Star Wars #18Cover dated: December 1978
Issue title:
The Empire Strikes!Script: Archie Goodwin
Artwork: Carmine Infantino (pencils)/Gene Day (inks)
Colours: Janice Cohen
Letters: Rick Parker
Cover art: Carmine Infantino (pencils)/Bob Wiacek (inks)
Overall rating: 5 out of 10
Plot summary: As the
Millennium Falcon races home towards the Rebel base on Yavin 4, Luke Skywalker slips into a mysterious trance, while undertaking his Jedi training. As Han Solo, Princess Leia and Chewbacca change course in the
Falcon to find medical help for Luke, they stumble across the shattered wreck of a House of Tagge merchant ship. They discover a wounded Rebel soldier floating nearby who reveals that the starship was attacked by Imperials, but the scene was doctored to make it look as if the Rebel Alliance had ambushed the craft.
Suddenly, an Imperial cruiser under the control of Commander Strom appears on the scene, intent on capturing the
Falcon. Solo manages to out-fly it and the Rebels escape to the relative safety of a galactic gambling station known as The Wheel. Strom sends his troops aboard the Wheel, in violation of a treaty preventing the Empire from setting foot on the station. The Wheel's administrator, Senator Greyshade, reminds the Imperial commander that the space station is supposed to be free of Imperial interference, but Strom claims that the Rebels are responsible for destroying the House of Tagge ship and plundering the profits from the Wheel that it was carrying. Greyshade relents and the Imperials are allowed onto the Wheel's lower levels to apprehend their quarry. Greyshade soon learns, however, that one of the Rebels is Princess Leia Organa, an old adversary and unrequited love from his days in the Galactic Senate, and he decides to intervene.
Comments: We're an issue late, due to some production problems at Marvel, but here at last is "The Empire Strikes!" It's kinda funny that in coming up with the title for this issue, Archie Goodwin almost accidentally guessed the name of the
Star Wars sequel, proving his natural aptitude for the material, I guess. That narrowly avoided blunder aside, Goodwin turns in a pretty nifty little episode here, with plenty of excitement and intrigue. The scripting is good and, along with the previous two outstanding issues, you really get a sense that Goodwin is beginning to find his groove on this series now.
We're introduced in this issue to the devious Senator Greyshade, administrator of the galactic gambling hub The Wheel, who will become the central villain of this story arc. To be honest, I've always considered Greyshade to be a fairly unmemorable villain, when viewing Marvel's
Star Wars run as a whole. I've also always had a bit of a problem with his name, feeling that it didn't sound quite
Star Wars-y enough as a youngster and feeling that it's a much too literal comment on his personality and motivations as an adult. Nonetheless, Greyshade's relationship with the Wheel's central computer, Master-Com – personified as a somewhat C-3PO-esque droid most of the time – is quite interesting, as we shall see.
Something to note about this issue and, indeed, the whole Wheel saga, is that it is the first time since the movie adaptation ended in issue #6 that the Empire has been a real threat to our Rebel heroes. Sure, it's been looming in the background all the way through the post-movie issues, but with this story arc, the Empire is once again front and centre as a threat. However, the main Imperial antagonist in this particular issue is Commander Strom, who, much like Senator Greyshade, is fairly unmemorable and really little more than a generic Imperial officer.
This issue also sees the first mention of the House of Tagge, who will become major recurring villains during the Goodwin/Infantino era. In this story, Han mentions that one of the Tagge brothers is an Imperial Fleet Commander. Although it's possible that this is an early, indirect reference to Ulric Tagge, who won't actually appear in the series until issue #31, it's probably more likely that Goodwin was referring to Cassio Tagge, who we saw in the
Star Wars movie in the scene where Darth Vader, Grand Moff Tarkin and various other high ranking Imperials sat around a table discussing the Rebel threat. Although this Tagge brother wasn't mentioned by name in the film, he was referred to as "General Tagge" in the movie novelization and as "Commander Tagge" in part one of the Marvel comic adaptation of the film, back in issue #1...
Later expanded universe sources would establish this character's first name as Cassio, but back in these early days he was just General Tagge. The fact that Goodwin was able to take such a relatively obscure character and expand upon that to eventually build a whole back story about the Tagge family and how they ran one of the most powerful mega-corporations in the galaxy, shows just how inventive a writer he could be and how suited he was to
Star Wars.
Oh, and by the way, how is everybody pronouncing "Tagge"? Myself, I've always pronounced it like "rage", but with a T. However, I've also heard it pronounced as TAH-jay or even as plain old Tag.
A detail that I particularly liked in this issue is that we get to see Luke practicing with his lightsaber and training "remote" on board the
Millennium Falcon again. This is cool because it shows us that Luke's Jedi training didn't end with Obi-Wan Kenobi's demise and that the young farm boy from Tatooine tried to keep his training going himself, as best he could. It's also cool that we hear Luke mention some guidance in the ways of the Force that Kenobi imparted to him off-screen, during the events of the
Star Wars film.
Star Wars #18 sees the return of Carmine Infantino as the series' regular artist, but this time we have Gene Day inking him instead of Terry Austin. There's not much to say about Infantino's art in this issue that I haven't already said in previous reviews; it's still overly angular, still full of shockingly bad takes on
Star Wars spaceship design, but ultimately very good at putting Goodwin's story across. His front cover is fairly unspectacular, but we do get a glimpse of one those famous Infantino cityscapes, behind Luke and the droids. Another nitpick of the artwork would be that the Rebel pilot that Han and Leia pick up in the
Millennium Falcon seems to suddenly grow a beard between panels!
We also have Infantino trying his hand at drawing Imperial stormtroopers for the first time in this issue. Although I always disliked the way Infantino depicted these Imperial foot soldiers back when I was a kid, I've come to be rather fond of them in recent years. His stylized depictions of the troopers are so closely associated with my early comic reading memories that they elicit a cosy nostalgia in me now, rather than the slight annoyance that they provoked back when I was an 8-year-old.
Gene Day's inking isn't really to my tastes. It seems heavier and less refined than Terry Austin's and his over-eager line work and hatching serves to make the faces of the central cast look slightly grotesque on occasion. Take a look at Luke, Han and Leia's faces in these panels from the fourth page of the issue...
It's such a shame that Austin couldn't continue inking the series.
All in all, this comic doesn't come close to equaling the excellence of the two previous issues of
Star Wars and the return of Infantino on art chores – especially with Day on inks – means that, as far as I'm concerned, the artwork has taken a turn for the worse. Nevertheless, this first instalment of the Wheel saga is already a lot more interesting than the earlier Doomworld arc.
Continuity issues:
- During the training session on board the Millennium Falcon, Luke's lightsaber is coloured red, instead of blue/white.
Favourite panel:
Favourite quote: "I – I...don't know how to assess it, Your Highness. He appears to have just shut down!" – C-3PO worriedly relates Luke Skywalker's current condition to Princess Leia.
