Lit I love Marvel Star Wars

I'm reading the old Marvel Star Wars series right now, and while there are some incredibly campy parts (we all know about Jaxxon and Don-Wan Kitohay) many of the ideas and settings are just so much better than anything since the Thrawn Trilogy. The settings especially. For example...

# Baron Tagge's secret base inside Yavin (Marvel SW 20, Doom Mission) -- a huge turbine that can create tornadoes reaching up all the way through the gas planet's unnavigable upper layers, so ships can access the base by flying through the eye of the storm. Also, the story surrounding it (Luke getting out of the gas planet after destroying the station by tapping into his nascent Force talents) is very well told IMO.

# Rubyflame Lake on Centares (Marvel 29, Dark Encounter) -- once a popular tourist destination because of the beautiful lakes and warm waters; then the Empire tapped the lava fields beneath them for industrial purposes, poisoning the lakes and leaving the resort towers to rot. I love it when the Empire's effects on the galaxy form a part of the background like this; also, it makes for great scenery.

# The factory planet of Metalorn (Marvel 30, A Princess Alone) -- while not particularly scenic, it shows the workings of Imperial industry and the way workers are treated (apparently that kid who wants to plant leftover seeds from breakfast in one of the few patches of open soil next to the walkway can request transfer to an "agri-planet" once he's of age).

These are just some from the issues I've just read... and I'm really excited about this series now. It'll be interesting to compare it to Wood's Star Wars once that comes out.

So what did you all enjoy about this series? Let this be an appreciation thread for things of the past, so we can take a break from panicking about the future

 

Well, of course. Some of the best talent Marvel had back then wrote for the series. Chris "X-Men" Claremont was responsible for Aargau, for example.

 

I really miss the Em'liy. Too bad they only showed up once.

 

Marvel comics does have some very interesting stories indeed. I think you will also enjoy the Shira Elan Colla Brie arc when it shows up, the first Annual is also pretty amazing in setting and idea. Plus Marvel also has some of the best Lando stories and of course the famous issue 86 which was actually written by Randy Stradley back in the days and was published on the day I was born.

 

This is so true! In between the incredible pudu, there are these gems; settlings, villains, plots, sometimes just mere scenes. The Marvels kept me going between ESB and ROTJ! My favourite was the Shira plot, but there was also this great, great interaction between Luke and Lando in some stories - something I've never seen before or after. Also the comraderie between Luke and Leia was very well shown in the post ESB comics. The best teaming, however is from the Shira-plot where we see Luke and Chewie together - pure joy!

 

I haven't read any of the SW Marvels unfortunately, except the one issue that came with the Luke vs. Lumiya comic pack. I really want to get all the "Long Time Ago..." collections instead of the omnibuses.

 

Riders In the Void(#38) is awesome.

 

The great thing about Marvel Star Wars is that it's focused on the Flash Gordon elements of Star Wars, and not the Jedi/Sith mythology so much of the modern EU concentrates around.

The bad thing about Marvel Star Wars is that the writers couldn't do any real forward planning, as they had no idea what Lucas had in store for Luke and co. Unlike the Dark Horse comics which wisely focus on characters like Quinlan Vos, the Marvel ones have little real room to develop the characters, and so could only repeat plot points from the first movie (Luke/Han/Leia romantic triangle). In addition, though I personally love some of the more 'stylistic' takes on the Star Wars universe, some of it is just bizarre (Luke's ever-changing hair for example).

One thing worth noting is just how many ideas in the Marvel comics turned up in later Star Wars. There's a giant plant flower planet, for example, and Obi-Wan's Jedi uniform is similar to the one Luke uses in RotJ. And surely Bucky O'Hare is a complete rip-off of Jaxx,

 

Marvel is tons of fun. Often stupid, usually weird, but always fun.

 

I've always been partial to #86, The Alderaan Factor, coincidentally written by future Dark Horse Star Wars head-honcho Randy Stradley.

 

I would love it if Crimson Jack would show up in one of the future books.

 

The new Zahn book at least mentions him.

 

I loved the attitude of the comics. Granted, there were some serious storylines, but the overall atmosphere was fun. The comics were more enjoyable because the authors and artists were having fun. The fate of the galaxy may hinge on certain decisions, but we knew that everything would be more or less all right at the end, whereas in comics nowadays... It's do-or-die nail-biting ulcer-creating storyarcs that go on for months.

 

And Marvel did a bounty hunter plot before TESB did.

 

I just read that... and I'm still thinking if this could be somehow related to the Vong (retroactively of course), seeing as it's an organic ship from another galaxy... though the droid inside it and the fact that the weird pilot refers to the ship's computer all the time would need some explaining.

I like the epilogue at the end of #37 (two issues before the Empire Strikes Back comic adaptation), which has nothing to do with the plot at all, but just serves to explain why Jabba the Hut (with one "t" and in his Nimbanel form) still has a bounty posted on Han, after the two basically made peace some time earlier in the storyline. Obviously the writers had been given the script for ESB, where that bounty is a huge plot point, and hastily corrected their earlier storyline -- but they still didn't know what Jabba would ultimately look like, so they went with the Nimbanel again.

Also, Marvel's situation back then is pretty much the post-RotJ EU's situation right now, isn't it? Though on a much larger scale this time...

 

After reading Marvel Star Wars, I can't help wondering why everyone from Vader to Luke didn't just go to Zeltron to live happily ever after.

And I want to know more about the Glorious Conquerors, the Hiromi, who have secretly watched over the galaxy for 2000 years, waiting for a proper moment to strike.

 

You didn't know? Zeltros is the reason why the non-attachment rule of the Old Order could actually work out!

 

The only good Crimson Jack is a pantless Crimson Jack.

 

Pirates have no pants, pirates need no pants... wait, wrong meme.

By the way, should we have more duels in space... with no pants, because magnets?

 

Who doesn't?

 

I finished the series a couple of months ago, and enjoyed every issue of it, the bad ones, the great ones, and the crazy ones. It helped me sort through some frustration I felt over the saturation of storytelling emphasis on the Prequel era that I saw happening a few years ago, particularly with the Clone Wars animated show. Where, I was asking myself, were was the saturation of adventures and war stories for the galactic civil war? And here they were (to an extent) with the old Marvel stories. I snagged them in there A Long Time Ago... format, which, apart from the omission of the RotJ adaptation, I'm very pleased with. I think of the stories and individual comics according to the volume the are printed in, as they are presented in that collection.

The only parts I was disappointed about was Roy Thomas's kick off sequence of stories, and the ground-level execution of Jo Duffy's era. With Roy Thomas; given the man's reputation doing great things with other titles, I was shocked that he didn't seem to get and take advantage of what SW is. I wouldn't have a problem with the Aduba 8 sequence, except that it's the starting point for new material. Tonally it fits with the series as you look at it as a whole, perhaps, but as a starting point; and particularly when Archie Goodwin took over and made just nailed the style, energy and characterization...and made the previous issues look shockingly inferior. The give away is Han Solo, who is characterized so limply in the Aduba section, and then when Han ditched Aduba and they all head for the Waterworld, Han's character was suddenly no-holds-barred witty, scheming, charming and mercenary.

As for Jo Duffy, I liked some of the ideas that were promised, I liked the potential of the characters, I like the line-ups of the extended cast that she develops, the aliens and creatures she comes up with are fun and interesting (conceptually). Yet, I was always disappointed by actual dialogue, which never quite conveyed effectively (or responsibly) the characters and situations. Lumiya was terrific as a reborn incarnation of another character, and the Nagai were so promising. I also liked how the art toward the end of the series was a challenging stylized look that I had to acquire a taste for; I think it was a great exercise in stretching my perception of was SW should look like.

My favorite sections are Archie Goodwin's run, and David Michelines's story about Shira Brie and the surrounding circumstances and adventures. And the art for the comics that were set between tESB and RotJ is top notch. My favorite art from any individual book is for the Stenax storyline, particularly the bit where Lando and Luke are back to back in front of a slab of Carbonite, facing off with a bunch of bounty hunters.

 

nice... so many things to look forward to (I'm only just past the ESB adaptation)

 

Duquay which Marvel character is that as your avatar?