Marvel Star Wars: From Empire to Jedi – A Long Time Ago…

The premier episode of MARVEL STAR WARS: FROM EMPIRE TO JEDI — a podcast chronicling the Rebel Alliance’s most desperate days, as told in the Marvel Star Wars comics published between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi!  This episode your host, The Irredeemable Shag, ignites the hyperdrive, unveiling the podcast’s mission, his own Star Wars journey, and why he loves these comics and the expanded universe! Strap yourselves in — the saga begins now!

 

 

 

 

Thanks for listening! May the Force be with You, Always!

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23 responses to “Marvel Star Wars: From Empire to Jedi – A Long Time Ago…”

  1. No Jaxxon the rabbit?! Stopping before we get to Lumiya?! Have fun with your now-canceled podcast, loser!

    Oh wait, did I type that out loud?

    UH……great first episode, Shag. Glad you’re returning to the era you had the most fun with. I’m actually looking forward to hearing what kinds of insights and connections to these issues you will be bringing to the show.

    My introduction the Marvel Star Wars comics was an assortment of issues I got when my cousin moved. Favorite characters I encountered were the strange and exciting new-to-me characters like Lumiya and Kiro.

    I may be in the minority here, but I’d love to hear a few episodes about your experiences with the Star Wars RPG. Some of those books and supplements were so enthralling to me. Somewhere in my head some of those are still (more or less) canon.

    Looking forward to hearing more from this show.

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  2. Great first episode, Shag! I didn’t realize that you had collected Star Wars for so long before discovering super heroes. I had a similar experience with G.I. Joe.

    Speaking of similar experiences… I have a similar story to yours about your action figures, but instead of mine getting stolen, my parents and I were driving through Michigan and stopped at a school where kids were playing and I found a bag full of figures! What a weird coincidence!

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    1. I was reading G.I. Joe comics off and on for two years before I started reading superhero comics.

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  3. Man this is going to be fun! I started reading Star Wars comics somewhere around issue 30. It was one of the first comics I read regularly. I must confess, my favorite aspect of Star Wars has always been Han Solo, Chewbacca, The Millennium Falcon and world of smugglers, scoundrels and rogues. So for obvious reasons I didn’t follow the comic as regularly after Empire. It was until the 90s that I went back and read what I had missed. Boy did I deprive myself of some great stuff. It really wasn’t until the post Empire era that the comic really found its direction. To be fair, Marvel didn’t really know where Lucas intended to go with the movies. It wasn’t a given that Hsn Solo would be a pet if the sequels. That’s why he not only starred in the first original stories, but also why most of his adventures are separate from Luke, Leia and the Droids. The stories were more random, often with no real stakes. After Empire, the rebels were on the run, searching the Galaxy for their lost ally. Not only that, the art began to better represent the actors. Luke, Leia and Lando looked like their movie counterparts. These stories really felt like they mattered and Vs were part of Star Wars Canon. As happy as I was to have Han back post Jedi, once again, Marvel didn’t seem to know what direction to take the title in now that Yhe Empire was seemingly defeated. There were a couple of great Han Solo stories, but overall the book started to fizzle out.
    Like The Irredeemable One, I also never owned a Millennium Falcon. My Han Solo action figure piloted the heroes around my bedroom in a circular hatbox that my mother helped me modify into Millennium Falcon. We added large paper cup with windows cut out for a cockpit and some styrofoam pieces to mimic the forward section. I also did have The Death Star play set which I adored. I rarely used it as the actual Death Star but more as the tower base it resembled. It was often an outpost that the heroes had to infiltrate. Once I even ripped off the plot to the Guns of Navarone sending Luke, Leia and Han on a commando mission to blow up the gun.
    Man thus show is already giving me the warm fuzzies of nostalgia. I eagerly anticipate more episodes

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  4. So great to finally have a Star Wars podcast I can enjoy on the Fire and Water Network. Love hearing the passion and enthusiasm and… what’s the word? Oh, yeah… your JOY for Star Wars and the particular memories it evokes for you.

    Someday, on some podcast or another, I’ll get into my Expanded Universe origins, but for now I’ll just bask in the shared joy for A GUIDE TO THE STAR WARS UNIVERSE. Even though I had a different volume/edition than you did, that pre-Wookieepedia glossary was my bible for years.

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  5. Star Wars has always been aroud then one day suddenly somthing in me awakened. And I wanted to know more . I listened to give those Star Wars podcast Lando episode. And after hearing that and reading the classic marvel issues that focus on Lando . He become my favorite I have his solo books as well . The same happen to me with Star Trek my favorite character there is captain Christopher Pike. I’m currently reading the Star Trek novel Vulcans glory . Sorry for going off topic for a minute.
    I have a secret question for you and any one out there :what is the first expanded universe novel you ever sought out ?
    Me splinter of the mines eye I have review of it up on my channel.

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    1. “Sought out” is perhaps over-stating it. I read both Splinter and the Han Solo books around the same time (I think Han’s were first), ordered from the Science Fiction Book Club (Lando’s, too). This would have been years before I ever saw the first Star Wars film, and only a couple years after seeing Empire Strikes Back in English even though I didn’t yet understand the language. So I don’t know if I was seeking it out so much as interested in sci-fi, and SW permeated pop culture enough that you didn’t HAVE to see it.

      Sadly for Shag’s new show, I never read any of the Star Wars comics of this era, but it’s still super interesting how comics writers had to fill in the blank while not knowing if everything they did would be contradicted in the next film. I’ve read enough 80s Star Trek comics (all of them, in fact) to know THAT.

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  6. Sounds like you’re in this for the long haul, Shag. 😀

    My origin story for the Star Wars comics is right in the sweet spot, the Michelinie-Simonson-Palmer era. I had a couple of those issues that I reread over and over and over.

    Now a little bit of pre-feedback, regarding the Empire Strikes Back adaption. While the art in it great, I have a pretty big problem with it. Going all the way back to issue #1, the comic looked like a comic. When we get to issue #39, suddenly we have photo realistic images and my brain does a record-scratch. Then, once the contents of Marvel Super Special 16 are done with, issue #45 takes us right back to the comic book look. I would have much rather had a comic adaption than a “we want to be a photo novel” experience.

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  7. Even though I have only read a handful of the original Marvel Star Wars comics, your passion for the subject matter makes this a must listen. Plus, I think it may be in my FW contract that I have to listen to your shows anyway. So I’m glad you are podcasting about something that sounds fun and interesting!

    I feel you on your horrible Star Wars figure Show and Tell experience, although my story had a better outcome. I took my Mego 8″ Superman to Show and Tell in the 1st grade, and the teacher made us pass each item around after our presentation. The bell rang while this one kinda shifty kid had it, and he bolted out the door with it, and onto the bus. When I got home, I told my Mom, who must have called everyone from the teacher to Ronald Regan, and the next day the kid brought it back and had to publicly apologize to me. He was a pariah at the school forevermore!

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  8. Everyone goes through a Star Wars phase! I’m loving this show already and am looking forward to more. There’s been a void since Ryan “ghoster” Daly’s old show.

    You know, I have a similar story about finding figures. I was in the Poconos, and some kid left a bunch of Star Wars figures for me in a cabin we rented! So many figures! you’d think this was. real Richie Rich!

    Who is your favorite expanded universe character?

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  11. I must have read the old Marvel Star War, printed weekly over here. But the only issue I remember, though it’s lived rent free in my brain for all that time, is the one where the rebels are trying to deal with a race of dimulative alien who hulk out when angry. The day is saved when Leia’s singing calms the beast and everything end peacefully!

    Like you I started to get into Star Wars during the wilderness years* with WEG’s Star Wars, though alas not as frequent a player, and then the Zhan novels. Though I didn’t keep up with the books as I was paying more attention to that other show in it’s wilderness years…

    Since then I’ve dropped in and out of Star Wars, the Dark Horse comics, KoToR, though from the Clone Wars I’ve kepted up to date (though I behind everyone on Andor). Though as you say due to some aspects I tend to stay at arms length from Fandom as a whole.

    * If I had a nickle for everytime I entered into a fandom during it’s wilderness years I’d have two nickles, etc, etc

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    2. I forgot to mention the v. important Kenner situation! Like many I got some of the figures, but I was considered to old to get the Millenium Falcon. That went to my younger brother, and I wasn’t jealous at all with little steamer roller toy or whatever that thing was!

      Obviously I’m still not bitter after all this time, no siree! 😀

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  12. I’m really looking forward to this one! I was a HUGE Star Wars fan when I was a kid. I had the several figures and playsets, including the Millennium Falcon. I never got the Death Star though. There is a picture of me somewhere on Christmas 1981 with about nine new figures that Santa had brought me, standing next to the Falcon. I also believe that the Easter bunny invested in Kenner as well. I once received the super powers line penguin from the Easter bunny, so your theory checks out. As far as the extended universe went, I LOVED the Thrawn novels. Who wouldn’t love Mara Jade, but Shadows of the Empire was the bees knees for me. Prince Xizor, Dash Rendar and the whole story hold a special place in my heart. Keep up the good, no, great work! I’m loving everything you guys do! Now I’m off to listen to the relaunch of Knightcast. I’m so F’n excited for these 2 podcasts. Unlike Star Wars characters, I don’t have a bad feeling about this!

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  13. Out of 39-80, I had 39,64,75 &76. Oh, you’re doing “Serphidian Eyes”! You may think “Lame Fill-in Issue”, but somehow I was fascinated, and a bit scared, by “Serphidian Eyes”.

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  14. Great new show Shag! I’m 54 and this era of Star Wars was my sweet spot as well. I remember my Dad bringing home #45 while I was on Christmas break, remember walking home from the newsstand with #50. I remember Luke on the cover reminded me of Sylvester of Cracked magazine.
    As a kid, I’d get excited when they teased resolution of the ESB plots, having no idea that it would NEVER happen. The innocence of childhood.

    I also remember how Luke’s uniform slowly morphed into the one he wore in ROTJ. Michelline, Palmer and Simonson were doing incredible work, without the luxury of having MEGA star Harrison Ford’s character in the book.
    Last Jedi, Stenax Shuffle, Shira Brie, the Tarkin – incredible stories that really captured the gentle humor and likability of the characters.
    I’m a SW snob. I feel many EU stories just don’t “get it”. I wasn’t even really thrilled with the Zahn book. ( Should I try the other two?). Dark Empire nailed it, and a couple of dozen issues of Marvel SW did also.
    I look forward to this, especially the dud issues you mentioned. Lando, Leia, the repurposed tales. Once the book got traction, it was tremendous.
    Those books take me back to one of the happiest times of my childhood and I was glad to see they still hold up.

    Can’t wait!!!!

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  15. I’m so excited you are covering the Marvel Star Wars comic series! I hope you cover not just the period between ESB and ROTJ but also post-ROTJ too. I may be biased since the Jo Duffy era is the first era I learned of. I do like the Micheline/Simonson/Palmer era but I discovered most of it later so it’s a close second place for me. The Goodwin/Infantino era is my least favorite, I think because while the art is good action-adventure art, everything is so off-model and weird looking it kind of puts me off it (though I do enjoy Valance the Hunter, the Wheel, and the return to Tattooine stories).

    Star Wars has been in my life as long as I can remember. One of my earliest memories is unwrapping my Christmas presents in 1981 or 1982 as a pre-Kindergartner and finding a Snowspeeder and the Chewbacca, Yoda, R2-D2, and C-3PO action figures. I have very vague memories—confirmed by my parents—of watching ANH at one of their friends house on a reel to reel projector! I saw ESB many times with my sister on my aunt’s Beta VCR.

    It came pretty fast and furious after that. ROTJ came out in 1983. We lived in Germany (my dad was in the Army and stationed there) and we always got the movies at our base theater a year later. So we had to wait until 1984 to see it! I remember my aunt writing us a letter (no texting or internet then, kids!) telling us ROTJ was awesome but she spoiled nothing! The Marvel Super Special that collected the ROTJ limited series was in the base bookstore before the movie was shown there, so I actually went into the movie spoiled for all the major plot points anyway, but I didn’t care.

    Speaking of seeing ROTJ, my dad took me to see multiple showings of it, even once driving through a snowstorm. He and my mom and sister loved Star Wars too and my parents eagerly fed my fandom. I quickly had the novels of the movies (my mom got me all 3 plus the Brian Daley Han Solo books and Splinter of the Minds Eye from the base thrift store—I still have all those copies to this day), the play-the-tape and flip the page when you hear Artoo beep books, and the big storybooks with all the photos. One of my elementary school birthdays—2nd or 3rd—my mom made me an R2-D2 cake and my friend Tony (we had a joint birthday party) had a Darth Vader cake.

    And the toys. Oh, wow. I had a bunch of the toys by 1984 but it really went into high gear when all the Star Wars toys went on SUPER SALE as Star Wars popularity began to wane back in the USA, and I had two Christmases in Germany where I was positively buried with Star Wars toys bought my my aunts and grandparents back in the States and shipped to us. I had a Millennium Falcon, an Imperial Shuttle, the Y, X, and B-Wing fighters, the Rancor, the Tie Interceptor, an AT-ST, and a ton more. And I have fond memories of my dad taking me out to run errands on Saturday mornings and he’d sometimes include a trip to Fechters, the German toy store in Ansbach (it’s still there!!) and let me pick out an action figure (I remember him being baffled why I picked 8D8 over the Emperor, but to a kid a cool robot is more of a prize than an old man in a black bathrobe, lol! And I eventually got the Emperor anyway.

    Home video was becoming more of a thing by the mid-1980s and we eventually got all 3 movies on VHS. I was in the Star Wars fan club and received the monthly newsletter called Bantha Tracks. My parents got me a ton of merchandise through the fan club (and the club sent a huge welcome package when I joined), including posters galore, patches, and a Han Solo vest I wore to several trick or treat outings til I outgrew it. I remained in the fan club through 9th grade or so (and it transitioned to the Lucasfilm fan club and began covering less Star Wars and more Willow and Indiana Jones—which was fine with me because Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade came out in 1989 and I became an Indy megafan). I remember having ROTJ bedsheets and a Han Solo blaster (my weapon of choice when me and the neighborhood kids would play “guns” together).

    So what about the comics? Well it seemed like a lot of the families in our neighborhood had a Star Wars comic or two. I was fascinated by these new adventures I knew nothing about. I read fragments of stories. 60, 74, 80, 81, 94…my dad and I were getting into superhero comics at the time so naturally we started getting the Star Wars comics too. 104 was the first issue we bought but to my horror the series ended a mere four issues later! My little kid brain could not comprehend this could happen! We ordered some back issues from Mile High Comics but the back issue hunt began in earnest when we moved back to the states in 1988 and discovered the glory that was the LCS. Comix to Go in Radcliff, KY and The Great Escape (it’s still open!) in Louisville enabled us to eventually amass the entire 107-issue, 3-annual run, the set of which I still have to this day! My dad led the charge in getting the whole series and I have fun memories of finding those back issues with him.

    When we moved back to the states in 1988 I remember well the feeling of being a little out of step in my Star Wars fandom. By then it was looked upon as something “old”, and definitely not cool to most kids. As I transitioned to middle school I discovered the West End Games roleplaying materials. I never played the game but I loved all the info in the sourcebooks and the Galalxy Guides, which I still have. As a younger kid I played with the action figures of guys like Walrus Man, Zuckuss, Lobot, and Barada, but now I could read all the backstories of these guys! And of course, the era of the Star Wars novels began in earnest in 1991 with Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire and I began steadily devouring those books as they came out. My mom worked at a bookstore at the time and she’d grab each one as it was released. I continued to read the novels up through the end of the Yuuzhan Vong cycle, at which point I was kind of exhausted and lost interest. Of course I watch the new movies and most of the TV shows and read some of the newer comics, but I am not the voracious consumer that I was as a kid.

    Good times and great memories, and the comics were a big part of that. I love the original characters like Kiro, Valance, Lumiya, Den Siva, Knife, Dani, Bey, Chihdo, Plif, Rik Duel, Baron Taage, Admiral Giel, Senator Greyshade and Master-Com, and wish very badly they’d bring them back! Some of my favorite adventure stories are in this series, like the Stenax Shuffle, the Iskalon Effect, To Take the Tarkin, the Shira Brie/Luke Skywalker: Pariah story, and the Nagai invasion.

    Oh and count me as a big Hoojib fan, too! They rock!

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  16. Love the kenner Star Wars talk. I’m mostly nostalgic for the first 21 and some of the Empire figures like Londo, Yoda , wampa and the Boundary Hunters.

    I actually have the 45’s for Planet of the Hoojibs as well Droid World. That’s a power records crossover episode right there.
    Best of luck on the new show and it’s fun to hear Snag geeking over Star Wars again.

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  17. Well, now I have a new comic reading project AND podcast to listen to. I did have the Treasury Edition for the first movie, and re-read it all the time, because hey, no VHS tapes yet, as well as listening to the audio story album. My new comic collecting just hadn’t kicked into gear yet. A few years back, I started reading the series on Marvel Unlimited, but I think other reading projects got me off track before reaching Empire. So this will be a great excuse to restart and get to these new-to-me issues. Because I only read what podcasts tell me to read. It’s like they have some unearthly power over me. Well, I better get cracking to catch up!

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