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, and directed by Emmerich. It spawned the television series Stargate SG-1 (1997), Stargate Atlantis (2004), and Stargate Universe, two direct-to-DVD Stargate SG-1 movies, a Stargate Origins web series, and a mostly unrelated animated series, Stargate Infinity.

In fact, Stargate SG-1 ran for 10 seasons, which makes it the longest-running US science fiction television series. The franchise led to a series of novels and, of course, comic books.

The earliest Stargate comics were published by indie publisher Entity Comics in ’96 and ’97 with John Migliore and Bill Maus providing creative direction. They included a four-issue movie adaptation, the three-issue series Stargate: Doomsday World and Stargate Rebellion (an adaptation of Bill McCay’s novel), and a pair of one-shots.

Avatar Press took over the license in 2003, and published four Stargate SG-1 Convention Special issues based on the Stargate: SG-1 TV show, and a string of one-shots. Creators included writer James Kuhoric (Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash) and artist Renato Guedes (Superman).

The Avatar Press line of comics featured painted covers, photo covers of actors from the shows, plus glow in the dark covers, foil covers, wraparound covers, and other variants.

Once Dynamite gained the license, they published the four-issue Stargate: Daniel Jackson, written by Doug Murray and illustrated by John Watson. Their five-issue Stargate: Vala Mal Doran series was written by Brandon Jerwa with art by Cezar Razek.

American Mythology was next to publish Stargate comics, starting in 2016 and co-written by Gemstone Publishing’s President, J.C. Vaughn, and our former Assistant Art Director, Mark L. Haynes. They included two three-issue series, Stargate Atlantis Back to Pegasus and Stargate Atlantis: Gateways, in 2016. The following year, they published the six-issue Stargate Universe and three-issue Stargate Atlantis: Hearts & Minds, which was followed by the three-issue Stargate Atlantis: Singularity in 2018. The company also published a one-shot and a three-issue series under the Stargate Atlantis/Stargate Universe Anthology, most of which were written by Vaughn.

“Mark and I had worked with American Mythology’s guiding light, James Kuhoric, years earlier on Battlestar Galactica, and of course he’d written Stargate SG-1 for Avatar, so we were really happy when he recruited us for Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe,” Vaughn said.

For fans of the original film and the TV series that followed, there had been rumors of a new incarnation for years, but many feared it would be a reboot rather than a continuation. That, it seems so far, is not to be the case.

“Veteran Stargate writer and producer Martin Gero created the show and will helm it as executive producer and showrunner. Fellow Stargate alums Brad Wright and Joseph Mallozzi are also on board as producers. The new series will continue the franchise with the same universe, canon, and tone that made Stargate a global hit,” the Stargate news site Gateworld.net reported about the recent announcement of the new series.

“This has been a very hard secret to keep for the last 18 months, but we can announce today that a brand new Stargate series is coming to Prime Video,” Gero told Gateworld.

Will this lead to more Stargate comics? It’s far from a done deal, but history certainly suggests it’s a possibility.