Lit Why Shadow Stalker can't be a prequel to Iceworld

I have been reading through the Star Wars Comic Strips and recently read the Iceworld arc. In preparation for that storyline, I reread Shadow Stalker because it seemed fitting. I don't know how this has eluded the attention of the wider EU fanbase but its practically impossible for Shadow Stalker to take place before Iceworld.

Darth Vader states that the events of the Return of Ben Kenobi took place months before Shadow Stalker when he refers to his near death from the climatic explosion and how Jix saved him. Its impossible for Iceworld to take place months after Return of Ben Kenobi (RoBK) because Iceworld takes place directly after the latter. Luke and 3PO are returning from the mission in RoBK and are forced to follow a comet's tail in order to avoid the Imperials. Their ship crash lands on Hoth and his encounter with the Torlock HRD's ends with both droids destroyed.

Enough time could not have passed between RoBK and Iceworld for the events of Shadow Stalker to take place even discounting what Vader said. Therefore, the HRD's in Iceworld and Shadow Stalker can not be the same ones.

However, this is a really easy thing to explain and even makes the storyline deeper. Governer Torlock was paranoid enough to commission a set of HRD's of him and Frija. Why couldn't he have commissed more then one set of HRD's?

 

On the other hand, establishing that the explosion seen in "Return of the Ben Kenobi" was the second tower explosion Vader was caught in on Aridus, and that there was a first explosion months prior that knocked Vader unconscious, would be very much in the spirit of the EU. Maybe towers on Aridus are prone to getting blown up due to atmospheric ionization something something.

I'm joking of course - but before you dismiss the idea entirely, note that in the comic strip Vader is conscious following the explosion, with Jix nowhere to be seen...

 

Not sure why it's necessary to take potshots at the EU when the Goodwin strips were written before the EU as a concept and the continuity tiers were even established.

From there we have to consider that when Shadow Stalker was written in 1997, the Goodwin strips would have occupied a lower tier of continuity. It was up to creator discretion as to how they would treat comics published from 1977-1986. Ryder Windham certainly referenced material from The Return of Ben Kenobi and Iceworld, but he didn't have to follow in lockstep with it.

Why retell its events differently? I think because by 1997 the details of the timeline between ANH and ESB had already solidified in a different direction compared to the earlier storytelling of the 1970s and 1980s. Recall that according to modern timelines, Iceworld must occur prior to 6 months ABY. Open up the Early Victories omnibus and you'll find that Shadow Stalker is dated to "almost" 3ABY. If these stories follow in lockstep with Shadow Stalker then that's already going to stretch The Return of Ben Kenobi and The Power Gem into 2ABY or so, while Iceworld and Revenge of the Jedi will also be pushed into 2-3ABY. This doesn't work within those comic narratives, so I think Shadow Stalker only accepts those stories in the broad strokes.

Windham is definitely a professional continuity welder and I think that he could have tied Shadow Stalker closer to the original comics, but he didn't for creative reasons. Personally, I think the easiest solution is to discard the single line of dialog where Vader describes his ordeal on Aridus--after all, it's only one line, and seems to be the linchpin of the conflict. Shadow Stalker also doesn't belong in the year 2ABY because of its explicit ties to Iceworld, so I would put it in the year 0ABY.

Thank you for opening this thread. I had a similar continuity gripe earlier this week while thinking about Jedi Prince and Courtship of Princess Leia but couldn't think of a better place to post than the Headcanon thread, but I enjoy discussing alternate interpretations of the official timelines quite a bit.

 

Good points all around. Do you have any alternate placements for the timelines of other Star Wars works that you wish to talk about?

 

Well, to stay close to the topic at hand, Shadows of the Empire: Evolution is another work from the Shadows of the Empire project with questionable placement. The omnibus places the comic at 4.5ABY, but there's nothing that concretely nails the comic to that date. In fact, by the third issue we see Luke, Han, Leia, and the rest operating on Coruscant unimpeded in broad daylight. That tells me that the story must take place after the Liberation of Coruscant right at the start of 7ABY (per the X-Wing novels) and probably prior to the hunt for Zsinj. Dispatching Savan also coincides well with Fliry Vorru reviving Black Sun during the narrative of the X-Wing novels, so there's no conflicts there.

I presume that the reason Evolution was given this date was because the Special Editions had come out in 1997 and showed the celebration on Coruscant after the Battle of Endor, and Evolution was published the year after, so I think the continuity with the Liberation of Coruscant from the X-Wing novels was probably in flux just like how Windham overrode Return of Ben Kenobi and Iceworld. In-universe the celebration has been explained away as being swiftly crushed by police and military thereafter and the planet being freed in the next 2-3 years, so it's a moot point now and all that's left is to find a better home on the timeline for Evolution.

 

Think of it as "good natured ribbing" rather than "potshots." I'm quite aware of when everything was written, thank you, and hold no animus toward the EU.

But just to further reassure everyone I'm not trying to tip any sacred cows, how about this instead: maybe Power Gem and Iceworld don't follow "immediately" after Return of Ben Kenobi. The Classic Star Wars reprint does segue directly from RoBK into PG with a "Meanwhile..." narration, but no such narration exists in the original strips. Leia says at the beginning of PG that Luke is on a mission, but does not identify the mission or the planet - and when we check back in with Luke at the beginning of IW, yes, he's flying the same ship and wearing the same stylish striped robe, but Aridus is unmentioned. When reading the original strips, therefore, it is entirely possible to drop a few months between RoBK and PG with no impact to the continuity of the strips, and just assume that Luke is out on a different mission at the beginning of the latter story, having been assigned the same ship and gear, and that IW follows on from that one. Continuity maven Windham may well have been using the original strips as his reference rather than the Classic Star Wars "revised version," and was indeed paying even closer attention to the continuity than he is given credit for. What that does to the timeline I'll leave to others to figure out, but for me personally a solution where the source material doesn't have to be altered will always be preferred.

 

See I think having Governor Torlock commissioning one set of HRD's in him and his daughter's likeness actually makes both works richer. There is nothing within both works that state's these are the same HRDs, we just assume that.

 

I reread the relevant stories again sans Shadow Stalker and I agree that Return of Ben Kenobi and Iceworld could indeed have a gap of a few months. It doesn't resolve the error in Shadow Stalker where Vader describes himself waking up aboard Jix's ship sometime after the explosion on Aridus, though. That single line is what makes me think Ryder Windham consciously broke with Archie Goodwin's narrative.

Agreed that there isn't anything in the narratives that says they're the same. I do think that was Wyndham's intention though, and that Goodwin's intention was for Iceworld to follow directly from Return of Ben Kenobi. I suppose the rest of the conversation is about how much you follow authorial intent versus what is actually depicted. Personally I lean heavily on the authors, but the opposite is valid too. What happened to the "extra" pair of HRDs, then?

 

I mean the error could just be Vader slightly exaggerating what happened to Droon but that doesn't sound in character for Vader.

I'm more interested in what was the ultimate fate of Governer Torlock, I think there is a lot of untapped lore with him.

 

You guys debating "Shadow Stalker" and Classic Star Wars is giving me some serious '90s flashbacks.

 

Yeah, I remember this. I basically read it as 'about a month' and leave the rest as down to hyperbole, or of Jix being bad at dates.

Went over this in my look at the first six months post Yavin timeline (often an exercise in bewilderment and hair pulling) during Legends. I kind of simplified it so that the early Goodwin stuff fell in the first two months or so, and then most of Classic SW fell in the latter four. So Luke went to Aridus maybe a month after Fondor (possibly longer) and then was away about a month at Aridus and Hoth, and likely some delays in between. Also, most of the Rebel Force novels would fall in initial four months, too.

As for Brian Wood's run - it's somewhere, in there. Maybe with a sizable time jump into the third and fourth arc too.

 

Paging @TalonCard

 

The reference to "months" having passed was an acknowledged error that slipped by Ryder Windham, who had intended to reference the comic strips as written, as explained in this TF.N interview from just a few years back by the maker twenty-four years ago?!?:

Ye Olde TF.N Interview from a almost a quarter century back:

When Ryder Windham revisited the events from Luke's perspective in his Life and Legend of Luke Skywalker novelization, he followed the lead of Classic Star Wars and had the events be continuous for Luke, leaving Shadow Stalker's errant line of dialogue as the outlier here.

For what it's worth, in one of my many attempts to align all the internal references from the literature set between ANH-TESB I found that it was preferable to have the events of the two stories be nearly continuous as well, with Shadow Stalker taking place in a brief period between the two stories as per its intended placement but ignoring the "months" error. If we're looking to justify the line, I'd suggest that Vader was lying to avoid giving the impression that his incapacitation was a recent event and that he might therefore still be vulnerable.

 

Even discounting the months line, there really isn't enough time for the Torlocks to get settled on Both after Return of Ben Kenobi. I think the easiest way to clear everything up is there are more then one set of Torlock HRDs.

 

I'd assume at least one to two weeks passed, presumably (from Shadow Stalker to Luke finding them?)

 

Yeah, I'd figure a few days for Vader to get back on his feet beforehand and a few days after for the droids to set up residence on Hoth, meanwhile Luke and Threepio are rattling around in the same ship from the Aridus mission. I'd really hoped there was another adventure that could take place at this time, either with Threepio and Luke alone or with Han, Leia, etc, but nothing fit the bill. Those first 2-3 months after Yavin are PACKED.

 

Do you have a link to your current timeline? I’m rusty on some of my own Legends placements around this period and I’m currently reading Allegiance/Choices of One which seem to throw hydrospanners into the works.

 

Is this the current one? :

https://boards.theforce.net/threads...een-anh-and-esb.50052490/page-4#post-56707757

 

That's the one! Those books are indeed hydrospanners, though their final placement in the Essential Readers Companion ended up working pretty well with Brian Wood's Star Wars comics.