Star Wars Weekly #106Cover dated: March 6th, 1980
Issue title:
My Enemies Surround Me! (
The Weapons Master!, Part 3)
Script: Archie Goodwin
Artwork: Carmine Infantino (pencils)/Steve Mitchell (inks)
Tones: Howard Bender
Letters: Joe Rosen
Cover art: Carmine Infantino (pencils)/Bob Wiacek (inks)
Overall rating: 4 out of 10
Plot summary: Princess Leia continues to recount her story to Luke Skywalker, C-3PO and R2-D2, reaching the point in the tale where, with her weapons training now complete, her mentor Giles Durane decided that Leia could resume her senatorial duties on the planet Challon. Some days later, during a diplomatic conference, Leia was attacked by the head of the Assassins Guild, Torgas. Giles' right-hand man, Gimlet, came to the princess's rescue, but he was killed by the assassin, leaving it to Giles himself to kill Torgas with a rocket dart.
However, Leia was not out of danger yet, as Giles revealed that Imperial General Emir had hired him to finish the job of killing the princess. A battle between the two began, during which Leia managed to shoot and kill Giles. As Leia's story comes to a close, C-3PO remarks on how sad the tale was and how glad he is that the princess's weapons experience saved them from their previous encounter with a squad of Imperial stormtroopers.
Comments: So, here we have the third and final instalment of "The Weapons Master!" storyline. This part is, as you might expect, the most exciting of the three and ultimately, Archie Goodwin's story does a good job of justifying how Leia is able to display such prowess with a blaster, when she grew up on Alderaan, a planet with no weapons. On the downside, some of C-3PO's dialogue here is pretty poor, just as it was in the first instalment of this story. The panels where the golden protocol droid advises R2-D2 not to dwell on Leia's sad story because it may cause moisture in R2's gearbox – as if the little astro droid was crying – was very cringe-inducing and a real eye-rolling moment for me.
The fact that the roguish and mercenary Giles Durane suddenly turns against Leia is an excellent plot twist and one that I certainly never saw coming when I first read the story. However, for all its cleverness, Duarne's sudden switching of sides is problematic insofar as he clearly had some fatherly affection towards Leia and he also had a long-time friendship with Leia's farther (he earlier stated that he owed Bail Organa his life, in fact). Now, while it's true that Durane made no secret of his mercenary nature, to have him suddenly decide that it's OK to kill Leia, simply because another party made him a good offer, marks him as a bit of a dick, as well as a wholly unsympathetic character. As a result, it's hard to understand why Leia should feel such sorrow at having had to kill him, since it was clearly a case of self-defence. Still, the ending does provide us with a nice "pupil besting the teacher" moment, which brings the whole tale to a reasonably satisfying close.
Carmine Infantino's artwork is very dynamic here. In particular, the sequence in which the master assassin makes an attempt on Leia's life is very nicely handled, with some tight, close-up "camera angles" that serve to heighten the tension in the scene very well. As I've said before, I'm not a huge fan of Steve Mitchell's inking over Infantino's pencils, but the end result is serviceable enough.
Overall, "The Weapons Master!" is a fairly inconsequential and, dare I say it, forgettable story. However, if you're interested in reading it, I would recommend the coloured version that first appeared in
Marvel Illustrated Books: Star Wars #1. While it's true that an awful lot of the panels in the story were cut in half or re-arranged, in order to fit them onto the smaller pages of the paperback-sized reprint, Marie Severin's colouring works wonders on the somewhat pedestrian artwork and makes for a much more satisfying read than the original black & white.
Continuity issues: None
Favourite panel:
Favourite quote: "You're determined, Senator...I give you that. But before your hand can swing that blaster, my venom touch will be chilling your spine!" – Torgas, the master assassin, taunts Princess Leia as he attempts to kill her.