Among the most prominent of the classic contributions
to the early Star Wars Expanded Universe are the stories that were written by the likes of Roy Thomas
and Archie Goodwin for the Star Wars series
produced by Marvel Comics.
“ENTER: LUKE SKYWALKER!” the caption on the cover of
Marvel’s first issue exclaims. “WILL HE SAVE THE GALAXY OR DESTROY IT?”
No one has ever mastered mindless hyperbole with the
skill and artistry of the Marvel Comics editorial staff.
The Pizzazz
strips followed Luke and Leia’s adventures right out of the gate, but the
monthly comic followed some stricter guidelines in how it approached telling
the continuing story of Star Wars. Roy Thomas, writer and editor of the Marvel
Comics series, prefaced the letters column of Star Wars #7 with a statement that explained they would concentrate
more on Han Solo and Chewbacca in order to give George Lucas “breathing space”
to decide what he wanted to do with the film sequel.
In an interview in Back Issue magazine # 9, Thomas
clarified that in the beginning he was not allowed to use Darth Vader as a
villain or do anything related to the Clone Wars. He also couldn’t explore the relationship
between Luke and Leia. That didn’t bother him as much. Despite the fact that he
had written a story featuring Luke and Leia for the Pizzazz serial, he admitted in the Back Issue article that he didn’t care for Luke very much. He
thought Han was more of a traditional space adventurer type of character, so
stories starring Han and Chewie came more naturally.
As an aside, I encourage you to pick up Back Issue # 9 and read that entire
ariticle. They do a very nice retrospective of the Marvel comic. I'm including links to the TwoMorrows Publishing web site because trying to find a back issue of a magazine called Back Issue magazine can be a little tricky.
It’s possible (but seems unlikely) that Lucas
discouraged the comics creators from producing original stories about Luke and
Leia to keep the comic stories from stepping on the
release of Splinter of the Mind’s Eye.
The Pizazz stories, which were
thematically and structurally identical to Alan Dean Foster’s novel, suggest
that this was not the case. Even so, I do not believe this restriction had
anything to do with the fact that Luke and Leia were siblings, as I do not
believe that was a part of the story until they came up with it in Return of the Jedi.
Whatever the reason, the first original arc of the
monthly comic series featured Han Solo and Chewbacca in a story of their own.
This worked out rather nicely, considering their exclusion from Foster’s book
and the Pizzazz serial.
The comics tie-in coincided almost exactly with the
release of the first film, debuting in July 1977. The first six issues of the
series adapted the story of the film, so it wasn’t until early 1978 that the
creative team began telling original stories featuring the Star Wars
characters. The first of these, as I mentioned earlier, revolved around Han
Solo and Chewbacca. This four issue arc was more or less a goofy sci-fi take on
The Magnificent Seven (or, if you
want to pay homage to Lucas’ original influences, Kurasawa’s Seven Samurai).
This first foray into telling original EU Star Wars
stories was definitely a bit awkward. In the second issue of the story, Eight For Aduba-3, Han recruits a crew
of misfits to help him defend moisture farmers from the outlaw Arrogantus and
his gang of Cloud-Riders. Among them are a familiar-looking farm boy named Jimm
the Starkiller kid and his less than faithful droid companion, FE-9Q, a human
hedgehog named Hedji, a sassy space babe named Amaiza, a quixotic Jedi wanna-be
absurdly named Don-Wan Kihotay, and a giant green rabbit man named Jaxxon.
Stories like this one invite derision from purists who
are only concerned with more legitimate EU works produced since 1991, but it’s
a lot easier to contribute to an already rich mythology. At the time these
stories were written Star Wars was still being fleshed out, even by Lucas, and
no one knew where they could take it, even if they had creative license to do
whatever they liked. Whatever the reason, the Marvel Star Wars
series is often dismissed and is considered by Lucas Licensing to be secondary
canon.
Lucas Licensing uses a pre-defined scale when determining
the degree to which a Star Wars work counts as canon. To give you an idea as to
the degrees of gradation used to classify various works, consider that G-canon
is the absolute canon, including all works created by George Lucas and considered by him to be a part of the actual core
story of Star Wars. This obviously would include the final theatrical film
trilogies, but generally accepts the radio dramas and novelizations as absolute
canon as well.
C-canon is the continuity established by works created
for the Star Wars EU, almost exclusively applying to EU works created after the
Expanded Universe was officially established in 1991. Because they were created
before some of the formal boundaries of the EU continuity were established, a
lot of early EU works, such as the Marvel Comics series, are classified as
S-canon. S-canon is secondary canon, which includes pretty much any work
created in the Star Wars universe that doesn’t necessarily have a place there.
The concepts established in these stories are not off limits to other EU
contributors, but the works themselves do not hold as high a station in the
Star Wars canon as newer contributions to the Expanded Universe. It’s not as
bad as it could be. There is also N-canon, a distinction reserved for works
that are considered completely non-canonical.
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