Star Wars #8Cover dated: February 1978
Issue title:
Eight for Aduba-3Script: Roy Thomas (plot, script)/Howard Chaykin (co-plotter)
Artwork: Howard Chaykin (pencils)/Tom Palmer (inks and embellishing)
Colours: Tom Palmer
Letters: John Costanza
Cover art: Gil Kane (pencils)/Tony DeZuniga (inks)
Overall rating: 6 out of 10
Plot summary: While laying low on the planet of Aduba-3, Han Solo and Chewbacca are hired by a local farmer named Ramiz, to defend his village from a vicious gang of thugs known as the Cloud-Riders. Ramiz informs the pair that the gang, who are led by the cruel Serji-X Arrogantus, attack the village at around this time every year, to steal their food, slaughter their livestock, burn their crops and kidnap the villagers' daughters and wives for their own amusement. Han quickly hires a rag-tag group of six spacers to help him with his task. Serji-X approaches Han and attempts to persuade him to forget all about the villagers and even offers him compensation for doing so, but Han declines the offer.
Meanwhile, back on the fourth moon of Yavin, Luke Skywalker, C-3PO and R2-D2 depart on a mission to search for a suitable planet for a new Rebel base.
Comments: First up, let me just say that, on some level, this is the greatest comic book ever published. Why you ask? Well, because it features the very first appearance of Jaxxon, the 6 foot-tall, green, carnivorous space-rabbit that I have as my avatar, of course!
The art here is a definite improvement on last issue. Tom Palmer's inking and/or embellishing over Howard Chaykin's pencils looks quite nice, although it isn't wholly consistent throughout the issue. For example, some of the art featuring Jaxxon has the space-rabbit's face changing from cute to dopey to ferocious-looking from one panel to the next. However, for the most part, Palmer's contribution here really makes Chaykin's pencils look good. In particular, there's a nice full-page splash of Serji-X, with the panels behind him illustrating his damnable crop burning, kidnapping and pillaging exploits. Oh, and there's a couple of nice tips of the hat to Buck Rogers (with the Rebel technician's red and yellow uniform, in the first panel of the scene where Luke and Leia say goodbye to each other) and Flash Gordon (the star on Serji-X's double-breasted leather jacket), which is fitting, since both franchises had such a big influence on George Lucas and
Star Wars.
This issue is also the first time since the series started where Chewbacca actually looks like the Chewbacca from the movie, rather than some slightly deformed, overly-shampooed sasquach. Mind you, that's not so surprising; I long ago realised that when it comes to comics, everything's better with added Tom Palmer. Palmer's colouring in this issue is pretty nice too. It's a little bit more subtle than the Technicolor hues of previous issues, but not so much that it's a jarring departure from what has come before.
While we're on the subject of the art, I find it interesting that the three farmers that we saw last issue have had a radical make over for this instalment. Gone are the slightly racially offensive, oriental-looking peasants that we saw last issue, and in their place, a trio of Luke Skywalker clones! I can't help wonder what drove this change? I'd like to think that someone at Marvel, or maybe Roy Thomas or Tom Palmer themselves, objected to the insensitive racial stereotyping of the earlier depiction, but this being 1977, I doubt it.
Thomas's scripting is better than it was last issue and more up to the standards that he displayed in the adaptation of
Star Wars. The writing in his narration boxes is less cringy too. Also, I like the way that Thomas litters the comic with off-hand references to exotic planets like Delphon or alcoholic beverages like Nikta. As a kid, I ate this kind of detail up with a spoon, desperate to know as much as I could about the
Star Wars universe.
The "western in space" theme begun last issue continues in this instalment, with Thomas clearly riffing on
The Magnificent Seven here (which is itself is based on Akira Kurosawa's
Seven Samurai, of course). This all fits and connects nicely though because Kurosawa's film
The Hidden Fortress was a big influence on George Lucas and the first
Star Wars film. Anyway, the
Magnificent Seven-esque storyline definitely suits Han and Chewbaacca well. We even get a wild west-style bar room brawl at one point in this issue!
As for the storyline's chief villain, Serji-X Arrogantus, you can't tell me that he isn't Chaykin and Thomas's gentle send-up of legendary comics artist Sergio Aragonés. I remember that when I first heard of Aragonés' name, probably while reading
MAD magazine as a teenager, I thought, "Oh, that's funny. His name sounds a bit like Serji-X Arrogantus." But years later, when I actually saw a picture of Sergio Aragonés, I finally understood and got the joke. I think Serji-X makes for a pretty good villain. I mean, yes, he's small-fry compared to Darth Vader, but within the context of this storyline and as an adversary for such an off-beat group as the Star-Hoppers of Aduba-3 (as they would later be known), he makes for a worthy and quite threatening adversary. I also like the Cloud-Riders' skyspeeders: they're an awful lot like the speeder bikes that we'll get to see the Imperials using in
Return of the Jedi.
While we're on the subject of the Star-Hoppers, I'd like to know what's in it for them? I mean, Han is barely being paid himself, so it surely can't be the promise of money that has secured their services in protecting the village.
Of the six recruits, Hedji the porcupine-like spiner is probably the most interesting and original of the bunch. Amaiza of the Black Hole Gang is a great warrior woman and it's cool that Chewbacca and Solo already know her (there's an interesting back-story hinted at here, but frustratingly, not much is ever revealed). Still, she wears a nice – if somewhat overly sexualised – disco-influenced outfit. Jimm, or "The Starkiller Kid" as he likes to call himself, is a pretty likeable character, and very much in the Luke Skywalker mould. In fact, "Starkiller" was an alternate last name for Luke in the early drafts of
Star Wars, which Roy had been given access to. Jimm's droid FE-9Q (or Effie) is kind of annoying, but only in the same way that C-3PO is.
The old Jedi Knight (or is he?), Don-Wan Kihotay, is an obvious riff on the eponymous character from Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra's classic novel
Don Quixote, right down to the sound-alike name. Thomas might as well have given him a side-kick called San-Cho Panzaz or something! The character's name also rather obviously alludes to the fictional libertine and womaniser, Don Juan. Roy has the Jedi Knight talk in the chivalrous vernacular of a character straight out of some Victorian literary saga set in England during the Dark Ages...'cause, you know, he's a knight.
To be honest, I'm not sure why Kihotay is even on the team. Han essentially recruits him because he feels sorry for him, which is quite out of character and seriously foolhardy. Kihotay was always my least favourite Star-Hopper as a youngster and he still is today.
My favourite Star-Hopper, on the other hand, is of course Jaxxon, the lepus carnivorous smuggler from Coachelle Prime. Unfortunately, there are many
Star Wars fans out there who feel that Jaxxon pretty much exemplifies everything that was bad about Marvel's
Star Wars run. I can kinda see their point, but c'mon...he's a great character. More importantly, to me he represents a time when
Star Wars was just one film; an all-action roller-coaster ride of a movie, not bogged down in overly convoluted back-story minutiae. As such, he is synonymous in my mind with a more innocent time, when
Star Wars was pure escapist fun and nothing else.
Of course, George Lucas wasn't overly fond of Jaxxon either, and after this issue hit the stands, word came down from Lucasfilm that Roy was to stop using him and refrain from ripping off
The Magnificent Seven in the comic. Of course, this doesn't explain why Marvel again chose to feature Jaxxon in the Archie Goodwin written and Walt Simonson drawn issue #16, but there you go. Regardless of Lucas's opinion of Jaxxon though, no one is gonna tell me that he's is any worse or any sillier than Jar Jar Binks, who Lucas was and is apparently fine with.
Anyway, issue #8 of the
Star Wars comic is a pretty good one, all in all. The art is superior to most of the past issues – although still not up to the heights of issues #2 or #6 – and the
Magnificent Seven influenced storyline is well suited to the characters.
Continuity issues: None
Favourite panel:
Favourite quote: "
Girl friend!? It's getting so you can't tell one sex from the other in these spaceport towns." – Han Solo mistakes a cantina patron's gender.
To be honest, I'm not sure why Kihotay is even on the team. Han essentially recruits him because he feels sorry for him, which is quite out of character and seriously foolhardy. Kihotay was always my least favourite Star-Hopper as a youngster and he still is today.