My next entry into the Cosmos of Coolness (comic book division) is from Dark Horse and Star Wars:
Tag & Bink.
First, a little background. The success of Star Wars, in 1977, brought immediate Star Wars parodies, such as Hardware Wars...
It also gave us unfunny trainwrecks, like the Holiday Special, but we are talking about the funny stuff. A generation later, a fan made a short film that both spoofed Star Wars and the Fox tv show COPS.....
The short was called TROOPS and the mind behind it belonged to Kevin Rubio. Rubio was california and had a theater and photgraphy background. He was working for Fox, after drawing their attention with an animated short, Re-Animation. he was working designing and developing characters for Fox Kids and ended up heading the cel animation art department. Troops came about in 1997 and boosted his career, big time. One of the jobs he got was writing Star Wars stories, for Dark Horse's Star Wars Tales, with issue #4, "A Death Star is Born."
The story features Grand Moff Tarkin presenting the designs for the Death Star, to the Emperor, for his approval.
Boy was that prophetic!
The designer also happens to have his daughter's hologram projector and mixes the two up, showing Yogi Bear catoons, before he pulls out the right one. The story is a brilliant mix of classic Star Wars, with the animosity between Vade and Tarkin, reminding us that Vader was originally the henchman, not the villain, in Star Wars. It als ads comical discussions as to the design, which provide a rationale both for the flaw in the design (which made more sense than Rogue One's version, if you ask me) and how they fell into the hands of the rebels.
In the end, the Emperor doesn't have the safety railing installed, because it would put up the cost by 36%.
The Emperor then asks about the exhaust port, saying that if he had a nickel for every time an enemy flew a ship in and blew up a reactor, he could build two of these things. They have to vent radiation and reach a compromise size of 2 meters across, which no one could hit.......
....well, except Vader, as he points out. The meeting wraps up and they start to leave and Vader hands the designer the holo projector he forgot
There are some great moments in there, like when Tarkin starts choking and the Emperor immediately turns to Vader, who pleads innocence and Tarkin recovers, saying his coffee hit the wrong pipe.
He followed that up with another story, in issue 7, with a parody of Pulp Fiction and the Prequels....
"Force Fiction"
Not quite a s funny, though there are a few good lines and a lot of fun, in the background....
I especially like Yoda in a booster seat.
So, anyway, Dark Horse was happy, the fans were happy, Lucasfilm was happy. So, Rubio got to try a longer story and he took his inspiration from Tom Stoppard's play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. The play follows along two observers to the events of Hamlet, from their perspective, moving in and out of the scenes in Shakespeare's play. Here, the observers are two Rebel soldiers, Tag Greenly and Bink Otauna. We first meet them aboard the Tantive IV, as they crash into Artoo and Threepio. They move on, as alarms sound, telling Threepio to stay out of the way. They are part of the assembled crew, trying to stop the Imperial boarding party and they don't fancy their chances, especially with their crazy officers.....
They run off to hide in a storeroom, where they run into Threepio again and argue, as Princess leia loads the Death Sta plans into Artoo, in the background. Stormtroopers catch Tag & Bink and Threepio decides that it is time for him to leave. They are marched out, arguing, as a stormtrooper ridicules their rebellion and says they have it good. Tag makes quick use of one of those mouse droid things and causes the trooper to slip on it, thanks to the poor peripheral vision of their helmets. Our heroes clobber the stormtroopers and take their armor, escaping onboard the Imperial Star Destroyer. It just happens to transport their prisoners to the death Star and goes into a parking orbit. They don't like seeing Imperials everywhere and even less when they see Leaia marched off. They decided to steal a TIE Fighter and fly it to Alderaan, which just happens to be nearby.
Well, poop!
With Alderaan destroyed, they have nowhere to go. Just then, the Millennium Falcon jumps out of hyperspace, into the debris. Bink tries to tell Tag not to head to the Death Star, but his comlink is being jammed by the Falcon, so Tag only gets every other word and heads back to the Death Star hangar.
They find themselves marching around with other stormtroopers, until a sergeant details them to a guard post, where they wonder what is going on. They miss Ben Kenobi climbing around on the tractor beam controls, shutting them down. Tag gears something, but Bink says it is topgas venting. Tag questions this and Bink wonders if he has been in the armor too long...
They end up confined to quarters, because they let Ben get passed them, then decide to escape and slip into Tie Pilot uniforms, just in time for the Rebel attack. We see Vader detail two pilots to follow him, who end up killed int he fighting and the Death Star is blown up.
Except they were not the two pilots; they were behind them. They head in another direction, to another hangar and find a sweet ride.....
It turns out to be Tarkin's shuttle and since he refused to possibility of evacuating, the guards are redeployed and the pair fly it off the station, before Luke's torpedo hits home. However, they are knocked way off course by the shockwave of the explosion and it takes them months to get back to the Rebel base, which they find deserted, after some big celebration. They even find a leftover medal....
They run into a bounty hunter, poking around the remains of the base and through luck are able to subdue him. It is Boba Fett, hunting Han Solo. He doesn't know who they are and they leave him tied up, but he escapes as they lift off. They head for Bespin and Cloud City, because Tank knows Lando Calrissian, who dated both of his sisters. He got stuck juggling the pair and Tag provided him an alibi, which he has used ever since. Something about the Battle of Taanab. he hides them out and tells them to keep a low profile. They have just the thing, with spare stormtrooper armor. However, Threepio stumbles into their hiding place and Tag blasts him.
They end up as part of the guard in the freezing chamber, but Tag gets knocked over the side, by an angry Chewie. He wakes up later, with Bink standing over them, telling him they have to leave. The local population isn't happy to see them and a mob chases them. They make it to the Rebel fleet and present the Imperial shuttle to Mon Motha.
That initial two part mini is followed up by a second, The return of Tag & Bink.....
Tag & Bink end up working with Lando, on a mission to meet a Rebel spy contact and try to get Han from Boba Fett. Lando is romancing a woman, in a bar, when Tag & Bink pull him out. Except, the woman turns out to be the link to the spy, Manuel and she was also going to help Lando get Han off Fett's ship. So, they go to Plan B and con Boba into landing his ship and confronting him in the stormtrooper armor, while Lando sneaks aboard and frees Han. Unfortunately, he has already delivered Han to Jabba and Lando conks him on the head and they move to Plan C. Meanwhile, Boba is paranoid about an ex-girlfriend finding him...or rather, the ex-girlfriend of someone who looks like him, which, since he was part of the DNA for the stormtrooper army, covers a lot of territory.
Plan C involves Tag donning Boba's armor and he is the one inside Jabba's palace, while Bink and Lando are in other disguises. He is the one you see romancing a dancer.
Leia turns up, gets caught and we move on in the Plan alphabet. Luke turns up, gets caught and it is sarlaac time!
Tag gets dumped into the pit. Bink decides it is time to get off Jabba's barge and tries to shoot away Luke's lightsaber, but hits him in the hand.
Bink wakes up to find himself and Tag, in Boba's amor, trussed up and strung up, by the female bounty hunter that Lando was romancing. She takes off Tag's helmet and sees that it isn't Boba and interrogates them. She lets them down and they get back to the arranged meeting with the spy, Manuel. She takes them to him, but he isn't what they expected.
His name is Manuel Both-Hanz, but you can call him Manny. He hands over the tapes of the new Death Star and the prepare to escape, when Bob turns up, in his skivvies and hopping mad. He fires at them and hits Manny, in the chest, boring a hole through his body. He keels over and dies.
Manny Both-Hanz died bringing them the information.
The girl starts firing back at Boba and Tag & Bink use the distraction to escape in the shuttle. They report into Mon Motha, who has them turn the body into Imperial Command, to throw them off the scent. They end up on the new death Star, in Imperial Guard armor, escorting the Emperor.
They are there when Vader turns up with Luke and are dismissed and walk around to the back side of the elevator, and discover there is nothing there. Afraid to look stupid by going back the other way, they hide there while Luke and Vader battle and then the Emperor is tossed down a shaft and explodes. They did not get off the Death Star, which leads to a puzzling ending.....
That leads to a Prequel, where we learn that Tag & Bink were Padawan Jedi, brought to the temple by a pair of lesser Jedi....
They cause all kinds of havoc, for Master Yoda and Master Nu. They are less than stelalr pupils and try to cheat to pass their Outer Rims test and end up uploading a virus that wipes out data related to Count Dooku and a specific planet. They decide to get out of town.
They go to the diner to borow credits from Dex, for passage out of the system, where they get advice from Jango Fett, who is romancing a redhead, when the short order cook calls out that the next order is ready.....Order 66.
Jango flips out and starts shooting up the place and the boys run off to the spaceport and stow away on a ship...the one carrying Padme and Anakin. They are caught by Anakin; but, Tag, being Corellian, is an old smoothie and he gives Anakin advice on romancing Padme, which works. They get left behind and have to hitch their way back to Corruscant and arrive in time for the raising of the Jedi Temple and they meet up with a different Anakin.....
He only cuts off their braids, out of thanks for helping him romance Padme. he tells them to forget the Jedi and get out of town, permanently.
They decide to head for Tatooine, since nothing ever happens there.
Why is it cool? This s@#$ is hilarious!
It's also pretty faithful to the films and actual helps fix some plotholes, in a fun and humorous way, which kind of got lost in all of this Saga of the Skywalkers BS. It's good old fashioned space opera, with a sense of humor, like the original Star Wars, when it was just an adventure film throwback to old Republic serials and Errol Flynn swashbucklers and westerns. No Jedi religions, no dodgy retcons...just two great characters, caught up in all of the madness. It showed that you could do great stories, without directly involving a Skywalker, long before things like The Mandalorian. It was better Star Wars than what followed, much as Galaxy Quest was better Star Trek than subsequent series and movies. The jester always sees the truth at the heart of things.
The art is great, both expressive in the comedy and in capturing the look of the films.
I recommend the trade collection, Tag & Bink Were Here, since it has the whole thing (wish it included the two Star Wars Tales stories, for completeness of Rubio's work) and it will make you laugh ut loud. There are all kinds of sight gags, with the Big Boy restaurant mascot inserted in different points, cameos from Tom Servo, Crow T Robot, Gort, Cyclon Centurians (the classic ones), Jay & Silent Bob and others. Lando is portrayed like Billy Dee Williams in the old Colt 45 tv commercials....
There are a lot of Star Wars comics you can skip and not really miss anything; but, don't skip this one.