Back in the days when movies were "held over" in big cities and those of us who lived in small towns had to wait seemingly forever to see them, I would routinely buy the paperback novelizations, but hold off on reading the final chapter(s). That was the case with Star Wars. I got my copy through the Scholastic Book Club, and its cover proudly proclaimed "From The Adventures of Luke Skywalker." This is right around the time I was discovering such science-fiction series as Dune and Foundation (both trillogies at that time), and for all I knew there was an Adventures of Luke Skywalker series. (In any case, I had no reason to believe there wasn't.) I went to the public library but the librarian had no idea what I was talking about. (For that matter, she had never heard of "Star Wars" either).
Eventually I saw the movie. In the end [SPOILER], the rebels destroy the Death Star and Darth Vader was sent spinning into space [END SPOILER]. I had no reason to expect a sequel, but I was still interested in those other "Adventures of Luke Skywalker." Shortly thereafter, Splinter of the Mind's Eye was released, which was pretty much all I had hoped it would be. The next one I saw after that was Han Solo at Star's End and the next one after that Han Solo's Revenge. I wasn't particularly interested in Han Solo, but I felt I was getting in on the beginning of the next "Big Thing" so I bought and read them, too. Then, one day, I remember standing in the bookstore and my vision focus in on another original "Star Wars" book on the rack. Then my field of vision pulled back and I noticed another... then another, then another. I soon realized that the entire rack was filled with "Star Wars" books! It was at that point I gave up. It would be many years before I bought another original "Star Wars" book.
Then The Empire Strikes Back came to theaters. Three years had passed since Star Wars, both between films as well as IRL. I remember being a bit disappointed that the sequel didn't take place immediately after Star Wars; I was still craving those "Adventures of Luke Skywalker." I was never a big fan of Star Wars comic books (or of any comics based on movies). Marvel's Star Wars was very much along the lines of what I wanted, but I turned my nose up at them because they weren't "official" (i.e., canon). Several years ago I had the opportunity to buy seven tpbs collecting the entire Marvel series on clearance. I read through their adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back, then my interest turned elsewhere. They were about what I expected.
Last week I came a cross a bookstore in Colorado that had six copies of IDW's Star Wars Artifact Edition on sale for $26 apiece. It must have been a case of "supply and demand," because these volumes generally go for $100 or more. I couldn't pass it up. The difference between an "Artist's Edition" and an "Artifact Edition" is that the former offer complete stories (scanned at full size from original art) and the latter do not. Although I didn't care too much for them the first time through, I'm currently in the process of re-evaluating them and compiling my own version of "The Adventures of Luke Skywalker."
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The "Artifact Edition" includes pages from Star Wars #1-10 (by Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin), #16 (by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson), and #38 (by Archie Goodwin and Michael Golden). Thomas's stories weren't bad, but I had forgotten that he tried to make "Star Warriors" a thing, also that he tried to give Han Solo a catch-phrase (and if you don't know what it was, you're better off not knowing). Many people disparage the inclusion of Jaxxon, the six-foot tall, green lepus carnivorus, but is he really any worse than Jar Jar Binks? I'm so familiar with the original story that having large swaths of pages "missing" didn't prove to be an impediment. Beyond that, the trick is not to read the narration ot the top and bottom of non-consecutive pages and just experience the story as a series of scenes. I was too old for a children's magazine when Pizazz came out, although I was aware of it. What I didn't know is that it also contained three-page, serialized chapters of an original story by Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin, many of which are included in the AE.
That was a good introduction to my personal "Adventures of Luke Skywalker" and it has primed the pump for what I have in mind next.
I remember having no advance knowledge of the Star Wars newspaper strip; I just opened up the paper one day and there it was. It was originally written and drawn by Russ Manning. the daily and Sunday strips told separate continuities at first. The first daily story featured Luke and Leia, the first two Sunday stories Han and Chewbacca. It was good, solid space-faring adventure, but it wasn't particularly "Star Warsy" to me. Then the daily and Sunday continuities merged, Steve Gerber took over as writer, and the story became much more like the "Star Wars" we think of today.
Gerber left after writing just one continuity, then the next four were written by either Russ Helm or Don Christensen, with Russ Manning still providing the art. The next story was written by Christensen, with the art transitioning over to Alfredo Alcala (via Rick Hoberg and Dave Stevens). The final story in this volume was written by Helm with art by Alcala.
It fun to compare how these stories differ from later canon. Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader have not yet met face-to-face, but Vader does know Luke's name. If he knows anything about the young Jedi's parentage (which is revealed to be Tan and Lady Skywalker), he's keeping mum on the matter. C3PO was said to have been built "centuries ago" on the planet Alderaan. The Wookie holiday "Lifeday" (from the 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special) also plays into one of the stories. Boba Fett (also from the special) is pitted against Luke and Han in another.
I would be more l; ikely to recommend this to fans of Russ Manning than to Star Wars fans.
NEXT: Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson
Volume two of Star Wars: The Classic Newspaper Comics begins with an adaptation of the Brian Daley paperback Han Solo at Stars' End by Archie Goodwin and Alfredo Alcala. Although I read the book at the time, I have no memory of reading the comic strip and I just realized why: the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, the paper my parents took, went bankrupt in 1980, and the adaptation ran from October '80 through February '81. I didn't much care for the prequel novel back then, and I don't much care for the adaptation now. Star Wars is ostensibly "The Adventures of Luke Skywalker," not "The Adventures of Han Solo."
Immediately after that, though, Al Williamson joined Goodwin and the strip entered hyperspace. Goodwin and Williamson had an advantage that Russ Manning et al did not, namely that The Empire Strikes Back was released in May of 1980, and the stories being told in the strip were set "Between the explosive end of the Death Star and the moment when the evil Galactic Empire struck back on the ice planet of Hoth," so they knew exactly where the story was headed and could write toward it. their very first continuity, "The Bounty Hunter of Ord Mantell," was even referenced in The Empire Strikes Back. At the time, the movie's reference to the strip was only a month old, but the strip lasted until 1984, making one wonder why a random encounter with a bounty hunter would still be on Han Solo's mind four years later.
[It reminds me of the "Star Trek" comic strip whihc followed ST:TMP. It was set after the film, but initially featured Commander Decker and Lt. Ilea, who casual readers might regognize from pre-release publicity shots but who [SPOILER] did not survive the movie [END SPOIILER]. By the time fans were more likely to have seen the movie, those characters were quietly dropped from the strip.
Goodwin and Williamson also introduce Tanith Shire, a love interest for Luke, who was still pining for the princess he did not yet know was his sister. Han Solo also gets a new love interest, Silver Fyre. The rebel base is still set on the fourth moon of Yavin throughout this volume; Darth Vader has not yet ordered it to be attacked en masse for reasons yet to be revelaed. All of these stories (except perhaps the "Star's end" on) are canon as far as I am concerned, and I would recommend this volume equally to fans of Star Wars as well as Al Williamson.
Volume three spans July 1982 through March 1984, Return of the Jedi hit theaters in May 1983, and the strip was still telling stories set between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, a situation which Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson took full advantage of. They were able to introduce not only characters and situations from Then Empire strikes Back, but from Return of the Jedi as well. For example, the planet Hoth is discovered, and much of the volume is spent moving the rebel base there. Also, Darth Vader's flagship, the Executor, is under construction. It is not explicitly stated, but the reason the Empire delayed attacking the rebel base of the fourth moon of Yavin is because Vader wanted that attack to be the Executor's inaugural battle.
In addition to that, a story in this volume reveals how Admiral Ackbar and his people, the Mon Calamari, came to join the Rebel Alliance. Also, toward the end, the Emperor appears. And remember the bounty hunter of Ord Mantell (mentioned in The Empire Strikes Back and the first continuity of the Goodwin/Williamson run)? By the end of this volume, the story circles back there, so the movie reference is only weeks old, not years. "The Final Trap" brings this volume, as well as the Star Wars comic strip itself, to a close. AFAIAC, these strips are canon.
NEXT: The Empire Strikes Back
Before Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson collaborated on the Star Wars comic strip, they adapted The Empire Strikes Back in six issues of Marvel's Star Wars comic book, #39-44. [DAP to read it in the IDW "Artist's Edition."] The AE also includes a post-Return of the Jedi Han Solo "solo" adventure by Goodwin and Williamson from Star Wars #98, as wel as several individual "gallery pages" and pin-ups from various issues of Star Wars and Return of the Jedi.
Oddly, I'm not as concerned with the "Adventures of Luke Skywalker" in the three years (real time) between Empire and Jedi. Han Solo spent that time encased in carbonite, and I'm perfectly content to experience that gap from his POV. I'm much more interested in Luke's "adventures" post-Return.
I neglected to mention it before, but I've been listening to John Williams' The Empire Stikes Back soundtrack while reading all of this Goodwin/Williamson material. [NOTE: Although the comic strips take place between the first two movies, I couldn't have listened to the Star Wars soundtrack because each and every cut is so firmly imgained in my subconscious that I wouldn't have been able to diassociate it from what was happening onscreen.]
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S STAR WARS:
It has been said that Star Wars was written to appeal to the average ten-year-old, whereas Star Trek was written to appeal to the average fifteen year old (which is probably pretty close to the truth). Having said that, I was 13 when Star Wars came out, and it made a pretty big impact on me. By the time of The Empire Strikes Back, though, I was 16 and had read enough comic books to recognize that the franchise had fallen victim to some pretty sloppy storytelling. I mean, I knew an EYKIW when I saw one. When Yoda told Ben, "There is another Skywalker," the friend I was with speculated, "Leia?" and I distictly remember responding, "No, that would be stupid."
In my experience, most folks my age view the prequel trilogy in a negative light, but I'm okay with them. That's because I do not, I cannot, think of them as a prequel, but as a reboot... in exactly the same way ST:SNW is a reboot of ST:TOS. There are just too many discrepancies, not to mention outright contradictions, for them to be a part of the same timeline. Yet I have noticed that the generation who refer to the original Star Wars movie as "A New Hope" are perfectly fine with them.
Don't even get me started on the third trilogy. Even Mark Hamil was critical of the first one of those (until he changed his time due to studio pressure).
But the one way I can accept all nine of them as being part of the same timeline is when I read "William Shakespeare's Star Wars" by Ian Doescher.
"Verily, a New Hope!"
STAR WARS - The Original Radio Dramas
Back when Star Wars was first released, it was to have been the first part of the second of three trilogies which would ultimately describe the "rise, fall and redemption" of Darth Vader. By the time The Emipre Strikes Back came out, it became clear that George Lucas was making it up as he went along. And Return of the Jedi dealt with Vader's "fall and redemption" all on its own. Still, there were certain aspects of the overarching plot we were told in 1977 that persisted. Certain scenes were that were eventually scrapped due to cost or length or for other reasons. For example: Luke was to have witnessed the space battle between the Tantive IV and the Devastator from the surface of Tatooine using his macrobinoculars; he and Biggs Darklighter were to have had a scene together which would have set up Biggs' death during the battle of the Deathstar (whoops! "spoiler"); and there was to have been a pod race. Also, we were told that Dark Vader had to wear his "breath screen" after having been knocked into a volcanic pit by Obi-Wan Kenobi.
A pod race eventually made it into The Phantom Menace, and the climatic battle between Kenobi and Vader was in Revenge of the Sith, but it wasn't until the Star Wars radio series that fans got to see the other cut scenes. From Wikipedia: "A radio dramatization of the original Star Wars film trilogy was produced in 1981, 1983, and 1996. The first two radio series, based on Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, were produced and broadcast by National Public Radio (NPR) as part of NPR Playhouse. A dramatization of Return of the Jedi was produced by most of the same team and it was also broadcast on NPR." In addition to the John Williams score and original sound effects (including R2-D2), Mark Hamill and anthony Daniels reprised their roles as Luke Skywalker and C-3PO respectively. Darth Vader was voiced by Brock Peters, and later chapters included Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian, John Lithgow as Yoda, and Ed Asner as Jabba the Hutt.
The generation after mine would come to call Star Wars "A New Hope," but I can accept that ony if the first three chapters are...
"A Wind to Shake the Stars" - This chapter takes place just prior to the events of the first movie. It details Luke's life working for his Uncle Owen on the moisture farm, and introduces his "friends" Windy, Fixer, Deak and Cammie. (They call Luke "Wormy.") It also hs a scene between Luke and his true best friend, Biggs Darklighter, which sets up the action to come. there is a pod race, as I mentioned, plus Luke is the sole witness to the space battle between the Tantive IV and the Devastator in orbit above Tatooine. (Some of these scenes can be found in the Marvel Comics adaptation from before they were cut from the shooting script.)
"Points of Origin" - This is the story told from Princess Leia's point of view. Chonologically it occurs shortly before Luke's chapter, but Star Wars is "The Adventures of Luke Skywalker," not "The Adventures of Leia Organa." While on a mission to aid the Rebel Alliance, Princess Leia learns of the Death Star.
"Black Knight, White Princess and Pawns" - This chapter relates the never-before-told story of how, exactly, Princess Leia came to intercept the Death Star plans. It also adds C-3PO and R2-D2 into the mix, and seques into the movie about about halfway through. It occurs simultanioulsy with the first chapter, descibing the space battle Luke winessed from the ground.
Lucasfilm would later release a movie in 2016 supposedly telling the story of how the Rebel Alliance came to possess the Death Star plans, but it does not fit into the continuity of the original Star Wars trilogy very well (the reboot trilogy, maybe). The three chapters are canon AFAIAC, the only true prequel, and unless you listen to them, you will never know what "really" happened.
THE ART OF STAR WARS - A NEW HOPE: THE MANGA:
When Dark Horse reprinted Hisao Tamaki's manga adaptation of the first Star Wars movie for an American audience, quite a bit was changed. Not only was the art "flipped" to read left-to-right, but all of the dialogue was swapped in directly from the movie, going so far as to add and subtract word balloons and to change their position so as to match the movie. Here is a good example from the very first page: "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." becomes "Long, long ago, in a certain somewhere...," an expression more closely associated in Japan with fables and fairy tales. [NOTE: In his paperback adaptation (which many of us read before having the opportunity to see the movie), Alan Dean Foster put it: "Another galaxy, another time..."] In addition, Tamaki made certain other linguistic choices which reflect Japanese culture. Luckily, translator Michael Gombos explains them in footnotes. For example, Darth Vader refers to Senator Bail Organa at one point as "公" (ko), denoting an aristocratic title similar to "lord." Tamaki's implication (according to Gombos) is that "Vader refuses to acknowledgethe title or position of senator, perceiving it as an affront to the Empire's hegemony following the Senate's untimate dissolution."
Here is the start of my "Alternate Star Wars Read":
That's as far as I've gotten.
RETURN OF THE JEDI (novelization by James Kahn): "Exhibit A" in support of my assertion that George Lucas was just makin' this $#!t up as he went along:
"Ben continued his narrative. 'When your father left, he didn't know your mother was pregnant. Your mother and I knew that he would find out eventually, but we wanted to keep you both as safe as possible. So I took you to live with my brother Owen on Tattooine... and your mother took Leia to live as the daughter of Senator Organa, on Alderaan.'"
And this is "Exhibit B"...
JOURNAL OF THE WHILLS:
"Once, under the wise rule of the Senate and the protection of the Jedi Knights, the Republic throve and grew. But as often happens when wealth and power pass beyond the admirable and obtain thw awesome, then appear those evil ones who have greed to match.
"So it was with the Republic at its height. Like the greatest of trees, able to withstand any external attack, the Republic rotted from within though the danger was not visible from outside.
"Aided and abetted by restless, power-hungry individuals within the government, and the massive organs of commerce, the ambitious Senator Palpatine caused himself to be elected President of the Republic. He promised to reunite the disaffected anong the people and to restore the remembered glory of the Republic.
"Once secure in office, he declared himself Emperor, shutting himself away from the populace. Soon he was controlled by the very assistants and boot-lickers he had appointed to high office, and the cries of the people for justice did not reach his ears.
"Having exterminated through treachery and deception the Jedi Knights, guardians of justice in the galaxy, the imperial governors and bureaucrats prepared to institute a reign of terror among the disheartened worlds of the galaxy. Many used the Imperial forces and the name of the increasingly isolated Emperor to further their own personal ambitions."
RETURN OF THE JEDI:
"The Emperor sat, regarding this view... He perused the vista before him with a sense of glory beyond all reckoning: this was all his. And more glorious still, all by his own hand.
"For it wasn't always so. Back in the Days when he was merely Senator Palpatine, the gal;axy had been merely a Republic of stars, cared for and protected by the Jedi Knighthood that had watched over it for centuries. But inevitably it had grown too large--too massive a bureaucracy had been required, over too many years, in order to maintain the Republic. Corruption had set in.
"A few greedy senators had started the chian reaction of malaise, some siad; but who could know? A few percverted bureaucrats, arrogant, self-serving--and suddenly a fever was in the stars. Governor turned on governor, values eroded, trusts were broken--fear had spread like an epidemic in those early years, rapidly and without visible cause, and no one knew what was happening or why.
"And so Senator Palpatine had seized the moment. Through fraud, clever promises, and astute political maneuvering, he'd managed to get himself elected head of the Council. And then through subterfuge, bribery, and terror, he'd named himself Emperor."
That doesn't sound like someone "controlled by the very assistants and boot-lickers he had appointed to high office." (I'm just sayin'.)