Blowing up Yet Another Super Weapon!

 

cover art by Walt Simonson

Writer David Michelinie and artist Walt Simonson bring this fun and exciting two-parter to a close with Star Wars #52 (October 1981).

Remember where we were? Luke, Leia, the droids and Chewie are aboard the Tarkin, the Empire's new superweapon. They want to destroy it. Darth Vader is also aboard and, sensing Luke's presence, is setting a trap. A cadre of Imperial officers, tired of their comrades regularly getting force-choked by Vader, are planning to assassinate him.

In this issue, we learn that Lando, who had not been assigned to the mission, stowed away on the Millennium Faclon to prove he is indeed now a loyal member of the Rebellion.

This latter plot twist is a happy one, as Lando manages to run a con on some stormtroopers to keep them from confiscating the ship.

Aboard the Tarkin, the Rebel party splits up. Chewie and the droids are to take out the power source for the tractor beam, which Chewie does in a magnificent manner--he throws a stormtrooper into the generator. 

Leia is to secure an escape pod for leaving the ship. She doesn't have as much luck. Though she kills a number of stormtroopers, she has to run for it.

Luke is taking an explosive to the reactor room that powers the superweapon. Vader is waiting for him, but one of those dissatisfied officers opens an airlock in an attempt to blow Vader into space. Both he and Luke manage to claw their way to safety, but Luke has lost his chance to sabotage the weapon.

With some help from R2, who plugs into the ship's computer and uses a deluge of fire-fighting foam to help Luke escape from stormtroopers, everyone rejoins near the hangar deck. 

They steal a transport and escape the Tarkin. Lando, in the Falcon, saves them from some TIE fighters and takes them aboard. Vader comes after them with his personal fighter, but Luke improvises a tactic that leaves Vader's ship damaged. 

The Tarkin attempts to destroy the Falcon with the superweapon, but it turns out that Leia, while running from the escape pods, had taken an opportunity to rewire the weapon. It essentially backfires and blows up the Tarkin.

As I mentioned last week, Star Wars Expanded Universe stories revisited the "Empire has a new superweapon" idea too often, but individual examples of this were often great stories in and of themselves. THIS is a great story. The action aboard the Tarkin is fast-paced, exciting and allows eash of the protagonists to show off his or her skills. Lando's surprise inclusion fits into the tale perfectly. The idea of Imperial officers wanting to kill Vader because he's always killing them is an excellent idea. Simonson's art continues to bring this version of the Star Wars universe to vivid life. 

And Chewie destroying the tractor beam by throwing a stormtrooper into it is the best thing ever.

Next week, we'll return to Earth and visit Basil the Royal Cat.

Yet Another Imperial Super Weapon!

 

cover art by Walt Simonson

After the release of The Empire Strikes Back, Marvel's Star Wars comic was in an interesting place. The writers would have no idea how the cliffhanger of Han being captured and frozen would play out. They had no idea what position either the Rebels or the Empire would be in when the next movie eventually came out. So the comic had to come up with good stories that didn't upset the overall continuity too much. Sadly, they had to also avoid using Han Solo. 

It's notable that they still succeeded in telling some good Star Wars stories. In Star Wars #51 (September 1981), writer David Michelinie and artist Walt Simonson give us the first half of a pretty nifty two-parter.

An X-Wing with a dead pilot reaches its base ship. The pilot had been on a spy mission and set the X-Wing's course before he died, knowing the information canister he had was vitally needed by the Rebellion.

What's in that canister? It's a minor irony of the comic that we find out the Empire isn't building a second Death Star (though we learn in the next movie that they were), but are taking the Death Star's planet-destroying laser and strapping engines and defensive systems to it. Same idea, but more compact and defensible. The new weapon is called the Tarkin. Though why you would name it after the ol' Grand Moff after the Death Star was destroyed on his watch is an open question.

If I might digress for a moment, the expanded Star Wars universe really did overdo the notion of the Empire continually building superweapons. The idea is revisited in a number of novels. If the sequel trilogy produced in the 2010s really existed (and we all know now that these films were a collective nightmare that DON'T REALLY EXIST), then we'd have to add the sun-destroying whatever-it-was from The Force Awakens to the list. But many of these stories were individually good, such as the one we are reviewing here.

It also gives Simonson a chance to draw a fantastic full-page panel image of the Tarkin. Simonson was the perfect artist for Star Wars. Or, for that matter, just about any science fiction comic. His imagination and artistry brings SF worlds to vivid life. 

It's decided that the rebels who escaped the Death Star were the perfect commandos to sneak about the Tarkin and somehow destroy it from within. Leia and Luke (each with one of the droids) are on separate missions to find a location for a new Rebel base after the evacuation of Hoth. Chewbacca is with Lando on the Millennium Falcon, searching for Boba Fett and Han. Each group has a mini-adventure of their own before being recalled for their new mission.

Lando is left behind, with a scene that tells us not everyone trusts him after his betrayal of Han on Bespin. The others travel to a spaceport from which workers are being transported to the Tarkin. They mug a couple of workers for uniforms and Luke uses the Force to convince a Stormtrooper they are all on the passenger manifest so they can board the next shuttle to the Tarkin.

But Vader is aboard the Tarkin as well and he senses Luke's presence. And, to add to the complexity of the situation, the issue ends with a panel that tells us a bunch of Imperial officers, sick of Vader's habit of killing anyone who makes a mistake, plan to assassinate the Sith Lord. 

It's a good story with a great setup for the next issue. Simonson's art is perfect. The mini-adventures might have existed because the page count would have been short otherwise, but they are fun in and of themselves. They also give each of the protagonists a chance to shine. Besides, in Star Wars, a hero really can't go anywhere without getting into some sort of adventure. It's that sort of galaxy.

It's a story set when the original SW heroes were still heroes, not grumpy, cynical old men. It's a story written during a time when Star Wars was still fun.

We'll look at Part 2 next week. 

Desert Planets & Asteroid Belts

Star Wars has more than its share of super-science--usually taking the form of a super-weapon able to destroy anything from single planets to entire solar systems. But its a universe that does not overtly deal with alternate dimensions and time-lines to the degree that, say Star Trek has.

All the same, the currents of popular culture have split Star wars into several clearly identifiable alternate realities. (As well as one debatable split--does the alternate versions of the original trilogy, with Han no longer shooting first, constitute an alternate universe from the original version?)

Star Wars had a detailed and ever-growing Expanded Universe, which included novels, TV shows and comic books, with reasonable if not always successful efforts to give them a consistent continuity. So you had a choice--did your SW universe include just the movies, or could you toss in the other stuff. And, of course, the new movie departs from the Expanded Universe and goes off into its own direction.

On top of that is the original Marvel Comics Star Wars book. Marvel started turning out the comics concurrently with the first movie, with the series beginning with an adaptation of the movie. What makes this series an alternate universe is the simple fact that no one had any idea what was going to happen when then next movie came out. No one writing the movies knew that Darth Vader was Luke's father; that Leia would fall in love with Han (and that falling in love with Luke would have turned out to be a tad bit icky); that Jabba the Hutt would turn out to be a giant slug; and a myriad of other things.

So the comic book has to be considered an alternate universe, where Jabba is a small humanoid alien and where Han Solo at one point teams up with a giant, intelligent rabbit. And that's just fine, because it was a fun universe.

A story arc from issues 31 to 34 (January-April 1980) is a fun story that actually would fit into the mainstream universe if you wanted it to, though Carmine Infantino's art work was always a little bit off-model. That's not a criticism, by the way. Infantino's art is always beautiful.

The story takes Luke back to his home planet of Tatooinie--he's heading for Mos Eisley to recruit pilots to run Imperial blockades. But he also runs across a few interesting facts--first, an old enemy named Orman Tagge (a rich noble who is allied with the Empire) has set up shop on Tatooine AND there's a frozen bantha in the middle of the desert.

 But Luke has a mission to complete.When he gets to Mos Eisley, he finds Han and Chewie in the middle of a bar fight. (The two were off on a mission of their own settling affairs with the Marvel
version of Jabba.)  A skirmish with some stormtroopers quickly follows, which results in the three friends lost in the desert, then teaming up with a sandcrawler full of Jawas.

They run across Tagge's super-weason, a freeze ray capable of taking out an entire world or fleet of ships. One can legitimately argue that Star Wars returned to the super-weapon trope as a plot device a little too often, but writer Archie Goodwin uses it effectively here. Also, the sequence involving the heroes forming an alliance with the Jawas is a lot of fun.

Halfway through the story arc, the action moves into space. The heroes trail Tagge and the freeze weapon to a planet named Junction--a Rebel supply depot. Han flies off to warn the rebels and bring back reinforcements, while Luke attempts to sneak about the Imperial ship carrying the freeze ray. He's briefly captured, escapes and confronts Orman Tagge in a lightsaber fight. Tagge's not a Jedi, by the way. He's just practiced quite a lot. He's also blind--a consequence of an injury received after he once unwisely ticked off Darth Vader. He wears googles that allow him to see in the dark, so he figures a fight with the lights out will give him an advantage. He's wrong.

By this time, Luke has learned that the Imperials have planned all along for the arrival of a Rebel fleet. The freeze ray is meant to wipe out that fleet, not the planet. That leaves Luke tasked with destroying the weapon despite a protective force field before the fleet Han is bringing comes into range.

It's a good, solid Space Opera, with great art and a fast-moving, well-plotted story. Yes, it is a story that takes place in a reality one or two universes removed from mainstream Star Wars, but perhaps the Marvel SW series is a good argument to justify the existence of continuity reboots. An individual reboot might be done well or done poorly, but the idea of expanding the pool of universes in which to tell good stories is never an inherently bad one.

Next week, we return to Earth to visit with Superman as he contracts a Kryptonian form of leprosy.

Monsters and Spaceships

If you are a comic book geek and hang out at the comic book shop occasionally, you're bound to get into some interesting and very geeky discussions. The geekiest I've ever been in was whether you'd want to hire Jimmie Olsen or Peter Parker as your wedding photographer. (One is likely to be transformed into a strange creature during the wedding; the other might not show up because he's been delayed fighting Dr. Octopus.)






A more recent discussion was what monster from any source of fiction has the coolest design. I had a ready answer for that, of course. Ghidorah, the three-headed monster--one of Godzilla's arch-enemies, is my first pick.

This really is an imaginative design. Ghidorah was supposed to represent the ultimate threat in monsters, so powerful that he could take on any one or two of Earth's monsters and win. His three-head, twin-tail, lightning-spitting design made him look as if he really awesome enough do just that.

It was always nice to see Ghidorah (usually controlled by invading aliens) fly down from space in his latest attempt to destroy the Earth, only to be defeated by Godzilla and one or more of Earth's home-grown monsters.

Ghidorah was in three of the movies from the original series. When the Godzilla franchise was rebooted in 1985 and reintroduced the various monsters in a new continuity, Ghidorah gets turned into Mecha-King Ghidorah after being defeated by Godzilla.

I'm torn between whether I like him better as completely organic or with a robot head/neck replacing one of the originals. Both look pretty gosh-darn cool.

Some of the other people in the discussion had some pretty good nominations of their own; the Rancor from the Star Wars universe; the one-eyed giant Centaur from The Golden Voyage of Sinbad; the Medusa from the original Clash of the Titans.

All of these are cool monsters. But though I love Ray Harryhausen's movies and special effects more than I love the Japanese monster movies, I just think the design of King Ghidorah managed to hit just the right note in awesomeness and visual imagination to jump it up to the top spot on my list.

Though I do feel some guilt in jumping any monster over Ray Harryhausen's beautiful monster designs. Oh, well, sometimes the decisions a comic book/SF geek must make can't help but be painful.

Anyway, this discussion led to a brief discussion about which space ships are coolest. For me it's a tie between Han Solo's Millennium Falcon and the USS Reliant from Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.
 

The beat-up but still functional look of the Millennium Falcon, along with the asymmetrical placement of the cockpit and the B-17 inspired gun turrets really do give it a unique and appealing look.

The Reliant is a neat variation of the standard Star Fleet design, helped along by the fact that it plays a key role in what is still by-far the best Star Trek feature film.