Monday Memories #42 - Star Wars: A Long Time Ago #1

Each Monday this year I'll be taking a look back at a random comic, prestige format issue, graphic novel or collection of reprints from amongst my 3,000 or so comics that date from 1962 to 2003 - I figured anything in the last ten years would be too recent to hark back to.

The comics are chosen completely at random and apart from a four week lead-in period, even I don't know what I'll be looking at in the weeks to come!

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #241

Oh, how things could have been different...

Hate To Call You A Liar, Skywalker

Having landed on a water world as part of a diplomatic mission, Luke Skywalker gets amazed about the scenery:

That's a fair enough reaction for someone who grew up on a desert planet and farmed moisture.

Trouble is, when he says "I've never seen oceans like these anywhere" in issue #74, he's obviously forgotten all about issue #12:

What was that, Threepio?

Oh, right.

Bard Wars

So . . . Luke and Lando are trying to pick up some TIE fighters so that they can masquerade as imperials for a mission but the problem is, the bloke they're trying to get them from is a shady, double-crossing no-good nerf herder. He has them stashed on an asteroid that's used as a dumping ground and when Luke and Lando go to get the fighters, they discover the bloke's guard dog - a huge, man-eating worm called Caesar.

Narrowly escaping the fiend, they discover a small group of other pilots who've been hiding out on the asteroid, unable to escape because of the vicious worm. Thankfully, Luke and Lando are confident they can come up with something to make sure everybody gets off the planet and they get the TIE fighters.

The other pilots may not get the reference, but it looks like Tatooine's schools managed to drill some Shakespeare into young Luke before he left.

Give Me A Head's Up

Ahh, yet more old style Star Wars tom-foolery: Luke Skywalker's breaking into an Imperial base to get some information but the Empire are aware he's on the way and so post guards to capture him as he heads to the computer room.

Thing is, Luke's gone a different way and used a terminal in the kitchen to get the same info, leaving the stormtroopers hanging around in the wrong place.

Luckily, they have state of the art equipment to alert them to their error:

Yep, that appears to be a metal arm that's popped out of the front of his helmet, dangling a message board in front of his face with the word ALERT written on it.

A head's up display, 80's style.

Just Good Friends

You knew this was going to happen, didn't you? I start reading old Star Wars stories and I'm going to find stuff that - in hindsight - doesn't really tie up with what we know now. Obvious case in point is Luke and Leia's relationship:

"Something more than friends" eh, Luke? How about brother and sister? Or isn't that what you were going for?