Unca Cheeks the Toy Wonder's Silver Age Comics Web Site!
... or: "Why (and How) Roy Thomas and Archie Goodwin Made George Lucas Look Like Jar-Jar Binks, Light Sabre-Wise." [Pt . 2]
Oh, yeah.
Unca Cheeks just knew you were all gonna get on his aging, palsied
case over that whole "nowhere near 'the greatest science fiction film
of all time' " business. 
Well, now: that's not entirely true, come to think.
Regular site visitor (and all-around Perspicacious Fellah) Martin L. Shoemaker -- who, as will be immediately seen, knoows a thing or three about this whole "Is-It-Is-Or-Is-It-Ain't?" fooforaw his own bad self -- weighed in with the following, after our initial STAR WARS installment:
"Well, I hope you don't get too much flack over your Statements of Obvious Truth. If you need me to jump in front of any bullets, let me know. You're right on target with your critiques of the films. Don't get me started on SF vs. science fantasy/space opera. You already know the difference, and I tend to run on for pages once I get started. But Hollyweird is full of anti-science idiots who make a good chunk of their income from special effects made possible by the very technology for which they have such disdain. (Chief among these, I suspect, are a couple of chaps named Lucas and Spielberg.)
"And that leads to an environment where those in charge consider their scientific ignorance a badge of honor. So of course, they easily allow confusion between real science and plain old fantasy. Last year's three big Sci Fi films -- THE THIRD ELEMENT; LOST IN SPACE; and STARSHIP TROOPERS -- all had stories that hinged on BLATANNT ignorance of any science whatsoever.
"One example of just how uninformed the general public can be on this topic. In one of far too many discussions on the Alternity mailing list re: what is and isn't science fiction, I asserted the self-evident truth that -- barring a pseudo-scientific basis for vampirism, a la Fred Saberhagen's delightful DRACULA books -- stories with vampires are, at best, science fantasy. One writer responded that I was "wrong," because a vampire story could be set in the future, then it could be science fiction. (Get it? Future = science fiction?)
"So by this reckoning, the ShadowRun game -- chock full of elves and
dwarves and dragons and spells in much more abundance than hackers and robots -- is science fiction because it is set in the future; and so, too,
is any old soap opera if its plot happens to play out in the next century.
But neither Jean Auel's "Cave Bear" books nor ANY Jules Verne book are science fiction, because they're NOT set in the future?
"I try not to sound too smug as I suggest to these folks that maybe they should READ, not just passively watch TV and films. And NOT comic books nor role-playing games -- much as I love both -- but real science fiction and science fantasy, so they can learn to tell the difference. Maybe throw in a few of Asimov's layman science books so they can learn just what science really is. I don't want to look down on them for not reading (although it's clear they don't); but you just cannot understand science fiction from films. The good stuff is in print; not on film."
This man -- I hasten to assure you; one and all --- will survive the coming Apocalypse; yea, and will be allowed complete and unlimited access to the slave breeding pens -- wherein the lithesome likes of Catherine Zeta-Jones; Salma Hayek; and Charisma Carpenter shall all be panting and awaiting -- there to sire future generations, and thereby repopulate the blasted heath of Human Civilization. So there.
Let this serve as a warning to you all.
Not that any of the preceding has diddley-doo-dah to do with where we last
left the plucky and irascible Han Solo; loyal helmsman... errrrr; helmsTHING,
Chewbacca; and their hand-picked cadre of Hopeless Space Goobers.
"Showdown
On a Wasteland World!" [STAR WARS #9; March, 1978; Roy Thomas,
writer; Howard Chaykin, penciler] opens up with The Aduba-3 Irregulars
-- Han Solo; Chewbacca;
Espying an approaching flock of large, ominously-skreeching winged something-or-others in the distance, Han inquires of the (*snicker*) "Starkiller Kid":
"Kid! This is your planet! What're those big birds flying fast towards us?"
"Not 'birds,' Solo!" the Kid shoots back. "They're called High-Hounds... and they're blood- thirsty scavengers! They'll pick the peasants' crops bare, if we don't stop 'em!"
(Jeezus. Mountain bandits... bug-eyed scavenger birdies... the
fact that they're situated right smack-dab in the middle of the freakin' desert
in the first bloody place... maybe this whole "farming peasantry" thing
is just a really lame idea right from the git-go, y'know? And it's
not as if a year or two at a nice community college is all that expensive,
really. Not with Pell Grants and other forms of tuition assistance
so readily available, I mean. I'm just sayin', here, isall.)
Well... in any event: the various DIRTY DOZEN wannabes all do their various patented shticks all over the goofy- looking "High- Hounds" -- Hedji flicks his quills at 'em; Don-WWan shakily waves his light sabre in their general direction; Amaiza sleeps with two or three of 'em; etcetera, etcetera -- and the ranks of the feathered furies are promptly decimated, in turn.
"Solo!" Amaiza cries out, just as the battle is winding down. "Over there, to your right -- !"
Startled, Han Solo spins around and sees... Pat Buchanan!
Okay: maybe not that far to his right, then.
What the open-mouthed spice smuggler is really gawking at, in this particular, is (in his own words): " [...] one of the locals, being chased by a High-Hound! But... even if I take him out at this range, he's still liable to crash right into her!"
Never let it be said, however, that a man who freely confuses "parsecs" with
standard measurements of time would allow himself to be constrained by mere,
mortal physics. Three panels later: Han has himself a double
armload o' nubile alien honey; and is busily attempting to find out whether
the comely miss in question... oh, shall we say?... bears her young alive,
or is an egg-laying she-thang.
(At one point, the horny He-Man of Hyperspace -- whilst cradling the shapely
young native girl in question on his lap -- leers lasciviously, Leisure Suit
Larry-style, and mugs: "Well then there now! Things are
looking up on Aduba-3!" All a line like that needs is a
final "wakka-wakka," by way of summary punctuation, and: voila!
Instant Fozzie Bear!)
In the meantime, however -- and, yes, yes; all the e-mail and whatnot,
these past few weeks, certainly raised a valid point, in this regard; consider
yourselves all duly deputized in the Star Wars Fanboy Posse, awright,
already? -- "What About Luke? And Leia? And Those
Two Relentlessly Annoying Little Metallic Rejects From Jim Henson's Automaton
Babies?"
In a nutshell, then -- because (my solemn oath to you, one and all) their ongoing (sub-)plotline is even sillier and more desultory than this one -- young farmboy and Jedi-in- training Luke Skywalker, along with the dithering C-3PO and the incomprehensible R2-D2, is Somewhere Out In Uncharted Space, "[seeking] a new world for the rebels to migrate to, before Darth Vader sends the whole Imperial war fleet against them!"
While relaying his singular lack of success in doing so to a very oddly-rendered Princess Leia, the apple-cheeked Scourge of Beggar's Canyon suddenly blurts out: "No! It... it isn't possible! It -- !"
... and then: Zero. Zip. Nada. The Big
Goose Egg. "Houston... we have a problem."
The redoubtable Leia -- in the time-honored tradition of pampered and cosseted
High Royalty throughout time immemorial -- promptly assumes a suitably "action
figure"-ish pose, and launches herself towards the nearest empty starcraft,
in order to effect a way dramatic rescue.
Back on scenic Aduba-3, however: Han is spending all his free time (such as it is) pointlessly bickering with the bikini-clad Space Boo-tay's wizened and crotchety shaman gran'pa.
"Listen, old man," a heated Han warns; "...
it's not safe sneaking up like that on a guy with a temperamental blaster!"
(Oh, Han... Han: they make special ointments and "marital aides"
for fellahs suffering from that sort of thing nowadays, you big silly
-- !)
"I am here to tell you -- " the old geezer wheezes pathetically [Pick One]:
A.) "... that the help of you and your companions is not needed here!"
B.) "... the storeeee... of a lovely laydeeeeee... who was bringing up three very lovely girrrrrrllllllssss...!"
C.) "... that my 'granddaughter,' here, generally answers to the name of Larry. Check out the Adam's apple, Poindexter."
D.) "... that if you go carryin' pictures of Chairman Mao/You ain't gonna make it with anyone, anyhow."
E.) "...
Rosebud was the sled."
Ol' Grandaddy Alzheimers regales (or, rather, tries to regale) Solo with some cockamammie tale or another, re: his (purported) ability to "[summon a] legendary monster" from the nearby caves "to save our village"; with the space- jockey's snide retort being lost in the general hubbub and suchlike attendant the not- wholly-unexpected arrival upon the scene of the odious and despicable Serji-X.
(Incidentally: longtime site regular and online ubergenius Quentin
Long points out that the aforementioned "Serji-X" bears more than a passing
physical resemblance to MAD Magazine doodler nonpareil -- and
GROO THE WANDERER co-conspirator -- Sergio Aragones. Which never,
no never occurred to your preternaturally unobservant Unca Cheeks, in
the twenty years-plus since he first laid myopic eyes on this blamed
comic book. Two bonus points for Ol' Brer Quent, then.)
Sergio (... ummmm... I mean "Serji!" SERJI! Don't SUE me, f'chrissakes!) and his men come a-whoopin' and a-hollerin' down from the nearby mountains, laying down withering fusillades of blaster-fire; spooking the livestock; and (in general) just acting like real jerks, really; sneering such coarse threats as: "You can start dolin' out the tribute you've been savin' up for us all year, right? And that includes the cream of your 'crop,' who just reached the age I like 'em!"
No, no, you filthy degenerates! NOT the old man!
His granddaughter! His granddaughter!
Well: the battle is quickly joined... and (one by one) the various members
of Han's Half-Pints begin to go down quicker'n Drew Barrymore at a Hollywood
"wrap" party.
First
to feel the cold kiss of the headsman's axe (as it were) is the "Starkiller
Kid's" perpetually grumpy robot Tonto, "Effie." And no one -- not
the other characters; and most assuredly not the cheering, hooting,
foot- stomping readers -- is terribly broken up over that, quite
frankly.
One page after that: the geriatric Gilgamesh calling himself "Don- Wan Kioti" gets his spinal column realigned approximately three yards to the left, via hot plasma blast.
The storyline, at this juncture, is finally building nicely towards the one final, cathartic scene everyone's been waiting for -- i.e., Chewbacca and Jaxxon Taking Turns Messily Devouring a Shrilly-Shrieking Amaiza -- when the Old Shaman-Type Dude (remember him?) finally knocks it off with all of that praying and chanting and beseeching and whatnothe's been doing all this time, off-panel...
... and -- badda- boom, badda-BING -- The Monster of the
Caverns wakes up.
Okay... okay: so it isn't exactly Fin
Fang Foom we're talkin' 'bout, here. I realize that.
Nonetheless: it is a muy frustrated Solo who best sums up the core essence of the situation, at this pass, with the trenchant observation:
"Oh, HELL! If we didn't have ENOUGH to worry about -- !"
... which seems as logical a place as any, really, to row our reviewing boats ashore; and resolve, one and all, to rejoin our hapless heroes right here...
... next week, I mean.
Now: no more of those "Thou-Hast-Sinned-Against-Man-and-Lucas" e-mailings from any of you lot, from here on out... 'kay?
In the immortal words of the first film: "Let the plush toy
win."
STAR WARS Comics of the 1970s (PAGE ONE)
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