Lit Coop's MARVELous Voyage

I don't know - wasn't Palpatine planning on making a fleet of Death Stars eventually?

 

I think someone tried to link the Tardi HRD to Project Decoy from Mission from Mount Yoda but for the life of me, I can’t remember a source for that. Maybe it was fanon.

Huh, that’s an odd one since Tinker, Sailor, Soldier, Praji establishes that the galaxy had been off a currency standard (the aurodium standard) since the days of the Republic. I haven’t managed to get my hands on a Marvel Omnibus, so I don’t know the context here but I can think of some solutions. It’s possible that certain backwater worlds just didn’t accept the Imperial credit (just like the Republic credit), or perhaps the Imperial credit was just the reserve currency and other planets just kept using their own local currencies, in much the same way that the US dollar is the reserve currency of the world. Of course, it could just be a matter of some people preferring a hard currency to a fiat currency, which isn’t uncommon even today.

I think the best way to explain this would be some people just using the term “Empire” interchangeably with the rule of Palpatine. After all, his tenure as Supreme Chancellor could be viewed as simply being the earliest incarnation of Palpatine’s rule. As for Jedidiah (shudder) being approached as an adult, it’s uncommon but not unheard of. I think it was the Almas Academy that trains Force-sensitives at a later age than their mainstream counterparts, and other quasi-Jedi groups with their own traditions, but a loose affiliation with the mainstream order could do the same. Of course, you could also argue maverick Masters, such as Obi-Wan’s insistence that he’ll train Anakin with or without the approval of the Council, or the heavy casualties inflicted by the Clone Wars forcing the Jedi to drop their recruitment standards.

Oh God, that’s hilarious. A quick check of Wookieepedia tells me that there isn’t really anything of significance in the Halori sector, so I definitely agree with your assessment.

Er… Um… Well… He’s feeling protective of his sister! Just a brotherly desire to protect her from bad men, with absolutely no incest undertones whatsoever! *Waves his hand* Move along, move along.

Oddly enough it’s in Wild Space, close to Terminus. I suppose they mean outside the known galaxy.

To my knowledge it’s Golrath, which appears later in the Marvel comics, followed by Arbra. Although I’m not 100% sure if they’re the main base, or just important bases.

Huh, now that you mention it the Empire is building the DSII concurrently with the Tarkin. Maybe stripping down the surrounding structure and just leaving the superlaser was a way of tricking the Rebels into thinking that they’d started cheaping out on superweapons after the failure of the first Death Star, and weren’t building a second one.

Too soon?

 

It's not Eternia, it's Mars. You've stumbled onto the storyline crafted out of reused John Carter, Warlord of Mars art by Infantino.

 

WEG is full of them especially Imperial customs officers must be the bane of any non Guild Ship Owner, seeing how often they show up in WEG adventures.

If you get around to it, you might want to read the Wotc article on Aargau as it has a pretty fun follow up on how the locals view the whole events.

Courier variant Y-Wings

Yep per WEG Pirates guide many planets still us Gold (among them Rodia, Gamorr and the Hutts ) coins, instead of only Imperial Issue Credit Coins.

So doess the ANH novel, one might chalk it up to some people seeing Palpapatines election to office as the death of the Republic/ the beginning of his reign.

Edit: What Praxis said

Much more impressive, she is a member of the Diplomatic Corps! Which are even more obscure then Imperial Customs.

The Velm system seem to have several inhabited worlds, so it kind of works.

I am pretty sure Daley used it in his novels.

Hey Corran is into otters... must be a Corellian thing.

http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/1/10/MainGalaxy.png

G-21, just beyond the Galactic Disk.

Just wait a few issues they set up a new one.

Considering how much insane stuff the Empire keeps doing to citizens it properly helps to have a few.

Yep apparently exactly what happens, Fett was forced to divert to Gall after his ship was damaged.

Continuity fixed it with the Tarkin actually being an Eclipse test bed they had begun building earliers, you know along with all those more normal Super Star Destroyers, the 2 other Eclipse models, the Second Death Star, all that insane stuff in the Maw (including another Death Star), whilst still building thousands of Star Destroyers a year and training billions upon billions of Soldiers, whilst waging war on its own people etc. and yet people still seem surprised when they get told the Empire was heading for finical disaster.

I would assume he took the idea from the ion canon at Hoth in ESB. Funny enough continuity backed him on this, as it explained ion canons as just variation of turbolasers / blasters, and thus by extend Superlasers.

That’s no hat! It has to be an Abominor!

Not really, though it would seem odd it is never mentioned again, maybe she is hinting at Bail visiting the grave / memorial shrine

The NJO has them a lot, also Zsinj seemed to love mining space lanes.

If memory serves me right, this was actually a John Carter of Mars comic that got cancelled and has its art work used for a SW story.

Edit: Havac was faster it gets especially apparent when you see the local Aliens that it is a meant to be a John Carter story.

 

Just wait 'til my next update.

I'm actually up to Arbra currently--Golrath was earlier, but the context definitely makes it seem like either a waystation or a temporary HQ at most. They're there in #50 and then in #51 they're still looking. Arbra feels like a bigger deal but I could be wrong.

Ooooohhhh, it's thaaaaat story...the boob cups makes so much more sense suddenly.

I'd like to--is it online still?

Yeah, I guess it's not totally crazy...but on Aargau of all places?

Nope. Still dumb.

That would be an interesting coincidence--he'd have had no reason yet to think that would be a recurring thing.

Of course that would suggest that everything up to #50 takes place pre-SotE, then it jumps to after, which raises its own problems.

 

This link should work, if not I can upload it as PDF.

http://web.archive.org/web/20041205...fault.asp?x=starwars/article/sw20030807aargau

Wasen't it on Velmor? Though Aargau works as well as they keep stores of Precious metals around and kill anyone who tries to smuggle them of world (one of the three Laws), whilst Velmor trades in Precious metals.

Just checked, he really never uses bad feeling, icy and ominous show up but not bad.

Well like Crucible hints at, in some parts of the GFFA "Space has warped and time is now bendable!"

 

Re-reading this thread...

Heh.

 

Yeah., I caught that myself.

 

Issue 54

(note: the following was written before Hav and Gorefiend pointed out to me that this was the John Carter story...that actually quasi-forgives a lof of the weirdness)

Editor's note on page one: "For details, see last issue." Anyone who needs an editor's note to understand that the story you've just recapped for them is from the previous issue has got bigger problems.

Wait--Leia first had to learn Calian to talk to them, yet Sk'ar understands them just fine. Did he actually learn their language prior to engaging them as a target? That would be remarkably reasonable for a giant gladiator/crocodile/bat person.

Man, Claremont loves the word "wench".

And now they're doing the "local creep sides with the Empire after being promised ruling position" story again, after just doing it on Velmor five issues ago.

You just can't celebrate a Concordat of Peace without your pointy boob cups. It's tradition, you know.

Ignoring the whole "poor, flustered woman" aspect of it, it's actually pretty interesting to see Leia taken off-guard by the experience of stabbing a guy to death. Even lightsabers and cool and distant compared to driving a regular ol' knife into a guy's chest.

"War, to her, had been an abstract concept, fought in the infinite vacuum of space." Okay, that, on the other hand, is garbage. Especially when she was just reflecting on her torture in ANH a couple pages ago.

Ha! At Leia's first mention of Luke by name, Aron's narration immediately declares, "I hated him."

Now Leia's crying while she shoots at troopers from the airship? I'm choosing to believe this is all in Aron's mind.

Wow, the chase was both madcap and helter-skelter.

Delois lunges at Leia and she "sensed his presence" and moved away. Nice unintentional foreshadowing, that.

It's about time the Wookiee showed up--I was getting tired of all that "we are the greatest warriors in known space" stuff.

So Sk'ar has his own personal energy shield, but his ship can be destroyed by a hand-thrown hunk of metal?

Another editor's note for something that happened last issue. People sure had short attention spans back then.

...okay, Luke definitely doesn't know about Han and Leia.

I gotta say, Alys' handling of Aron's attraction to Leia is amazingly progressive. They must have Savage Love on that planet.

Heh, and they're also big fans of the black guy.

Leia in a giant pink feather boa. Boo.

Well, silly or not, I genuinely like how they handled Luke's skirting of the black hole. And it's cool just to see him flying the Falcon for once.

Leia: "But the crew of the Star Destroyer--I fel them die. A moment of supreme terror, of pain--then an awful, all consuming nothingness." Okay, I understand Claremont is just going for normal empathy here, but holy crap is that perfect for a pre-RotJ story.

In conclusion, I'm really glad this story was narrated by Aron--it was both a nice change of pace and a handy excuse to ignore the stupider parts as just his interpretation.

Issue 55

Arbra! Hoojibs!! At last, a story I can really enjoy.

The Falcon's actually docked inside what may or may not be the Redemption--rather than just using the tube thingy from ESB. Odd.

Also, interesting that both Lando and Chewie seem to have officially given up on the whole "let's go find Han" thing.

"Hearing capacitor"? Did they not know what microphones were in 1981?

Hoojibs + sleeping bags = best slumber party ever.

One of the Rebel troops is named "Burtt"--nice.

Natually occurring energy crystals are one thing, but actually being able to use them as a power source for blasters? Meh.

New favorite sound effect: "KRINKATLESH"

Well, that might have been my favorite issue yet. Dear EU: more hoojibs plz.

I like the Cloud City tease at the end, too--it helps when there are so many one-shot stories.

Issue 56

Aw ****, Lobot's pissed.

Okay, I'm just gonna ignore Lando calling tibanna "anti-gravity gas".

Lando's awfully surprised to find everyone gone from Cloud City considering that's exactly what he told them to do.

Waitwaitwait..."evacuated to Bespin"? Lord, is this the story that take place on the surface?

Okay, Lobot talking like the Lost in Space robot is silly, but I have to be honest--I can barely remember what his deal is even in the modern EU. So whatever.

Stormtrooper bomb squad--that's actually pretty cool. They're even wearing kama.

Lando's calling him "the Lobot"...I retract my previous "whatever".

Meanwhile, on Arbra--it's nice to see a little more continuity here. I know the overall Lumiya plot continues over a good twenty issues or so, so I guess this is a harbinger of things to come.

Rebel lookout stationed in a tree--nice nod to Yavin. Also love the camo-painted T-47s, even if they don't seem entirely logical here.

Aaaaaaand enter Shira Brie. A harbinger, indeed.

Okay, Luke still acting interested in Leia is one thing, but it's nuts that Leia would be that snippy around Shira at this point.

Quick poll--"shy-ra" or "sheera"? I have to admit that "sheera" seems more logical, but I just can't make myself say it. "Shy-ra Brie" just flows together a lot better, I think.

Talking bomb--love it.

Lando running through his options: "Smooth talk? Chicanery? Bird impressions?"

Woo, chicanery it is! Okay, three stormtroopers surrounding one small hole. One swing through by Lando, and he somehow knocks all three into said hole.

...and if the whole carbonite freezing process boils down to one "freeze" button, why exactly did it require a team of like seven Ugnaughts?

Length of time after Empire the EU managed to restrain itself from freezing somebody else in carbonite: 12 issues.

Okay, I officially demand a prequel-era team-up story about the bomb droid and the security monad from YDR.

And because this story thinks tibanna is anti-gravity gas, which of course is a totally nonsensical concept, a loss of gas is now making Cloud City fall out of the sky. Well, that's at least internally consistent.

Apparently the thing on Lobot's head is Bender.

Not only does Bespin have a habitable surface (I blame ESB for not showing it from space), it's the Ugnaughts' home planet. Guess that part, at least, is logical.

Okay, here's what bugs me about Lobot in this: it's one thing to assume the thing on his head makes him behave like a droid. I can even get my head around them assuming he's like the Six Million Dollar Man. But even droids in this universe talk like regular people--that's the point of this universe. At no point do I want to read a Star Wars story with a robot, even a damaged one, going "Prime directive! Find intruder! Kill!"

That said, I also demand a Lobot origin story wherein he attaches the thing to his head and proclaims, "I...am...THE LOBOT!!"

Oh, and he's a technopath. Lord.

Issue 57

Not only does Bespin have a surface, Cloud City hovers a whole...one and a half miles above it! Woo, so high!

Heh, I actually appreciate the little circle zoom thing they do to show Lando falling. Very Hawkeye.

I almost forgot about Ugnaught dialect! Bless you, Michael Reaves.

...wait, are they supposed to be Irish here? I remember it going more piratey in Medstar.

So not only is tibanna "anti-gravity gas", the Ugnaughts use it essentially as helium. Why is it so valuable, again?

Yep, and there it is again--Cloud City isn't on repulsors, it's "kept aloft by myriad pockets of tibanna gas".

If those were Imperial speeders Lando just fought off, why does their captain still think Lando died in the fall?

Shira is Luke's "wing guard". "Wingman" too gendered for 1981?

Now Luke says "a lobot", which give me the impression that's just supposed to be the GFFA name for cyborgs.

The Captain thinks that if he catches Luke, he'll earn a seat on the "Imperial Senate". Again, that's not a modern-EU continuity error; that's wrong going purely by the movies. That, or this guy must not read the paper.

Despite being totally predicated upon a silly interpretation of tibanna, I do like seeing blimp analogues in the GFFA for once.

Lando hates slavery. Tread carefully, Michelinie.

Did...Luke...just...blow up Cloud City? No, no he didn't. But that's still easily his biggest non-movie Force exertion thus far.

Annual 2

Note that, while I'm reading the main issues in release order, Card supplied me with a handy-dandy timeline when I first started this thread. This is my best approximation of his placement for the two annuals without having to move any regular issues around; hence, I'm saving #58 for the next update.

Also note that this issue came out the day after I was born. I will be sure to mention any references to said event in the course of the issue.

Solo!! The man they call Solooo!!

Memory stones--neat idea. I can live with that.

Yay, more boob cups! It's not just a John Carter thing after all!

Ventooine's is a mineral-based culture. Well, minerals and flamingo riding.

Okay, exposure to the rocks puts the old Satabs into suspended animation, I get that.....but why are they floating?

Han just threw a boulder across the room like it was nothing. They must have light rocks on this planet.

In conclusion: meh.

Annual 3

Whoaholycrapitsklausjanson. Nice.

Lord, this entire issue is about the guy shining Vader's shoes, isn't it?

Vader reads kind of like Dirk Anger in this.

Oh, Flint. This is that story. And he'even got a black friend, so this must be important!

It's nice to see Luke use the "navigator on a spice freighter" line, but come to think of it, isn't that GFFA for "drug runner"? Luke, your dad was a drug runner. Now be quiet and eat your vegetables.

Flint bringing Luke and co. back to his mother...actually very reminiscent of TPM. I like.

Whoawhoawhoa!! Full stop! Imperial general: "So...you're sure there's a black man and a Wookiee with them? Then the boy and the girl can only be Princess Leia Organa and Commander Luke Skywalker..." I want to make the obvious joke that, oh, a black guy and a Wookiee? How many of those could there be? But I'm just amazed to see an overt mention of Lando's race--and "black", too; not even "dark-skinned" or anything. Nuts.

Now Luke's even mentioning that this reminds him of Tatooine--TPM, indeed.

And now Chewie is eating his napkin. This is a weird issue.

Good news: the guy's not shining Vader's shoes anymore. Bad new: Vader is sitting down. Weird.

Now Vader's wearing a big round hat like Dass Jennir. Whatever happens in A Spark Remains, Vader needs to end up getting a hold of that hat.

Lando's never seen an AT-AT before. Weird.

Oh, X-Wings have tow cables too? How convenient.

Wait, how are there randomly T-47s here? Luke's flight flew in from another planet, I thought.

Lando and Leia take over an AT-AT--nice foreshadowing of Chewie on Endor....despite the fact that he's not there. Come to think of it, where did he go all of a sudden?

Wait, is Barney Force-sensitive, too? Or just delusional?

Okay, this story was all kinds of ridiculous, but it's nice to see the art evolving, at least--though in terms of release order, I realize this was technically a big jump ahead from where I've been.

UP NEXT!! More Shira Brie!! Probably other things!!

 

I'd almost forgotten about the self-aware bomb. That's the kind of humor that I love about the later Marvel issues; it gets downright ridiculous after ROTJ...and it's the best thing ever.

The Flint annual has all kinds of great TPM parallels...it's probably the most astonishingly accurate anticipation of the prequels in the pre-1999 EU, really.

TC

 

Indeed. Vader's speech recruiting Flint sounds almost like the writer had advance copies of all the prequel scripts to do some completely unoriginal callbacks, except he didn't, and he's calling back to things that wouldn't be written for twenty years.

 

Well he is a Kaleesh warlord, those are supposed to be pretty smart, until cyborged at least.

It is one of the best words ever as far as I am concerned, along with skullduggery, letter of marque and reprisal and corsair.

Also she shoots at least 20 Troopers in ANH and ESB.

That already got old back in the days when the Mando kept proclaiming it back in the Sith Wars.

Of course! Priorities! Though I fully imaging the other Imperials snickering behind his back when they gave such a ship to him.

John Carter in general breaks all kinds of stereotypes, so not that surprising.

I should hope a military variant Nebulon-B because those actually have the hangar bays the medical frigates ones had ripped out.

Not Sci-Fi enough.

Well, you can apparently plug Blasters into just about any power source to recharge them, though of course you still need blaster gas ammunition.

Former pirate that had parts of his brain removed and then the implant added so he can serve Cloud City and thus atone for his crimes. So yeah some of Landos predecessors were dicks.

Might just be reading them to ship them to another base where it is more useful.

Calibrating the machine so Han and Luke would actually survive the freezing.

It is possible they use Tibanna to cool the Repulsors.

Got to love the Wotc fix for that.

Poor Irek Ismaren he is no longer unique.

They have several clans, so I should assume various dialects.

You use it for Blasters, Hyperdrives and Generators.

Funny enough the EU actually fixes that, as it is sometimes hinted at that the Emperor had plans to reopen the Senate once the Rebels were destroyed.

Well one would be hard pressed to fit a tractor beam array into one also you can use them to actually drag other ship with you to hyperspace. Though why they do not just Torpedo the AT-ATs is beyond me.

Most Spice is actually run legally on government vessels and used as medicine, so possible not that much of a stigma.

 

Which is?

What I'm saying is, they're using it the way we use helium--and seemingly in the same quantities. It would be one thing if it were, like, super-helium (which Cloud City itself seems to imply), but the Ugnaught airships still require big-ass blimp-style balloons to stay aloft.

Exactly!

 

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ugnaught_Surface

 

Niiiice.

Out of curiosity, when did Bespin become a gas giant, anyway? WotC? Did the ESB novel say anything about it?

 

Properly WEG or some other background material, though originally Alderaan was supposed to be a gas giant and have the Cloud City look, so properly carried over from that. Likely also the reason with it is mentioned that Cloud City has Alderaan style architecture and is also said to have been built with help form Alderaanian companies.

 

Coop is probably sick of hearing this at this point, but Planet Hoppers covered Bespin and did a lot to smooth out the odd references in these Marvel issues. I can't remember if it ever addressed the tibanna-as-helium issue, though...

TC

 

Well, maybe not literally. But from a certain financial point of view...

 

WEG's Galaxy Guide 2: Yavin and Bespin from the late 80s calls Bespin a gas giant and gives some details about its composition. But I wouldn't be surprised if there are earlier sources identifying it as a gas giant.

 

I should point out that I meant to say "WEG" in the line you just quoted--I realize now that that makes me look stupid.

 

I've seen Star Wars Poster Monthly on this site, but not Empire Strikes Back Poster Monthly- still- it's possible that it may have had references to Bespin's nature.

Can't recall if the ESB novelization did.

 

The Marvel comics had a few good stretches, notably the Goodwin/Infantino runup to ESB, just about the whole run between ESB & RotJ & the last stretch with Cynthia Martin drawing.

Science: One thing to keep in mind is that the exploration of our solar system by satellite didn't really kick in until the late 1970's, and the guys writing SW in the 70's probably went to school in the 1960's. The readership was also much younger, on average, than the average comic readership is today. For serious SF authors, something like a SW comic was completely below their radar. There was no internet and probably few magazine rack periodicals to read. Also, SW was seen as a loving throw back to the early years of science fiction, not a "hard sf".

 

Really? And when will that be starting?

 

Well, it's a matter of taste, of course. I think that generally the writing got stronger. And issues #70-#78 is a flawless run and absolutely classic Star Wars. Issue #53 explores Leia's character and the loss of Alderaan; issue #55 has absolutely stunning Walt Simonson art and introduces the Plif; #56-#57 picks up on the Bespin story post ESB; issue #60-#63 is a well written story featuring (the first?) female X-Wing pilot. Overall the book looks more like the films (all the crazy Crayola colors from the 70's era is gone) and the characters are more consistent with their film counterparts than they were previously. Plus it introduced some classic SW EU stuff like Zeltrons. I stand behind my previous statement!

 

That arguably covers "Most of the run, actually", rather than "a few good stretches". Not that I disagree...