Friday, April 20, 2018

Legends Never Die: Marvel Star Wars Issue 02




Picking up with the Tusken Raider attack, there is a definite change in the quality of the art. Roy Thomas is still the writer and editor, Howard Chaykin remains the illustrator, but the addition of Steve Leialoha as the embellisher (inker) and colorist changes the entire texture of the issue. Leialoha would go on to have a long career, working at Marvel and DC on various titles.

Gone are Chaykin's sketchy in strokes, and the whole issue has a more photo accurate art style in general. I would assume that they received reference photos from Lucas as the movie came closer to release, but that's assumption. There are also more blues in the color palette, adding a cooling balance to the reds and oranges.



The plot follows along closely with the movie. Ben saves Luke and starts telling him about “The Force.” (Their quotes, not mine). Darth Vader interrogates Leia. Luke & Ben find the wrecked sandcrawler and then Luke's farm is burnt down. They go to Mos Eisley and hire Han Solo and Chewbacca. There is a firefight in the docking bay and they make the jump to lightspeed in the Millennium Falcon.



One point of difference is the deleted scene where Han meets Jabba that was restored in the Special Editions. This was well before Jabba's design was finalized as a giant slug, so here we have a random alien who would later be retconned as Mosep Binneed, Jabba's accountant and occasional face-man.




There's not much to say about the issue. Its a faithful adaptation of that section of the movie and the slight shift in art style is for the better.



No comments: