Star Wars: Return of the Jedi #4Cover dated: January 1984
Issue title:
The Final Duel!Script: Archie Goodwin
Artwork: Al Williamson (pencils & inks)/Carlos Garzon (pencils & inks)/Ronald Frenz (pencils)/Tom Palmer (inks)/Bill Sienkiewicz (pencils & inks – uncredited)/Tom Yeates (inks – uncredited)/Dan Green (inks – uncredited)/Rick Bryant (pencils & inks – uncredited)/
Colours: Christie Scheele, Bob Sharen
Letters: Ed King
Cover art: Bill Sienkiewicz
Overall rating: 6½ out of 10
Plot summary: On board the
Millennium Falcon, Lando Calrissian prepares to lead the Rebel fleet against the second Death Star, while his friends and fellow Rebels, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca and the droids R2-D2 and C-3PO break into the Imperial shield generator's command bunker on the forest moon of Endor. Elsewhere, Luke Skywalker has surrendered to his father Darth Vader and been transported to the Death Star, where he is brought before Emperor Palpatine, who tells the young Jedi that he has laid a trap for the Rebellion. The Emperor explains that it was he who allowed the Rebel spies to obtain information about the Empire's new battle station, as part of a plan to bring the Rebel fleet out into the open where it could be destroyed in one fell swoop.
As the Rebel fleet approaches the Death Star, Calrissian realises that their instruments are being jammed by the battle station and concludes that the Empire must be expecting the attack and therefore the station's protective energy shield is likely still up. As the Rebels advance, the Imperial fleet appears from behind the forest moon to cut off their escape route. Suddenly, a blast from the Death Star's fully operational laser cannon destroys a Rebel frigate.
Back on Endor, the Rebel strike team led by Solo is overwhelmed by Imperial troops and captured. As they are led outside the bunker, the Rebel's Ewok allies launch a surprise attack, which leads to a full scale ground battle between the Empire and the primitive creatures, with the Ewok's stone-age weaponry proving surprisingly effective against the Imperial war machine.
Meanwhile, in an attempt to lure Luke to the Dark Side of the Force, Palpatine taunts the young Jedi until he ignites his lightsaber and lashes out at the Emperor in anger, only to be prevented from slaying the Sith Lord by Vader's own lightsaber blade. As father and son engage in a duel, Palpatine urges Luke to give in to his anger and embrace the Dark Side. During a lull in the combat, Vader reads Luke's thoughts and discerns that he has a twin sister, who he suggests might be turned to the Dark Side instead. This causes Luke to give into his rage and launch into a frenzied attack, severing Vader's hand and knocking him to the floor. The Emperor urges Luke to kill his father and take his place, but the young Rebel refuses, declaring himself a Jedi, like his father before him. The Emperor realises that Skywalker cannot be turned and unleashes a storm of Force lightning from his fingertips, as Luke writhes in agony. Unable to watch his son being murdered, Vader grabs Palpatine and hurls him down a reactor shaft to his death.
Back on Endor, Han manages to trick his way into the command bunker, setting off explosives that destroy the installation and knock out the Death Star's protective shield. Lando seizes this opportunity and leads Wedge Antilles and his group of Rebel fighter craft into the interior of the half-completed Death Star, where they destroy the battle station's main reactor.
On board the doomed station, Luke tends to his dying father, unmasking him at his own request, so that he may look upon his son with his own eyes, even though it will kill him. As Vader dies, Luke takes his father's body and escapes the Death Star in an Imperial shuttle, while the
Millennium Falcon and the other Rebel fighter craft also escape the station, just ahead of its destruction in a huge explosion.
Later that evening on Endor, the Ewoks and Rebels throw a huge party to celebrate the end of the Empire.
Comments: So, here we have the final instalment of the comic adaptation of
Return of the Jedi and the first thing that jumps out at you is just what a horrible, vomit-inducing colour the front cover is! I've mentioned before that I find Bill Sienkiewicz's covers for this mini-series to be uninspiring and garish, but this issue is by far the most horrible looking of all. Interestingly, there's what looks to be a rejected cover design for this issue reproduced as a bonus pin-up in the back of the book. I definitely prefer this unused cover of Sienkiewicz's to the one that Marvel ultimately went with. Take a look and judge for yourself...
I guess that, ultimately, Luke, Vader and the Emperor are more dynamic characters than Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda and Anakin Skywalker, and so Marvel would definitely want the former group jumping out at young comic buyers as they browsed the news stands. But still, I think the rejected cover is the more aesthetically pleasing of the two.
Artists Al Williamson and Carlos Garzon turn in some really lovely pages in this issue – in particular, there's a wonderful opening splash page of the Rebel Fleet preparing to go up against the second Death Star – but the deadline pressure that they found themselves under last issue only intensified with this chapter. That pressure necessitated a number of other artists coming in to lend them a hand. Take a look at the art credits above and you'll see just how many other artists pitched in to get this chapter finished on time. Unfortunately, this hodgepodge of artistic talent gives the comic a rather uneven and disjointed feel.
Now, before I get into exactly who did what in this issue, let me just say that, although I know for a fact that all of the artists listed above helped out on this issue, a lot of what I'm going to say about exactly what they all did is based on educated guess work. Having gotten that disclaimer out of the way, I can say with the utmost certainty that Sienkiewicz himself drew and inked pages 11, 15, 16 and 17 of this issue, which features the ground battle between the Empire and the Ewoks, the assault on the Death Star's main reactor and the unmasking of Darth Vader. Rick Bryant again contributes a full-page splash that is exclusive to this issue and is inserted directly into the story between Williamson's pages, and this is located on the 7th page of this issue.
The original artwork for page 18 (which is the final page of the adaptation) is up on the comicartfans.com website and it clearly credits Dan Green as the inker, over Williamson's pencils, so we can be 100% sure of that. However, I'm less certain about which other pages Green inked, but I'm gonna take a guess and say that it looks to my eyes as if he also worked on pages 8 and 13, which show the Ewoks first attacking the stormtroopers and Luke severing Vader's hand respectively. Tom Yeates also inked some of Williamson's pencils and I'm gonna say that he likely worked on pages 9 and 10 of this chapter, in which Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader duel in the Emperor's throne room. It also kind of looks to my eyes as if Yeates inked pages 4 and 6 as well, in which Luke is first brought before the Emperor, as Palpatine reveals his plan for wiping out the Rebellion.
The regular artistic team on the
Star Wars comic, Ron Frenz and Tom Palmer, also helped out on this issue and are even credited for their work on the opening splash page. However, I'm really not sure which pages they drew and inked. The owner of the original artwork for pages 12 and 13 credits Frenz as the penciller over at comicartfans.com, but gives no details as to who inked them. If Frenz did draw these pages, then I think it's likely that he also did the somewhat rushed-looking page 14 as well, since it carries on directly from page 13. Perhaps these three pages were inked by Palmer, doing his best to ape Willaimson's style? If there's anybody in the forum who wants to hazard a guess as to which pages Frenz and Palmer worked on in this chapter, please feel free!
Putting aside the minutia of exactly who drew what, the artwork in this chapter, although often pretty, suffers from many of the same shortcomings as last issue. Williamson seems to be trying to cram too much story into this final issue and, as a result, some of the narrative ends up feeling rushed. In addition, Archie Goodwin's script underplays the Ewok's role in the story. That's a shame because the triumph of their primitive culture over the Empire is one of the keystone elements of the original trilogy and underlines
Star Wars's recurring theme of the human – or in this case, Ewok – spirit triumphing over a technologically superior adversary. I guess that some fans might not mind having the Ewok's role in the story diminished, but the fact remains that the purpose of this adaptation is to translate
Return of the Jedi for the comic page and lessening the Ewok's pivotal role in vanquishing the Empire is a definite strike against how successful it is at that task.
On the plus side, I like that Goodwin has the Emperor reveal his contingency plan, should the Rebels succeed in destroying the shield generator. That plan is to simply turn the battle station's weapon on Endor and destroy the forest moon, along with Han, Leia, Chewbacca and the droids. The fact that this extra plot detail is present here and in James Kahn's novelization, but not in the film's shooting script, reinforces my belief (which I spoke about in my review of
Return of the Jedi #1) that Goodwin actually based much of his script on Kahn's as-then-unpublished book, rather than the film's screenplay.
As with earlier chapters of this story, there are some weird omissions, such as the fact that we don't get to see the face of Anakin Skywalker beneath Vader's mask and the Force ghosts of Obi-Wan, Yoda and Anakin do not appear to Luke during the Rebel celebration on Endor. I'm guessing that these important scenes were left out at Lucasfilm's behest because they didn't want Marvel to ruin the surprise for cinema goers (similar omissions occurred in Marvel's adaptation of
The Empire Strikes Back for the same reason). I should also note that there's a small continuity gaff when the Ewok who steals the Imperial speeder bike outside of the shield generator bunker is incorrectly named as Wicket, when it should be Paploo. Oh, and Admiral Ackbar's iconic line of "It's a trap!" is unfortunately shortened to simply, "A trap!"
Overall, issue #4 of
Return of the Jedi does its job of bringing the story to a close adequately, but the mishmash of artistic styles in this chapter make for a rather distracting read, while the pacing of the art and script feels a little rushed. Ultimately, this is by far the weakest instalment of the adaptation and, although a handful of pages in this issue do look gorgeous, the end result is a serviceable conclusion to the story, rather than an inspired one.
Continuity issues:
- The Ewok who steals an Imperial speeder bike is incorrectly identified as Wicket, when it should be Paploo.
Favourite panel:
Favourite quote: "So be it, Jedi! If you will not be turned … you will be destroyed!" – Emperor Palpatine threatens Luke Skywalker for his resistance to the Dark Side of the Force.
