Star Wars #13Cover dated: July 1978
Issue title:
Day of the Dragon Lords!Script: Archie Goodwin
Artwork: Carmine Infantino (breakdowns)/Terry Austin (finished art & inks)/Bob Wiacek (finished art & inks - uncredited)
Colours: Janice Cohen
Letters: Rick Parker
Cover art: John Byrne (pencils)/Terry Austin (inks)
Overall rating: 4½ out of 10
Plot summary: On the water world of Drexel, Luke Skywalker succeeds in persuading Governor Quarg that he and his droids, R2-D2 and C-3PO, are valuable in the war against the Dragon Lords, as a means of repairing ageing technology. Impressed by R2's ability to repair a damaged hydra-skimmer, the Governor decides to let Luke live and not strip his droids for spare parts. Quarg explains that he and his men are space-wreckers who ensnare approaching starships with a powerful sonic-jammer, causing the ships to crash into the planet's oceans, where the wreckers then salvage the metal and technology.
Meanwhile, on board Crimson Jack's Star Destroyer, Han Solo attempts to talk his way out of trouble, as Jack realises that he has been tricked into coming to the Drexel system. Suddenly, Quarg's jamming equipment latches on to the huge space-cruiser, providing Solo with a diversion that allows him and Chewbacca to escape to the surface of Drexel with Princess Leia in the
Millennium Falcon. The
Falcon lands right in the middle of a battle between Quarg's wreckers and their enemies the Dragon Lords. Han and Chewbacca appear to perish in an attack from a hydra-skimmer, as Luke – who is reluctantly fighting alongside Quarg's men – rushes to save his friends. Reaching the
Falcon, Luke encounters an enraged Chewbacca who mistakenly assumes that the young Rebel was responsible for the attack.
Comments: The Doomworld saga continues with this issue, which is pretty much on a par with last month's in terms of the artwork. While Carmine Infantino still has his angular tendencies, which I personally find annoying, there's some good staging in this issue and the background detail or "set dressing" that he does here is really nice. We even get some of the cityscapes that Infantino is known for in the backgrounds of one or two panels in the space-wrecker's settlement. Unfortunately, Infantino's grasp of
Star Wars spaceship design continues to disappoint, particularly in his depictions of Crimson Jack's Star Destroyer, and we get more of his weirdly or un-naturalistically posed figures on occasion. Just look at these two panels, for instance...
Why is Chewbacca running like a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal? And why is Han Solo holding his blaster in such an odd way in that second panel? He's holding it so daintily that it's like he's having a nice cup of tea with the vicar in late 19th century England, instead of fighting for his life in a shoot-out! Personally, I've always found these slightly odd poses that Infantino sometimes chooses to be bothersome.
Terry Austin's inks here are just as nice as last issue, although he seems to be working more to enhance the pointed angles in Infantino's art than he was a couple of issues ago. Still, there's some pin sharp detailing from Austin here that really makes a number of the pages shine. I should also point out that Bob Wiacek (who will ink a number of future issues) is an uncredited inker on a couple of pages in this issue, according to the Star-Words letters page in
Star Wars #18. The pages that Wiacek inked in this episode are nos. 4 and 11 of the story, just in case you're interested, trivia fans! I think Wiacek does a reasonably good job of aping Austin, but his style is noticeably softer and less detailed, although, weirdly, he makes Infantino's artwork even more angular looking. Oh, and while we're talking about the art, the front cover is pencilled by John Byrne, in what must be one of his earliest covers for Marvel, I would think.
Archie Goodwin's writing is pretty good overall and he throws in a nice reference to the
Star Wars movie, when R2 and 3PO are both rewarded for their work on Governor Quarg's hydra-skimmer by being given a lubrication bath (just like in Luke's uncle's garage). There's also a good piece of writing when Goodwin has Han and Chewbacca discussing a rescue of Princess Leia, only to find that the princess has already escaped from Jolli and even procured blasters for the trio. This is the Princess Leia that we saw in the
Star Wars movie – a resourceful, feisty Rebel leader, not some weak damsel in distress. Han's reaction to Leia's resourcefulness is very in character too and this brief scene is an excellent example of how much better Goodwin's grasp of George Lucas's characters was than Roy Thomas's.
There's also a neat moment in the story when Governor Quarg's master machinesmith attempts to kill Luke, in order to prevent the young Rebel from stealing his job. That's a nice touch on Goodwin's part because it demonstrates that we have a living, breathing society here in the space-wrecker's floating city and that even the bad guys have families to feed. Of course, Quarg's capitol punishment for the master machinesmith also serves to illustrate to the reader what a cruel and despotic ruler he is.
While we're on the subject of Governor Quarg, I find him to be one of the more memorable villains from Marvel's
Star Wars series. He's evil and brutal, but also somehow relatable, insofar as he's a naturally unkind and brutish man, pushed to dictator-like actions, as a result of exceptionally hard circumstances. I also like Quarg's costume: it suggests that he's ex-military, but, while he's clearly a war leader, no former military service is ever mentioned in the story.
Page 10 of this instalment of the Doomworld story arc features an editorial mistake in which there's a blank speech balloon for Governor Quarg (at least, it's blank in the original comic). I was wondering if any of those who are following my reviews with reprints would take a look and see if any dialogue has been retroactively added for Quarg in this panel...
All in all,
Star Wars #13 isn't a bad issue, but it's not a particularly great one either. There's some nice in character scripting from Goodwin and Austin's inks really enhance Infantino's art, but so far this storyline is failing to better the Star-Hoppers of Aduba-3 arc, which wasn't exactly amazing in itself.
Continuity issues: None
Favourite panel:
Favourite quote: "It takes a big man to admit he's wrong, Jack...but I bet you can do it too!" – Han Solo antagonises Crimson Jack.