The Mandalorian coming in October. However, Disney's interest in Star Wars content actually predates their ownership of the property.
In a bizarre twist of events, Disney already crossed lightsabers with Star Wars in the comic-book section of the convenience store. The culprit? The Topolino comics, with the title here being derived from the Italian word for "Mickey Mouse." Released in 1991, Topolino e i signori della Galassia (Or Mickey Mouse and the Lords Of The Galaxy) was the first of its kind in the Topolino parody series, based around the then trilogy of films. Topolino had already had a history of parodying works from classic and contemporary literature, substituting characters like Dante for Mickey Mouse, Faust for Donald Duck, and Don Quixote for Goofy, and they treated Star Wars in the same way.
Topolino's writers dug into the niche of educational parody, appealing to the idea that comics could teach children. Resourceful writers like Giorgio Pezzin and Massimo De Vita pegged Mickey as a Han Solo archetype, while his brother-in-arms Goofy (aka Pippo de Pippis) is a mix of Chewbacca and Luke Skywalker. In their parodic space adventures, they must aid the Galactic Federation in their struggle against Metals and their evil general Titanium.
Goofy is a "Master" of something akin to the Force, and while the metals aren't clones, they are Terminator-like robots that seek to destroy organic life. Even with these quirky callbacks, the comic holds an original story, remaining distant enough to be recognized as its own recounting. Lords of the Galaxy is an interesting read if you can read Italian, though even the Star Wars visual are fun in Disney style.
Did Disney plagiarize themselves? Well, no, as even some of the later comics were Walt-vetted and approved. Did the Italians predict the future? Some may say "yes," but it was only a matter of time before someone came up with a legitimate combination parody of one of the biggest IPs in the galaxy. The Topolino series is intriguing enough to be worth checking out, if only to prove that this time it was the Italians, not The Simpsons, who did it first.
