Sorry to quote one you did a while back Confessor but I only just got around to rereading this one (I have the Dark Horse Omnibuses and I'm mostly reading A Long Time Ago but I dipped into Wild Space to recheck the UK Star Wars Weekly entries.)

Reading this and comparing it with the Luke story 'The Day After the Death Star!' it struck me that in some ways Luke, who starts out as a callow kid ends up more mature and wiser than his twin.

Don't get me wrong, I love Leia, she's possibly my favourite character in the whole saga and she has a host of great qualities - beautiful, passionate, intelligent, brave. Yet she also has the luxury that her worldview, the same worldview she's had since she was a teenager, is never seriously challenged. Yes she goes through a lot of personal pain losing her homeworld, but she has the unwavering certainty of the rightness of the Rebellion. Luke on the other hand has his universe turned upside down more than once. Most obviously he surrenders the hate and grief he feels towards Vader to bring him back through compassion, but even here in the pre-Empire Strikes Back comics we see glimmers of that when he realises that the Imperial pilot is a man just like himself.

(Han Solo of course also grows through personal growth too, but I'm comparing the twins and their respective character pieces.)

Maybe I'm just rambling but that might be why I liked 'The Day After the Death Star!' more than 'The Weapons Master!'. With the first one it felt like Luke actually learnt something important, with the second it feels like Leia merely toughened up.

Again I'm a huge fan of the princess so this isn't meant as a criticism, more an observation.

Hello all! New to the forums. I'm just getting into Star Wars comics now (even though I've been a lifelong fan of the franchise) and I've been working my way through the original Marvel run. I stumbled across this thread on the interwebs a few days ago (can't even remember how) and quite enjoyed reading it. I was sad to see it end on issue 37, then I realized how recently active it was. Coincidentally I just finished issue 38, so I guess now's the perfect time to find this. Love your reviews Confessor, you've got some good insight. I'm glad you're not done yet because now I'll be able to be a part of the discussion!

^Regarding Leia, though Luke certainly has room for the biggest changes in character, Leia's world gets turned upside-down more than just with the death of her loved ones. The destruction of Alderaan, the dismantling of the senate, and the outing of Leia as a part of the Rebellion has made her a fugitive. No more will she live a privileged life that simultaneously includes secret rebel planning. Now she's out in the wild space and on the run. The need to let go of her regal demeanor and lifestyle is an interesting character change that hasn't been explored in the Marvel run (as far as I've seen) or the movies even, but is part of Alan Dean Foster's Splinter of the Mind's Eye, which I'm currently reading right now for the first time. 

Another random thing of note:
The scholar turned freedom fighter Rekkon (and his nephew) in Brian Daley's Han Solo At Stars' End is black skinned. That book came out in April 1979.

Welcome to the forum, domcobb. Great to have you here!




Oh no, I'm far from done yet. I'm just working my way through the run issue by issue at a sure and steady pace. Expect a review for issue #38 to appear either later today or perhaps tomorrow (depending on how much spare time I have). In the meantime, if you have any comments or thoughts on any of the issues that I've already reviewed, feel free to chime in. Just because the reviews are a few months old or whatever, doesn't mean that the time for discussing them has passed.




Ahh, good catch! I wasn't 100% sure about this, as you can tell from my wording. Thanks very much for the input. I'll update my review for Annual #1 with this new information now.

Star Wars #38
Cover dated: August 1980
Issue title: Riders in the Void!
Script: Archie Goodwin (plot, script)/Michael Golden (co-plotter)
Artwork: Michael Golden (pencils)/Terry Austin (inks)
Colours: Michael Golden
Letters: Joe Rosen
Cover art: Michael Golden
Overall rating: 7 out of 10




Plot summary: While on a mission for the Rebellion, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia Organa's starship is attacked by an Imperial Star Destroyer. As the Rebels make the jump to lightspeed, their craft takes a direct laser hit, resulting in the ship shooting beyond the galaxy and into the starless void. The Rebels' cruiser is then quickly swallowed by a large and mysterious organic starship. Once inside the alien vessel, the Rebels are forced to fight for their lives, as Luke battles a lightsaber-wielding droid and Leia wrestles with a cluster of writhing tentacles. A strange, disembodied voice resounds throughout the ship, declaring Luke and Leia to be enemies. The ship then attempts to forcibly expel the pair, but after witnessing Luke selflessly risking his life to save the princess, the disembodied voice appears to reconsider its actions.

The Rebels are invited into the ship's command centre, where they find a lone, masked pilot. The alien pilot explains that he and the ship were once two separate beings, but now they are integrated into a symbiotic pairing. The alien also recounts the events of a great war that left the ship and its pilot the only survivors, after which they fled their galaxy into the void. Feeling empathy for the two Rebels, the pilot decides to take them back to their own galaxy, but once there, the alien craft is attacked by the same Star Destroyer that had ambushed Luke and Leia earlier. The alien craft quickly destroys the Imperial cruiser and returns to the void, after allowing Luke and Leia to continue on their way.


Comments: Anybody who was excitedly expecting the Marvel Comics' adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back to begin in this issue (as was promised last month) must've been a bit disappointed to get this fill-in adventure. An editorial message on the letters page explains the reason for the unexpected delay: Marvel was in the process of moving to a new distribution system for their comics and because of that, the whole of the adaptation needed to be published under this new system, requiring Marvel to bump the first instalment of The Empire Strikes Back to issue #39.

In the years since its initial publication, "Riders in the Void!" has become something of a fan favourite. This is principally because of the artwork of Michael Golden, who had previously worked on Marvel's The Micronauts and would later work on the critically acclaimed Vietnam War comic, The 'Nam. Myself, I didn't actually read this storyline at the time. I guess the issues of Star Wars Weekly that re-printed it here in the UK must've passed me by and I didn't encounter the tale until the mid-1990s, by which time I was already aware of its reputation among fans of the series.

I think the first thing to say about this issue is that it's weird. Really weird. At least in terms of the types of Star Wars stories we'd been getting prior to it. The second thing to mention is that Golden's artwork is absolutely exquisite. The amount of detail crammed into each panel is breathtaking and the page layouts are both unique and interesting. Outwardly, the mysterious alien vessel looks like a collection of green pustules or blisters, while inside its smooth, organic architecture is a definite departure from the more classic sci-fi interiors that the likes of Howard Chaykin and Carmine Infantino had hitherto given us. In fact, I'd say that there's something of H. R. Giger's work on Alien to the ship's organic design and even to the alien pilot, who somehow calls to mind the dead "space jockey" that the crew of the Nostromo find in that film.

Speaking of Infantino, after month upon month of his stylised take on the various Star Wars ships and other technology, it's refreshing to get Imperial TIE fighters and Star Destroyers that actually look like the ships that we saw in the films. In fact, Golden's artwork is so different to Infantino's that the sudden departure from the usual style only serves to heighten the odd, other-worldly ambiance of this tale.

It's also nice to see Terry Austin back on inking chores in the Star Wars comic, since (along with Tom Palmer) he's probably my favourite inker to have worked on the series so far. As attractive and inventive as Golden's artwork undoubtedly is, the contribution that Austin's pin sharp inking makes to the high quality of the finished art shouldn't be underestimated. In an attempt to illustrate just how lovely the art in this comic is, here's a scan of the original artwork from page 2 for your viewing pleasure...




...and just to prove that I'm a smarty pants when it comes to all things Star Wars, I feel compelled to note that the drawing in panel 2 of the above page seems to be somewhat based on one of Ralph McQuarrie's production paintings for Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope...




On the downside, like a lot of Golden's comic work, I find his faces to be a bit cartoony and the background detail in some panels is annoyingly sparse, although that also has the effect of focusing the reader's eye on the gorgeous art in the foreground. The droid that attacks Luke Skywalker is very much in the Micronauts mold and consequently it's not very Star Wars-y looking, but then I guess we can excuse that since we're not technically in the Star Wars galaxy anymore.

Something else that I want to mention with regards to the art is that, to my eyes, there's a bit of a Japanese manga influence present here, which seems quite groundbreaking for a mainstream American comic book of the time. On a related note, I surely can't be the only one who is reminded of bizarre Japanese tentacle porn by the image of Princess Leia on the front cover, can I? Come on, speak up and let me know that it's not just me and my dirty mind.

In addition to providing the artwork, Golden is also credited as a co-plotter of this issue. In fact, the series' regular writer Archie Goodwin wasn't supposed to have any involvement in penning this tale at all, as Golden remembered during an interview with TheForce.net in 2011...

"I told Archie this story that I wanted to do and he loved it, so I sat down and drew it and Terry Austin inked it. After I had sat down to drawing it, Archie actually called me and said they were actually going to use the story right away, so I finished up the pencils and it went off to Terry Austin to ink. I was originally supposed to write it as well, but because they needed it right away, Archie sat down and wrote it based on my notes. It was still my story, but he went in and made it work."

The story itself is bizarre and has a weird, nightmarish quality to it, not unlike the fevered and hallucinatory Star Wars tales that Alan Moore would later pen in Marvel UK's The Empire Strikes Back Monthly, such as "The Pandora Effect" or "Blind Fury!". I think Golden was intending the mood of this tale to be both mysterious and sinister, what with the disembodied voice and mocking laughter of the ship's lone occupant. But in the final execution, the sinister elements fall a little flat. Still, there's is a palpable danger within the alien ship, as Luke and Leia fight for their lives. There's also an interesting back story involving medical supplies and Luke and Leia having been betrayed by a group of smugglers that is hinted at on the opening pages. However, I like the fact that this issue drops you right into the action, much like the opening of A New Hope did.

Like a lot of issues of Marvel's Star Wars comic from this period, we get an uncomfortable and slightly incestuous exchange between Luke and Leia during this story, when Luke blurts out that he loves Leia (and not in a brotherly way). As I've said time and again during the course of these reviews, nobody working on this comic at the time would've had any idea that Luke and Leia would turn out to be brother and sister. Besides, what occurs here probably isn't as bad as the pair's passionate kiss in the medical centre on Hoth during The Empire Strikes Back.

Something else that I disliked about this issue is that it all felt a little too convenient that the alien ship re-entered the galaxy close enough to where Luke and Leia initially made their jump to hyperspace that they run into the selfsame Imperial cruiser that was chasing them earlier. That said, I tend to think that the alien was well aware of where the Rebels had come from and that dropping them back in roughly the same spot was deliberate (though there's no textual evidence for that at all).

Overall, despite the gorgeous artwork, I've never been a huge fan of Star Wars #38. I know this issue is a real favourite with many fans and this is probably gonna sound like heresy to some, but for me this is a filler issue and the story feels like dull filler. Sure, it's pretty much pure eye candy, as far as Golden and Austin's art is concerned, but the story itself feels simultaneously un-Star Wars-y and not terribly engaging. Add to that the fact that the events herein are never referenced or mentioned again during the series and its hard not to dub this issue as "inessential".

I also can't shake the nagging feeling that Golden was attempting to make some kind of comment on the then-burgeoning video and role-paying game crazes that were gripping the youth of the day. There's something about the alien pilot's desire to retreat from reality into an isolated, make believe world of inconsequential and time consuming games that feels like allegory...clumsy, ill-defined allegory. Of course, that's all pure speculation on my part and it's entirely possible that this was never Golden's intention at all.

Criticisms aside though, this is a beautiful comic book to look at and, story-wise, definitely an interesting detour for Marvel's Star Wars comic. However, it's not a direction that I would've liked to have seen the book follow very often. For me, the chief attraction here is the pretty pictures, rather than the quality of the writing.

Continuity issues: None

Favourite panel:



Favourite quote: "Your galaxy is too real, my friends. It reminds me of another, which I traveled light years to escape." – The mysterious alien pilot explains to Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia why he must return to the void beyond the galaxy.

I have never seen Farscape and have no knowledge of it at all, other than having heard the name, so I couldn't really comment. Perhaps others will chime in on the matter.

Heh, I had no idea this was a fan favourite. I did not like it at all, except for the art, which as you say is often good - who knew Star Destroyers could look like Star Destroyers?

I think for me its not so much the story is bad as it doesn't seem to quite fit in the Star Wars-mileu. The Star Wars Galaxy is vast and there are a lot of strange things in it but it is also a place that has had spacefaring civilisations for thousands of years and a full scale galactic government - first the Republic, now the Empire. There is a place for the unknown in that  but really this feels like it belongs in a story about exploration - Star Trek or Doctor Who. It's just a little too weird for my tastes.

(Also I think Luke was crazy for inviting the ship to stay; sure it is friendly right now but it is also extremely powerful and clearly mentally imbalanced.)