"Now would you three guys mind
running that past me again? You say
you've got a job for me -- if I don't
have an 'unfortunate aversion to
dying'?"
--
Han Solo
When
a person revisits things from their
childhood, one of two things usually
happens: either a "This is so cool,
how in the hell could I forget that?"
or "This is crap, how in the hell did
I ever think this was cool?" type of
reaction.
So
where does Marvel's run of Star
Wars
comics fit into these two categories?
Well, I'm gonna balk and say 'depends on
the issue' as a cop-out.
Back
in 1977, Marvel managed to land the comic
adaptation for George Lucas's monstrous
smash hit. Hell, I read the comic before I
even saw the movie. I didn't get to see it
until its second run, catching it at the
Hastings Drive-In from the front seat of
the old family station wagon (or
the back seat whenever Darth Vader
appeared and I bailed for cover. That
metallic breathalyzer freaked the crap out
of me.)
We
all know that the world went a little
crazy for that galaxy far, far away and
the denizens who lived there back in '77
-- and we were all clamoring for more.
Marvel Comics answered that call for
almost a decade and some 107 issues. Some
were good. Some were bad. Some were --
well, some need to be read to be believed
because if I told you the plots, you'd
think I'd been licking the hallucinogenic
juices off the back of a dead Mynock.
The
first six issues dealt with adapting A
New Hope,
and issue #7 picks up with Han and
Chewbacca saying goodbye to Luke and Leia
to go and spend the reward money they'd
earned rescuing the captured Princess from
the Death Star and the evil Empire's
clutches. But
no sooner has our favorite space rogue
jumped out of the Yavin system when the
Millennium Falcon is attacked by Crimson
Jack and his merry band of space pirates. (And
all that's missing from these panels,
matey's, are a few eye-patches, peg-legs
and a couple of hearty "yearrrghhs.")
After
the pirates clean them out Han and Chewie
land on the nearest backwater planet --
Aduba-III, and quickly locate the nearest
Cantina, hoping to drum up some more work.
On the way, they stumble upon a ruckus
around a funeral procession. Seems the
locals don't want the person in the coffin
-- a cyborg, buried in the local cemetery.
Not one for bigotry, Han and -- mostly,
Chewie, pitch in. The Wookie beats off the
mob of anti-technological luddites, and
then they help the resident holy man
complete the funeral rites.
Our
sort of familiar plot continues when they
reach the cantina. Having witnessed what
they've done, three local farmers ask them
for help. You see, their village is under
constant attack from Serji-X Arrogantus --
the Arrogant One (in case we didn't
get it), and his horde of
blaster-packin' sky-bandits who ride
around on their rocket-powered toboggans,
raping the crops, burning down the
livestock, and stampeding the womenfolk.
Solo
agrees to help for what little the
peasants have to offer in payment -- the
big softy. But he figures he'll need some
more help and starts recruiting a few
other "down on their luck
spacers." And something tells me that
with him and Chewie already on board,
about five more will do. Making them an
even seven.
*
* * *
It's
my understanding that Marvel rushed these
books through production to get them out
and on the stands before the fervor over Star
Wars
burned out. Almost thirty years later the
fervor never dwindled, but the rush job on
these early books shows -- and it shows
pretty badly.
Writer
Roy Thomas was obviously ripping off The
Magnificent Seven,
and he isn't done strip-mining that movie
yet either. For the first three issues he
borrows heavily from it, but then it takes
an unexpected turn in the fourth where he
borrows a few more ideas from our friends
in Japan. So what we got here is The
Magnificent Seven II: In Outer Space
with got Solo in the Yul Bryner role,
Chewbacca as Steve McQueen, and since
we're in outer-space, the other five
gunslingers have got to be aliens, too,
right?
Yup,
and very colorful ones at that:
-
Hedji
-- an alien porcupine who can fire his
quills with lethal accuracy. (I'm
thinking this is James Coburn.)
-
The
Buxom Amaiza -- an old acquaintance of
Solo's from his days in The Black Hole
gang. (Brad Dexter, the one
nobody remembers; but I do seem to
remember reading about The Black Hole
gang on a trading card I had back in
'78 as well, making it an official
part of the Star
Wars
universe.)
-
And
there's a crazy old coot armed with a
lightsaber in a rusty suit of armor
who claims to be a Jedi Knight. His
name -- wait for it -- Don-Wan-Kihotay.
No I am not making that up. (And
he's just as nutzoid as Robert Vaughn,
so if they run into any windmills,
this guy's got 'em covered.)
-
Jimm
-- the self-proclaimed Starkiller Kid,
is green, but Starkiller reminds Solo
of another young farmboy and lets him
tag along. (Horst
Bucholz, the snot nosed punk.)
-
And
then there's Jaxx. A six-foot tall
green space rabbit -- and a wise-ass
six-foot tall green space rabbit to
boot. No, I'm not making this one up
either. But I'm gonna let you reread
all that, just so's it'll sink in
properly. (Charles Bronson is
represented by a giant green space
rabbit from Aduba-III? All apologies
to the Bronson family.)
Thomas
tries to hedge the number by counting
Jimm's rickety robot -- FE-9Q, as a member
of the expedition, but I ain't buying it.
Serji-X
seeks Solo out and tries to buy him off. (He
even looks like Eli Wallach, but I think
he's really supposed to be a caricature of
long time cartoonist Sergio Aragonés.)
Solo refuses; the guy's just
got a soft spot for lost causes. The
band arrives at the village and starts to
prepare the locals for the upcoming
onslaught. One of the village elders --
who claims to be a shaman, tells Solo that
he and his team are not needed. He has
another, more permanent solution for the
village's problem. The other villagers
tell Solo to ignore the old man's
gibberings about -- wait for it --
the capability of summoning a legendary
monster to save the village.
You
mean they're going to rip off Daimajin,
too? Cool.
Soon
enough the sky-riders attack. Solo and his
mercenaries hold their own -- and I gotta
admit, it's pretty dang cool seeing a
savage, more feral Chewbacca take out the
bad guys. Before becoming the neutered
comic relief in the later films, the
Wookie was something else in these old
comics. This is my Chewbacca: the one
ripping people's arms off and beating them
to death with it, not the one who Tarzan
yodels while taking out AT-ST's.
The
good guys aren't out-gunned but they are
outnumbered, and the tide of battle starts
to turn against them -- until the old
shaman manages to blurt out the right
incantation. The earth shakes and a nearby
mountain splits apart, revealing an
ancient behemoth that can shoot a laser
out of its noggin. Nope, not making
that up either.
The
shaman is able to control the giant beast,
which makes quick work of the sky-raiders
whose blasters have no affect on the
creature's tough hide. Unfortunately, the
shaman isn't very good at controlling the
monster and accidentally gets himself
stepped on and squished. (Whoopsie,
my bad.) With
no one to control it, the behemoth goes
berserk and starts attacking everybody.
But Don-Wan-Kihotay mistakes the beast for
a windmill and charges it with his
lightsaber. The blade proves more
effective than blaster fire, but the old
man doesn't have the strength to finish
the job.
But
Solo takes up the blade and with an assist
from Chewie (on a derivation of the
X-Men's classic fastball special),
manages to kill the beast, saving the day.
And I quote from Mr. Solo himself,
"Holy Beek-Monkeys!! That was
close!!"
The
first original story arc is a blatant
rip-off, but a helluva lot of fun -- at
least I found it so. When I first read it
at the age of eight, I had no clue about
the western -- or the samurai flick it was
based on, or whatever story it was
originally based on, so in hindsight, it
doesn't really matter all that much.
There's a few subplots involving Luke and
Leia seeking out a location for a new
rebel base -- and I think half the plots
of these old comics was trying to find a
new rebel base -- that really got rolling
in the following issues when all our
character are reunited and marooned on a
water world. Both stories are collected in
the Doomworld
trade paperback from Dark Horse Comics.
Venerable
industry curmudgeon Howard Chaykin
co-scripted these early issues with Thomas
and handled the art chores. The art is
more than passable but like I said, this
was a rush job, and the majority of the
credit has got to go to inker Tom Palmer.
Palmer and fellow inkers like Terry Austin
add incredible detail and depth with their
craft. So can we please finally tear down,
burn, bury, and -- forgive me, piss on the
ashes of Kevin Smith's asinine notion that
inkers are nothing but tracers? Look at
the difference between the art of issue #7
and #8. Same artist, different inker. I
rest my case.
Though
not as bad as, say, The
Holiday Special,
Marvel's Star
Wars
run was still very hit and miss. And it
didn't help matters that the creators'
hands were tied on what they could and
couldn't do. Lucas, as we all know, is a
control freak and none of this is
considered canon. Which is probably a good
thing because I seem to recall a few
situations with Luke and Leia that could
only be considered weird after the
revelations in Return
of the Jedi.
Yup, rebel scum really do kiss their
sisters. A lot. *Bleaugh!*
I
love Star
Wars,
Empire
and Jedi
but freely admit they aren't great movies
and find the prequels utter-crap. Lucas
has some wonderful ideas but is a lousy
scriptwriter -- as those three prequels
amply proved IMHO. We wail and gnash our
teeth wishing he'd let someone else do his
screenplays. But sometimes we have to be
careful what we wish for -- and
I remember the first time I saw Jar-Jar
Binks the first thing I thought of was old
Jaxx and his big old green ears.
When
the hoopla surrounding the release of The
Phantom Menace
hit, values of old Star
Wars
merchandise sky-rocketed, including these
old comics. They're still kind of pricey,
but if you were like me, you still had
your old comics, worn and earmarked, to
dig out and go through. If you still have
the itch to check them out but don't have
the scratch, Dark Horse has re-released
Marvel's entire run in series of
trade-paperbacks. So if you're checking
them out for the first time, or rekindling
old and sketchy memories about giant,
green space bunnies fighting cross-eyed
dinosaurs like I was, these will be the
best place to start.
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