Here’s a classic era Star Wars page featuring pencils from Carmine Infantino with inks from Gene Day.
It’s from a Star Wars story written by fan-favorite Chris Claremont, which ended up without a logical place in the timeline, as Marvel couldn’t fully predict when Lucasfilm would permit story insight and scheduling approval related to events of Empire Strikes Back.
Infantino drew many of the Star wars stories that appeared in between New Hope and ESB, and many after as well, but this odd continuity duck” didn’t make into the U.S. comics.
Instead, it ends up in Marvels Star Wars Weekly, a combination of “new” and reprint material.
The weekly format featured shorter stories, more serialized, making them even closer in spirit to Lucas’ favorite SF, the classic Flash Gordon serials. Perfect for titles like “Molten Doom!” and “Buried Alive!”
And, except for a slot in an oddball licensed Marvel book collection, the story remained un-reprinted for more than 30 years, until Dark Horse included it in one of its Omnibus collections. (And now, it’s been reprinted twice by Marvel, so it’s a bit easier to find.)
Of all the characters in the classic (original trilogy) Star Wars Universe, Leia is the most intriguing.
Nearly all of the other characters in the saga are archetypes found in dozens, if not hundreds of myths, fables and tales. George Lucas revered the late author Joseph Campbell who dissects these concepts ad nauseum in in his brilliant and well-known tomes on mythology.
But Leia… She’s a bit off model, certainly from a Hollywood depiction of a damsel in distress. (Possibly with the exception of Dorothy in Wizard of Oz, who gets her act together in similar but less assertive fashion.)
As one pop culture podcaster put it recently: “She (Leia) hijacked her own rescue.”
And from there, it only gets better. She’s clearly the smartest, most pragmatic member of the Star Wars gang. She’s also strong, decisive and strategic. And she can out wise-ass Han, no easy feat.
After Alderaan goes boom, Leia is the one holding entire rebellion together. No offense, Mon Mothma, Admiral Ackbar, or anyone else in the rebellion ruling class. It’s pretty clear Leia is a — pun intended — driving force of the story.
Here we have a knockout Star Wars page from Terry and Rachel Dodson featuring a lovely half splash of Leia. It’s from the eponymous — and terrific — Mark Waid-authored series, published not long after the franchise reverted back to Marvel from Dark Horse.
Well, it’s May, that time of year when thoughts turn to… Star Wars.
Here we have a great page by superstar artist John Cassaday, depicting the very first time Luke and Darth Vader confront each other in the “new”(current) Star Wars continuity.
This story takes place shortly after the (first) Death Star is blown to bits in “A New Hope.” Luke does not know that Vader is his pop, and Vader does not realize that Luke is the rebel that was responsible for said Death Star going “boom.”
Heh. Much to learn, they both have.
It’s the 45th anniversary of Star Wars this month, and perhaps more significantly, the release of yet some more backstory revision with the launch of the new Obi-Wan Television series later this month.
That’s really more of an observation than a knock, but I really hope the show is narratively clever. Because no one (honestly, no one) thought that Obi-Wan would have logically fought Vader yet again. One of them should have been not just toasted, but complete toast.
But of course, let’s see how this all plays out.
In the meantime, we’ve got a full slate of Star Wars posts for the rest of the month.
Doctor Doom’s greatest fantasy? Murdering Reed Richards, of course.
And if you have your own planet, you too can make your dreams come true.
Leo Manco nicely illustrates Doom choking Reed on this page from the Emperor Doom mini-series.
Reminds me of a film moment of a certain costumed villain that looks an awful lot like Doctor Doom. Art imitates art, imitates art, ad infinitum, apparently.
Manco, an Argentinian artist, is terrific, and I wish we’d see more of his work in the comic book space.
The similarities between Darth Vader and Doctor Doom always choke me up. (Ouch.)Per our last post, Lucas owes some public tribute to Jack Kirby as far as we are concerned.
Doctor Doom — Marvel’s first iconic super villain of the Silver Age* — celebrates his 60th anniversary this year.
And I have a question.
How are the MCU pros going to create a new on-screen look for the character that is true to form, but doesn’t look goofy as hell? These folks are the best in the business, but that’s a hell of challenge. Lesser talents have failed, not once, not even twice, but three times.**
They could go all black (always a safe choice) and make the costume more technological and futuristic, but… I believe George Lucas already beat them to the punch by about 45 years.***
The comic book Doom costume is one of those that almost makes sense in 2D, but three-dimensional? Oof.
I’m definitely looking forward to seeing the results, maybe even later this year, if we’re lucky.
And, as always, we digress.
Here, the versatile Ron Lim creates a dramatic splash page with the most Doctor Doom you will ever see in once place. You see, the good doctor has this cool hobby of building robots in his spare time.
Lots of them, apparently.
Fun fact footnotes:
Ok, Sub-Mariner beat Doom by a full issue — or more than 20 years, depending on how you count Silver Age vs. Golden Age — but I can’t fully embrace him as a villain. (This despite the fact that Doom and Sub-Mariner later appeared together in a comic book called Super-Villain Team-Up.)
** Two contemporary big budget film releases, plus the officially unreleased Roger Corman version. I probably shouldn’t count that, but I do. Sue me.
*** Lucas has yet to acknowledge that Darth Vader is essentially a mash-up of two Jack Kirby comic book creations, Doctor Doom and Darkseid. C’mon George, fess up.
Clayton Henry’s cover to the Fantastic Five is an homage (swipe?) of Kirby’s FF Annual #2
Doctor Doom’s first appearance features a ridiculous bird for good measure.
Here is a nice (Sunday) example of Ron Goulart’s and Gil Kane’s Star Hawks, the short-lived SF adventure strip which ran from 1977-1981. (Extra nice in that it includes both the strip header and the color proof.)
“Inspired – as so many things were in the late 70s – by the tremendous success of Star Wars, the newspaper feature syndicate NEA (Newspaper Enterprise Association) got it into their heads that a space opera comic strip that evoked the cosmic high adventure and swashbuckling derring-do of George Lucas’ movie might be a popular addition to the nation’s comics pages.” — Christopher Mills
Perhaps most interesting thing about the strip was the that the initial dailies were double tier as well as the Sunday’s — a risky gambit that allowed Kane to showcase his strengths in storytelling and layout. Unfortunately, newspapers weren’t in love with devoting that much real estate to the quirky SF adventure, and it ultimately dropped to the traditional one-tier.
Goulart ultimately left the strip and Kane enlisted frequent collaborator Archie Goodwin, who wrote the one above. He also left after a few arcs, and Roger Mackenzie wrapped things up.
All of the series is available in a three-volume set from The Library of American Comics and IDW Publishing.
Worth every penny, but of course, I’m biased.
Continuing our month long celebration of the great adventure comic strips: Week 1: Superheroes Week 2: Detectives Week 3: SF Week 4: Comic Book Giants
Forty years ago today, life was definitely simpler. All I had to do was how to figure out how to get to the opening night of Empire Strikes Back.
Well, maybe not that simple.
Big films often did not open “wide” in those days, which meant ESB would not be playing anywhere near my college town of Binghamton, New York. Closest theater? In Syracuse. 75 miles away.
Fortunately, I had a car. Gas was (relatively) cheap. And finals had just ended.
That was the good news.
The bad? No on-line ordering. (Ha. We were still using punch cards and booking computer time in the lab.) No advance orders by phone. This was 1980. Horse and buggy era, tickets and technology wise. And in those days, no bank was offering credit cards to broke college students anyway.
So we had to wing it. The “we” in this case, my buddy Bob and I, pretty much the only people that hadn’t packed up for the semester.
Off we went. Up through farm country on Interstate 81. Somehow, even though we didn’t leave that early, and the legal speed limit was still 55mph, we made it to the “purchase tickets” line, and then the “entry” line in time, and had reasonable seats.
Good thing, too.
We had waited three years. I didn’t really want to wait another day.
I enjoyed it. A lot. Despite the fact that the story had been “spoiled” for me by the Marvel Comics adaptation, because I didn’t have the discipline to avoid reading it. (Lesson learned there. I never made that the mistake again, including, and especially, for Return Of The Jedi. Hell, I’ve occasionally forced friends who work on films into vows of silence.)
Alex Maleev’s beautiful painted cover features of one my favorite things about ESB: The battle on Hoth. I have a distinct memory of the first time I saw the Empire trailer tacked on to a Star Wars re-release in 1979. The audience absolutely lost its mind at the Hoth tease. (Well at pretty much everything, I guess.) And the finished battle did not disappoint, stop-motion and all.
Where was I? Oh yes. Great cover. Terrific artist. Wonderful memory.
And somehow Bob and I made it back before the cows came home. But not by much, I imagine.
The Empire rebuilt itself and came back more powerful than ever: The plot of the latest Star Wars Trilogy, or Berkeley Breathed’s prescient look at a well-known mega-corp. 35 years ago?
Star Wars. ATT. Donald Trump. Ruppert Murdoch. Et al. Bloom County may have disappeared for a bit, but many of his frequent satirical topics most definitely did not.
So we might be done with one Empire this week, but the other one is not going anywhere for a while.
The Force is with us indeed. Just a different one than Mr. Lucas imagined.
Fun fact: This strip is the very last one in Volume 2 of the complete Bloom County library
Howard Chaykin returns to Star Wars with an imposing cover of Darth Vader in 2015. You don’t want to mess with this version of Vader, even if you’re on his side.
Howard Chaykin. Star Wars. This might be a greater conflict than the empire vs. the rebellion.
I don’t need to repeat Howard’s many on the record comments about his original artwork on the series (Marvel’s 1977 issues #1-#10, which includes the six-part adaptation of the original film.) You can see more for yourself here, here or here.
Suffice to say, he doesn’t like it. (Reading anything Howard says about his own work — or others, or anything, for that matter — is always highly entertaining, so I recommend taking a deeper dive.)
Objectively, Star Wars is of course, not his best work — not even close. It’s not even as good as his other early comics. He drew three issues (and wrote one) of Marvel Premiere just prior to Star Wars that are excellent, especially for the period. (Howard is generally self-critical of all his earliest work, so I bet he won’t agree. But I digress.)
Licensed comics are always a challenge, especially with limited reference and insane deadlines. That said, given these constraints, and many others, I think his Star Wars art, especially on the first issue, is definitely better than much of what was coming from the big two companies at the time. But, ultimately, not so great on the Chaykin Curve. (A new scientific term coined especially for this post.)
Just a few years later (1982) he created the astonishing American Flagg. Groundbreaking, although often overused, barely does that series justice. (Much more on that in a future post). Based on Flagg alone, Mark Chiarello DC’s long-time Art Director has described Chaykin as one of the architects of the modern comic book.
Unfortunately, Flagg was published by a smallish independent publisher, which means that few casual readers ever saw it. Although knowledgeable long-time fans are well aware of the series, it doesn’t have the legacy it deserves.
Star Wars? Reprinted about a zillion times, in more formats than I can count. And I am one of the guilty parties here, publishing the Star Wars Artifact Edition (IDW), showcasing the original art — in its original (11×17) size.
Shortly after Flagg, Chaykin went on to other fascinating projects, geared for older readers. Times Squared. Blackhawk. The Shadow. Black Kiss. Etc. Ultimately, after a long stint in Television, he returned with other series that reflected his interests and passions. Mighty Love (feels like a television show and was apparently originally developed for that medium) and City of Tomorrow are two personal favorites. He’s currently working on Hey Kids! Comics!, a fascinating fictionalized look at the drama, jealousy and scandals in the history of comic book business itself.
His innovative and realistic storytelling is complex, violent, sexual, and political. He left space operas behind a lifetime ago.
So if you were a kid when you saw Star Wars, loved Star Wars, and only had the Star Wars comics to read over and over again, because there was no home video, I get it, you love those comics.
I think that’s cool. Even Howard is probably ok with you remembering those comics through the warm glow of childhood nostalgia.
But if you’re an adult? Just don’t remember HIM for them.
That’s like remembering Nolan Ryan only for his one World Series appearance for the 1969 “Amazing” Mets. You’ve missed the point.
Chaykin’s first Star Wars art was a promo poster available at SDCC 1976 for a buck, followed by Star Wars #1 in Spring 1977. Howard revisited the Star Wars saga for Star Wars Insider in 2010 with a similar composition to the originals, incorporating iconic imagery from Empire Strikes Back to celebrate its 30th anniversary .
Chaykin’s art from the same early period includes his own Monark Starstalker, and two Solomon Kane (Robert E. Howard) stories co-written by Roy Thomas.
At first glance, Russ Manning’s clean art style is an
unusual choice for Star Wars. The saga (the original film specifically) is a
bit rough around the edges, with scorch marks, dusty landscapes, dirty
uniforms, and beat-up droids.
Manning, best know for his beautiful art on Tarzan and
Magnus Robot Fighter, is anything but.
His work is crisp and polished. Magnus lives on Earth 4000 AD, a world populated by handsome men and gorgeous woman inhabiting a shiny futuristic city. The battle against the sentient robots? Terminator this is definitely not.
But, Russ’ imagination and enjoyment for Star Wars is obvious on these strips.
Even if the stories themselves, like those in Marvel comics,
were often “B” level because they weren’t permitted to do very much with actual
film-related plots, his storytelling and renderings provided more than enough visual
interest to keep the strips engaging.
This specific example, which features most of the Star Wars main cast, comes at the conclusion of Russ’ penultimate story. He died of cancer too young at 52, a few months after this strip was published.
Had he lived, I’m certain he would have come back to Star
Wars at some point.
After all, he created a city-covered planet, very much like Coruscant, years before George Lucas did. In fact, when Magnus debuted, George Lucas was still a teen who, among other interests, had a passion for comic book art.
Wait a minute… (*)
Dark Horse colored and reprinted the strips as comic books in the Classics series. Marvel has since reprinted those versions as well.
A little bit of Manning’s love for Tarzan appears in a Star Wars Sunday strip.
The entire run of Manning’s Star Wars strips (and AL Williamson’s as well) have been reprinted in the Library of American Comics line, published by IDW.
Russ Manning referred to Magnus Robot Fighter as his Tarzan of the future.
*Ok, Lucas (definitively) and Manning (likely) were influenced by Fritz Lang’s ground-breaking film Metropolis, and this is just a fun coincidence. But still.
