Customer Reviews

The Early Adventures (Classic Star Wars, Volume Four)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

One of my fondest memories of Star Wars--fonder even than watching the first movie--is coming upon Russ Manning's "Star Wars" during its run in newspapers. While I can't really quibble with the other reviewers opinions, I think he's being a bit harsh; the style in this volume is classic newspaper story telling, although somewhat redited for the Dark Horse volumes as were all the reprints of the newspaper strips.

Yes, I can't argue that the Al Williamson/Archie Goodwin run on the strip was more in line with the overall thrust of the LFL expansion of their Star Wars property. However, there is a charm and an excitement in the Manning strips that is not present in the slicker, longer storylines that followed.

The tale of Leia and Luke struggling to convince a planet that specialized in the manufacture of starfighter weapons components and the ultimate space battle against Darth Vader and a Star Destroyer, not to mention the mysterious Blackhole who had been charged by Vader to hunt down the Rebels, were among the elements that made up my first long-form writing efforts, fan fiction. I can trace a line directly back to those efforts and that strip and my current career as a writer. Boba Fett's appearance in the final section of the book--created by Alfredo Alcala and another artist after Manning left the strip for health reasons--also sparked my imagination and inspired a love for the character that exists to this day. Boba Fett's appearance here remains my favorite in the Expanded Universe.

I recommend others take a look at these classics. Who knows? Maybe you'll be inspired as I was.

I am reviewing CLASSIC STAR WARS - THE EARLY ADVENTURES VOLUME 4 ISBN 156971178X which collects issues 1 - 9 of the dark horse comic, published May, 1997 printed in Canada. It is also known as Classic SW Volume 4 - The Early Adventures. This is a Hugh comic book collection running 200 pages.

This is a masterful reproduction of newspaper comic strips that ran in the late 1970's. The strips were made into 9 comics and then into this TPB. The art style is therefore that of a newspaper comic strip rating 2 stars. But dark horse has done great job of inking on high quality paper. My copy has no washed out pages typical of newspaper strips and the binding is excellent.

Star Wars blasted into our consciousness before we knew there would be a trilogy. These comic strips were all we had to fill the thirst for more more more. Of course I did not know about the Brian Daley novels that had been written in 1979 and 1980.
While it is true that the Williamson-Goodwin TPB is a better version, this is a fun reprise from the past. I'm the kind of guy who bought the old flash Gordon serial because I wanted to see it all run together as if it were a movie. Reading a comic strip all put together is fun also.

If you don't like the Marvel run or don't know what I'm talking about, stop right here, this book is not for you. This collection is from the newspaper runs of the Star Wars comics. You are only going to get a small piece of a story in every episode. I attribute other readers'opinions that the stories bounce around to the "newspaper style". I would like to say that in my opinion, the pieces are nicely tied together in book form. If you like to see new characters, almost in a "Marvel" style, I believe that you will like this book. Don't expect deeply developed characters with vast histories to be depicted. I am in my late 20's, only had a few of the Star Wars comics from Marvel and saw even fewer of the newspaper toons. Between ANH and ESB there was a need for more Star Wars information. That void was filled with the Marvel comics and newspaper runs. I find this series interesting, in that the direction of the Star Wars series had not yet been decided, but the demand was there for more stories. The newspaper strip represents a humourous, but important, part of the complete picture.

I was a little hesitant when I opened this book. I knew that it was a reprint of the newspaper strips that were written by Russ Manning, and I was worried that this format would make the stories hard to read and follow. On the contrary, once they are all put together in a digest such as this, they are actually easier to read than the Marvel comics. In addition, the stories are better and the characters introduced in these comics are more interesting than the ones introduced in Marvel's comics line. Even the art was better.

There are several stories included in this paperback. The first is "Gambler's World", and follows Luke, Leia, and the droids as they attempt to make contact with a rebel spy. They are pursued by a mysterious figure called Blackhole, who is working on behalf of Darth Vader. They are forced to work alongside a young street gang called the Freelies in order to escape from Blackhole and his special cadre stormtroopers in black armor.

"Tatooine Sojourn" is a short story that involved Luke returning to Tatooine to investigate some Imperial activity there. "Princess Leia, Imperial Servant" follows Leia on a mission to start an uprising on an Imperial mining colony. There she discovers the widow of Grand Moff Tarkin, and is forced to escape from her.

"The Second Kessel Run" tells the story of Han and Chewbacca who accidentally pick up a stowaway that is hiding from the Empire. The stowaway's father is being forced by the Empire to use his invention that controls the weather as a weapon. Han, Chewbacca, and Luke work together again to rescue the father and save the planets affected by his device.

In "Bring Me the Children", Luke is on a mission to deliver books to a rebellion friendly school when he interrupts a kidnapping attempt by the Empire. This story is interesting because it features an Imperial officer that is not human, which was almost unheard of in the Empire.

"As Long as We Live" is interesting because the story is set on a neutral planet that manufactures targeting systems for star fighters. While they have been selling these systems to the Rebellion, there is a spy for the Empire that is turning these systems against the Rebellion, giving the Imperial pilots the advantage in combat. Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewbacca investigate to find out who the true villain is.

"The Frozen World of Ota" is probably the most famous of these stories, because it features the first print appearance of Boba Fett. Boba Fett crashes on the planet while flying in a TIE fighter, and Luke, who was pursuing him, crashes as well. They are both captured by the native Snogars, who coerce them into fixing the device that keeps their city warm. Leia, Han Solo and Chewbacca make an appearance to rescue Luke, and they must work with Boba Fett to escape the Snogars. Upon their escape however, Boba Fett attempts to collect on the bounty he was pursuing, which was not Han Solo at the time, but is thwarted by the heroes.

I would highly recommend these to any Star Wars fan. The stories are the best that were published at this time. I'm glad that these were republished into the trade paperback format. They flow better than the Marvel comics and it's hard to tell where the breaks appeared originally. Dark Horse also did a wonderful job with the coloring, since most of these were originally published in black and white.

I was less than thrilled by this book. Being a fan of the first volumes of this series, with the amazing artwork of Al Williamson, this installment was quite a let down. The storylines were adequate and it may fill a void for diehard Star Wars fans, but the art was less than amatuerish. As somewhat of an artist myself, I personally feel that the artwork in a comic can either make or break the book and this one was definitely broken. If this doesn't bother you than buy away but be warned that you will end up with a product that looks as though it was drawn by your 7-year-old brother.

This comic turn the Special Operations (Blackhole troopers) into one of the oldest Expanded Universe characters. Those "black stormtroopers" are going to be part of the new Star Wars video game Force Unleashed, so, if you want to know their background read the story.

I really enjoyed the first three classic Star Wars collections, and I was looking forward to this one. Unfortunately, it's not related in any way to its predecessors. Written and illustrated by different people, this book is a travesty.

The biggest problem is that it's not one big story, but rather a collection of unrelated tales. Not only this, but the stories don't fill in anything important, they're just random and unimportant little encounters. Also, each is both too short and too long. Too short, as it's not long enough to complete any ideas introduced, so often conversations and such seem abreviated, but too long, because the stories being unconnected seem to just jump from event to event and get boring to read.

The dialogue is also elementary, especially the frequent use of the word, "Empire." "The empire stormtroopers, the empire ships..." I believe when used as an adjective the proper form is "Imperial." However, the characters are (relatively) in character, although Leia looks too young.

The art is nothing to shout about, but nor is it bad. It's functional and relatively clear, no complaints there. However, the first story in the book is left completely unresolved, which is a big no-no.

This book gets 2 stars instead of 1 for two reasons -- one, there are a couple of interesting scenes, such as Luke's reaction to returning to Tatooine; and two, Boba Fett's appearance. Although he's a little out of character (his only appearance had been in the Holiday Special when the comic was first released), he's just full of surprises.

This one is for Star Wars completists only.