Star Wars 1 was written by Roy Thomas with art by Howard Chaykin. Do I really have to do a synopsis here? It’s the first 25 minutes of Star Wars! Ok, over the remote world of Tatooine, a diplomatic ship is taken an Imperial Star Destroyer under the command of Darth Vader, before she is captured, Princess Leia of the Imperial Senate hides plans for an Imperial station on two robots, who are jettisoned to the planet below. Once on that planet, they are stolen and sold by beings called Jawas. They are sold to the a family which include Luke Skywalker, who is trying to get off planet and away from his uncles moisture farm.
After an arguement about leaving the planet with his uncle. Luke finds the information on the robots from the princess and this causes the smaller robot to make a run for it, Luke follows, but is attacked by the Sand people.
Notes: It’s a weird thing reading Star Wars, the script without gung-ho actors doing their bit sounds a bit hollow and 20 years before widescreen comics, the art suffers in the space bits. That said, the art has a lot of charm to it. Chaykin has a great lived in look to his art at this point and though they don’t look like the actors playing them, each character is distinct and interesting to look at. There’s even a change in pacing, giving more impact to the battle with the Sand people. Over all it’s just an adaptation of a flawed but enjoyable film, making this a flawed, but enjoyably comic.
Relevance: It’s Star Wars dude. Whether or not it helped Marvel when this series was licensed, Star Wars changed the face of cinema in both good ways and bad and this was one of the first places that story was told.
Next Time: Tattoos, snow mobiles and kung fu.
My Marvel Life 