Star Wars #8 (Marvel, 2015)
This comic series, much like pretty much everything else Star Wars has to offer, is really the gift that keeps on giving. Today, we’re back again with the Rebellion crew, in that timeframe after Death Star I blew up, but before Luke got the bad news that while Obi-Wan wasn’t lying about what a stand-up guy Luke’s dad was…well, he may have left a few key details of Anakin Skywalker’s life story out. (Can we really blame the guy? No, no we can’t.)
In the last issue, Luke treated himself to reading an entry from a journal that Obi-Wan had written for him during his time on Tatooine. Said entry can largely be summarized thusly: “Dear Luke: Once upon a time, I was very sad. I still am. Also I wasted years of my life saving your impulsive ass (JUST LIKE I DID WITH YOUR DAD) and you didn’t even notice. You’re welcome, BTW.”
While Luke was getting in some reading time, Han and Leia were having one of their usual terrible couple outings. This time, they’re trapped on some weird planet after being discovered by TIE fighters due to a stupid situation that was pretty much entirely Han’s fault. And, as a bonus, visiting them on this planet is one Sana Starros, one of Han’s old crew of friends who has shown up to confiscate him, claiming that Han is her husband. Leia has taken this news about as well as you’d expect the daughter of Anakin Skywalker to take it.
As all of this nonsense is happening, please remember that Boba Fett has recently reported back to Darth Vader with the news that A) he failed to bounty-hunt correctly and the kid Vader hired him to track got away, and B) the only thing he knows about the kid is that his name is Skywalker. So all those Feelings and Thoughts and Secret Plannings are percolating in the background here. But for now, let’s get back to the twins: fun is in the cards for both of them — Luke effortlessly causes a bar fight in one of the seediest places in the entire galaxy (Obi-Wan and Anakin would be so proud,) and Leia literally gets to kick Han Solo in the ass. Like, for real. She actually uses her foot to kick him in the rear. Join me, won’t you?
Recurring Theme: Han Solo, In For a Bad Time
High above wherever the hell Han and Leia are currently located, a group of TIE pilots chat back and forth about how by God, they’re going to break through to this planet’s surface come hell or high water!
On the ground, Leia is just trying to get her head around the Big Fat Smuggler Wedding News that’s been dropped on her regarding this guy she Totally Does Not Have Feelings For:
Han demands that Sana tell him how she found him, and in Typical Badass fashion she’s like pfffft it was all so EASY, Solo, I KNEW you’d come back here, blahblahblah…and then she plants a kiss on his lips before immediately withdrawing in disgust:
Violence is wrong, kids. But Dramatic Fictional Soap-Opera Face-Slapping IS kinda funny.
Recurring Theme: Leia Organa, Possibly Going to Die from Being Annoyed
Sana and Han bicker some more about why she’s there and eventually Leia is like YOU KNOW WHAT? I don’t even care! Totally! I’ll just go mind my own beeswax elsewhere:
Han keeps up his protest: I swear she isn’t my wife! Leia, listen to me! This gets Sana’s attention: Leia? As in Leia Organa? Ooooh well then, looks like we’ve got ourselves a princess with a big ol’ bounty on her head! Well NOW everything is making sense again: Han’s using you for the cash benefits! He loooooooves saving wealthy damsels for the bucks! It’s one of his best cons!
Han continues to be like WHAT HOW DARE YOU WELL I NEVER OH MY STARS I MEAN REALLY and then turns to Leia: it’s not like that!
Leia, having exactly zero remaining nerves left to devote to this guy right now, is like OH REALLY SO THEN WHY IS YOUR WIFE POINTING A GUN AT ME and Han, directing his ire at Sana, is like WHY ARE YOU EVEN HERE?
Sana, smugly, is about to be like “I’m here to take you HOME, silly”, but gets cutoff mid-smarm when some proton bombs, undoubtedly dropped by TIE bombers above, make their appearance in the sky. With that, Han is like maaaaaaaaaybe we should continue this soap opera elsewhere, ladies. Leia is like FINE BY ME, I’m leaving anyways — either that, or Mrs. Han Solo is going to have to kill me.
Sana laughs: I’m not going to kill you OR let you leave! She blows up the shuttle that Han and Leia arrived in, and Han is like WHAT THE HELL COME ON. Sana announces that they’ll be turning in Leia for the reward money, and then she and Han will run away to an all-inclusive or something, I dunno.
Luke Skywalker, Pressing His Luck With Me Here
Back on board Luke’s X-wing, Luke actually has the balls to complain about the book Obi-Wan left him:
OK, Skywalker: if I may…
- Obi-Wan never told you to go back to his house and steal this journal, you showed up to get it yourself;
- Even if he HAD told you, I doubt he would have sold it as something that was going to serve as a neon flashing light telling you what to do with yourself;
- Obi-Wan has never done anything wrong ever;
- DID YOU MISS THE PART WHERE HIS ENTIRE STORY WAS ABOUT SAVING YOUR LIFE? I mean, FINE: the guy didn’t leave you with a Being a Jedi Step-by-Step Tutorial. That doesn’t mean those stories are worthless, you complete dweeb.
- I love you forever, Luke, BUT DON’T TEST ME.
So he’s bitching about how he hasn’t learned ANYTHING from this book full of Kenobi Sads and blahblahblah how will I ever become a Jedi NOW and what are we gonna DO, ARTOO?!
Artoo helpfully suggests they go home. LOL. Always one to see things through to the end, eh buddy? Luke counters that they can’t go home yet…buuuuuuut, now that he’s mentioned it, Luke’s got an idea:
Ah ha! Yes, let’s go to the Old Jedi Temple! (I hope you have a flashlight on you, Luke my friend, because I cannot imagine the electricity situation has improved since the Clone Wars. I doubt Yoda left the power company a forwarding address.)
Recurring Theme: Star Wars Heroes Sure Love The Underworld
So, our Luke wants to go to Coruscant. Of course, being like the Empire’s #1 Most Wanted Guy and all, he can’t exactly roll up with his X-wing and then show up at Palpatine’s doorstep and be like “is Yoda home?” No, he’s gotta find himself an alternate route in: so he’s here on Nar Shadda, “The Smuggler’s Moon”. LOL. OK, so at least 50% of the adventures the Jedi go on involve “having” to go to planets full of strip clubs and speakeasies and dirty alleyways full of guys selling knockoff electronics. Now, I am certainly NOT suggesting that their life of extreme piety and Living Simply and encouraged abstinence was somehow influencing this in any way or anything…OK, except that maybe I am. A little.
Luke Skywalker, Has Spent Half His Life Around Bar Fights
ANYWAYS: Luke’s like “I know, Artoo: this place is full of scumbags, so naturally it’s EXACTLY what we need!”
LOL OMG THAT LUKE THINKS HE’S SO COOL HERE. Honestly, Skywalker, ARTOO has more experience being a cool guy in a seedy bar than you do. And the last time you were in one you needed Old Ben to lop someone’s arm off for you when you largely caused a ruckus just by EXISTING. (In fairness, Obi-Wan was probably itching for a good old fashioned dismemberment. It had been possibly as long as a few years, or however long it’d been since Maul showed his face in the desert.)
So Luke goes into this bar, and…hahahaha, all right, he asks about getting a ride to his dad’s old house and ends up preeeeettty much instantly causing a HUGE BRAWL.
- WHAT IS WITH THE JEDI AND BARS? FFS. Why ban droids from the bars when clearly it’s the Space Wizards you need to be worried about? (OK, we all know why: because some of them — OBI-WAN — are probably really lucrative customers.)
- I AM DYING because in the sadly non-canonical Kenobi novel, day-old Luke goes with Obi-Wan into a bar (to “ask for directions”, as though anyone’s buying THAT, Kenobi) and Obi-Wan honest-to-God HANDS LUKE TO A STRANGER AND THEN THROWS DOWN IN A BAR FIGHT. So, given this, I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. Bar fights are apparently a very big part of Luke’s life, and have been since he was an actual day-old infant.
In the chaos, Luke activates the lightsaber that killed all those people (…like, do you ever sometimes recall that this thing slaughtered a room full of small children? GRIM!) and suddenly everyone in the bar is like OOOOOOOOOH. Especially taking notice of this is a guy at the bar, who comms over to a Mysterious Unknown Person:
Luke Skywalker, Not Hocking His Dad’s Stuff
Finally, the barkeep is like OK OK: I’ll help you get to Coruscant. But I’ll need to take possession of that lightsaber as payment. Luke is like NO DEAL: this was my dad’s! And he did great things with it! (Terrible, yes…but great. Ha! I made a nerd joke. Who saw that coming?)
The guy is like FINE: then it’s back to Plan A — us kicking your ass! Luke, totally trying to be a tough guy, is like FINE THEN COME AND GET IT, and that’s when the Mysterious Dude at the Bar rips the lightsaber clear out of Luke’s hands with some kind of magnetic glove.
Everyone in the bar is like WHAAAAAA? GET THAT LIGHTSABER!!! and it is seriously an amazingly goofy gigantic capital-S Scene:
Recurring Theme: Leia Organa, Ass-Kicker
Sana, having blown up Han and Leia’s only ride out of this crazy place, is now also helpfully informing the Imperials above them that she’s found a Pretty Important Person down here! As a result, Leia and Han are bitching at each other (WHAT AN EXCITING, NEW THING FOR THEM THIS WILL SURELY NEVER GET OLD) and Leia is like “You did this, you should have shot that crazy woman when you had a chance…”
Han attempts to direct his charm ray over at Sana: heeeeey, honey, just…put the gun down and stop threatening us and spilling the details of our location to Ultimate Evil, and I’m SURE we can all be pals!
Leia? HAS HAD ENOUGH at this point, and takes matters into her own, uh, feet:
Ha! I was going to say this was the most Anakin thing ever, except that this is actually totally the most Padme thing ever. She ten-thousand-percent would have kicked Han in the ass.
Of course, Leia’s not just doing this for optics: she’s doing this to take charge of the situation, because as she shoves Han into Sana, she gets a chance to pull a blaster from her boot and aim it at the two of them, something that predictably takes Han a minute or two to process:
Sana smirks at Leia’s comment here about not being sold to the Empire: surprise, honey! The deal’s already been made, and your ride is here to pick you up!
DUN DUN DUUUUUUN! Well, that’s certainly not good! And on that happy note, this issue’s over! Join me next time, for Star Wars #9, in which Luke makes the FUNNIEST COMMENT ABOUT HIS FAMILY I HAVE EVER SEEN, Han’s suffering has only just begun, Chewie proves himself one of the better friends in this series, and the Jedi make a guest appearance to pretty much just burden Luke with more of his Crappy Destiny. Sounds about right. I’ll see you then, dear readers!
