Lit A return to the Bantam Style

With the release of the cartoon, Movies, and spin offs, the Books, and comics will probably have to return to small stories that don't impact the characters, in ways that would interfere with filmed material.

In that case, should their be a return to Superweapons/Supervillians

will we stories where you don;t have to read one story to understand another.

should future books be like movie tie in material with, with other franchises.

 

Imperials wouldn't surprise me, but no more Superweapons please!

 

Superweapons went out of style in 1996.

 

in 1983, actually.

 

I'm saying the last time a superweapon was featured as a major plot element in the Bantam EU was in 1995. You had Centerpoint Station in the Corellian trilogy, Darksaber in the eponymous novel, and the Galaxy Gun in Empire's End #2. None of the Bantam novels from 1996-1998 had superweapons as major plot elements.

Edit: And really, it's only between 1994-1995 that there was the spate of superweapons in the EU, with the Sun Crusher and Death Star prototype in the JAT, the Galaxy Gun introduced in Dark Empire II #5, Centerpoint Station in the Corellian trilogy, and the Darksaber in Darksaber. It seems that 1995 was the year of the superweapon.

There were the World Devastators from Dark Empire, but that's not a planet destroying weapon in the kaboom sense, so I guess YMMV about them. Eclipse's superlaser wasn't featured in the plot.

 

We can be sure that the "new EU" won't have major events like moons falling on characters.

 

Can we?

 

If it's going to be in the same universe as the upcoming movies, there won't be any other option.

 

I dig superweapons and supervillians but they should not be a fallback default position. But, dammit, there should be some of 'em and, hell, have them battle each other out! There are great stories that can be written and make sure the characters are all within the same box at the start as they were at the end. It can be an introspective journey or a complex puzzle plot or just have some great character interaction. And maybe an OG character you can put through the wringer by proxy.

I'd totally welcome a return to Bantam era style because, on my bookshelf and buried away in boxes, I have, like, probably at least 95% of their 90s stuff and maybe, like, 5% of what Del Rey put out.

 

The problem with superweapons is that they're too big a threat for "canon, but off-screen".

 

The follow-up to the NJO should have been that one of Luke's random students that fell to the dark side, found the Nostril of Palpatine, and backed by a rogue Imperial admiral threatens the Galactic Alliance, amirite?

 

Not if you blow 'em up at the end, yeeeeeeeeeah! It's a big galaxy you can blow up "Original novel Sucker Planet B" every once in awhile and nobody will mind. Superweapon! Boom! Then grab another superweapon and ride it right at 'em! Death Star duel, baby!

Damn straight! I read (and re-read) the Jedi Academy trilogy when I first started in high school. It had a teenage protagonist who worked in the mines, made friends with Han Solo, became a Jedi with Luke Skywalker, then went on a dark rouge path with a Sith spirit and came back in the end. And there were Death Stars and solar system destroying superweapons and Sith ghosts and sexy evil female admirals. It was directly hardwired for my teenage DNA.

 

There should. Star Wars thrives on its supervillains. Even Nom Anor was a supervillain as such, and probably our last good one. Caedus was noooo superanything. Abeloth was a... well quite frankly I'm tempted to say femWaru. She wasn't as character-driven as a true "supervillain" ought to be.

I remember when SoM came out, and a lot of people on this forum were confused by Blackhole because he was too "over-the-top." But that was the point: he was meant to hearken back to the Bantam warlord-of-the-week era. The whole book read like a Bantam satire. And I think the majority of people (not everyone, but a majority) recognized and appreciated that.

If done right, supervillains can drive an entire plot. Look at Vader. Look at the Marvel comics/films. People love villains. Del Rey tried to be subtle and cut back. Caedus became a wimpy Vader-ish rip-off. Daala became a furry and not a megolomaniac threatening to plow down Coruscant. Abeloth was a... thing.

 

Abeloth was literally an antagonist cardboard cutout.

 

Del Rey replaced "superweapon of the week" with "Sith of the book series".

 

We do need to get away from the Sith. Nom Anor was the last engaging villain in the books imo. We need someone like him who survives for a long time. Duologies, trilogies and such are needed.

 

Han quipping at that Warlord from "Courtship of Princess Leia" directly before blowing him to hell in the Falcon is one of my coolest memories from those books and that style. It's how you can do a spin-off story without directly having to reach for moon-on-wookie / turning kids into Sith universe-altering spectacle events. That's your Star Wars spectacle right there, dammit!

EDIT: just wookipedia'd it. "Kiss my Wookie." *Boom!* C'mon, that's freakin' gold!

 

Sith causing galactic conflicts is something I absolutely do NOT want to see.

THIS

 

I think part of the reason why the lower key villains have been untenable is because Luke has been made overpowered, and instead of finding a distraction for him like Bantam did in Corellia, Black Fleet, and Hand of Thrawn, he's the focus character. He completely whooped Caedus in book six of the series and just. let. him. go. because it's a nine book series. They had to have this dark side cthulhu thing to have an even match for him, and he whooped that a few times too.

 

What were the threats in 1996-1998?

 

Yevetha, Xizor, Isard, Kueller, Jerec, Seti Ashgad, Leonia Tavira, Grodin Tierce's clone and Disra.

 

Well we absolutely need to get away from these multi-author series, as well as the idea of a never-ending war and galaxy wide conflict. Great to see once in a while, tiresome when they happen every few years, and they begin to lose impact. Let's get back to self contained adventures, dealing with smaller scale but still important problems. A good way to make sure that someone can just jump in without having to read an earlier trilogy/series (Or at least understand nothing more than that basics) is to start using new characters.

 

Totally agree except that galaxy-wide conflicts are always a bad thing, no matter how rare.

 

The Galactic Civil War was a galaxy wide conflict, the original one in fact, and the fallout from it created and stretched the entire Bantam Era. I think it can be done and handled well, but it takes a lot of work and careful preparation. Even NJO for all its problems had a good conflict. DNT however didn't, neither did LOTF. The Clone War is steeped deeply into the mythos (Having been mentioned early on in ANH) and I think it was kicked off well in AOTC, written well in various early novels, but then started to become annoying with various retcons to it. I think that every once in a while we need to see a major scale threat that pushes the heroes to the brink of extinction and that could forever change things. These are the type of events that movies and comic book events are made out of. When used sparingly they can be received with critical acclaim. When overused they, as I said in my last post, lose all impact and become tiresome.