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krpalmerThere may be a little to me after all of that stereotypical Star Wars fan who can't handle anything new, instead clinging to the memories of his (it always seems to be "his") childhood. I don't read the novels or comics of the Expanded Universe, but I have just bought my fourth volume of the Dark Horse series of trade paperbacks collecting the old Marvel Star Wars comics. This particular volume has some of the first Star Wars comics I read, back in 1981 and 1982.
It wasn't just an exercise in nostalgia, though. Back then, I wasn't quite yet in the habit of looking for new comics every month, or even asking my parents to buy them for me when I did see them. Of the fifteen comics in this volume (one an extended-length annual), I had bought exactly five before. (I suppose I'd seen one that someone had brought to school and flipped through one on the newsstand, though.) That meant I was interested in finally seeing some rather large cliffhangers resolved, including one where Darth Vader stalks on to a last splash page, bellowing "Luke--I've come for you!" That freaked me out at the time, and the artistic team helpfully added a footnote saying "We dare you not to buy the next issue!"... which I suppose I did take them up on. (I remember seeing the next issue at the convenience store, but I was with my grandmother at the time, and I suppose I didn't want to pester her to buy the issue for me...) It is possible, of course, that any resolution wouldn't quite live up to a quarter of a century of uncertainty, although one case might conceivably have been a little more impressive than what I once took away from a mere online summary.
One thing I did start to notice was that a good number of issues seemed to be built around fairly "science-fictional" concepts, strange, one-of-a-kind situations or creatures... although it could very well just be an artifact of having to turn out a story every month, while not doing anything that might possibly interfere with "Revenge of the Jedi." In any case, while one of my favourite and long-remembered issues of the volume did involve the Rebels trying to hide their fleet inside a star and the attempt of course going wrong, what I liked about it was that both Artoo and Threepio worked together to save the day. That, I suppose, is one thing I do indeed wish could have been in the new movies... Threepio's role in them is fairly small, but does involve a fair bit of being knocked around and otherwise abused while Artoo does all the heroic work. Then, there was the interesting surprise of another issue where Threepio not only has to talk Chewbacca out of a rampage, but reassemble Artoo as well.
It wasn't just an exercise in nostalgia, though. Back then, I wasn't quite yet in the habit of looking for new comics every month, or even asking my parents to buy them for me when I did see them. Of the fifteen comics in this volume (one an extended-length annual), I had bought exactly five before. (I suppose I'd seen one that someone had brought to school and flipped through one on the newsstand, though.) That meant I was interested in finally seeing some rather large cliffhangers resolved, including one where Darth Vader stalks on to a last splash page, bellowing "Luke--I've come for you!" That freaked me out at the time, and the artistic team helpfully added a footnote saying "We dare you not to buy the next issue!"... which I suppose I did take them up on. (I remember seeing the next issue at the convenience store, but I was with my grandmother at the time, and I suppose I didn't want to pester her to buy the issue for me...) It is possible, of course, that any resolution wouldn't quite live up to a quarter of a century of uncertainty, although one case might conceivably have been a little more impressive than what I once took away from a mere online summary.
One thing I did start to notice was that a good number of issues seemed to be built around fairly "science-fictional" concepts, strange, one-of-a-kind situations or creatures... although it could very well just be an artifact of having to turn out a story every month, while not doing anything that might possibly interfere with "Revenge of the Jedi." In any case, while one of my favourite and long-remembered issues of the volume did involve the Rebels trying to hide their fleet inside a star and the attempt of course going wrong, what I liked about it was that both Artoo and Threepio worked together to save the day. That, I suppose, is one thing I do indeed wish could have been in the new movies... Threepio's role in them is fairly small, but does involve a fair bit of being knocked around and otherwise abused while Artoo does all the heroic work. Then, there was the interesting surprise of another issue where Threepio not only has to talk Chewbacca out of a rampage, but reassemble Artoo as well.