Star Wars #39Cover dated: September 1980
Issue title: None
Script: Archie Goodwin
Artwork: Al Williamson (pencils & inks)/Carlos Garzon (pencils & inks)
Colours: Glynis Wein
Letters: Jim Novak
Cover art: Al Williamson (pencils & inks)/Carlos Garzon (pencils & inks)
Overall rating: 9½ out of 10
Plot summary: The Rebel Alliance has left Yavin 4 and established a new base on the remote ice planet of Hoth. While out patrolling on the icy plains, Luke Skywalker sees a meteorite hit the ground some distance from him. Before he can investigate, however, he is attacked by a Wampa – a vicious ice creature, native to the planet – and taken to its cave. Unseen by Luke, an Imperial probe droid rises from the nearby impact crater.
Back at the Rebel base, Han Solo reveals to an annoyed Princess Leia that he is planning to leave the Rebels, in order to pay off his debt to Jabba the Hutt. After it becomes apparent that Luke hasn't returned from his patrol, Han heads out into the frigid landscape to find his friend. Meanwhile, Luke has managed to escape from the Wampa's lair and wandered out into the frozen wastes, where he sees a ghostly vision of Obi-Wan Kenobi telling him to go to the Dagobah system and learn from a Jedi Master named Yoda. Han manages to locate Luke and brings him back to the base, where the Rebels are also having problems with rampaging Wampas.
A short time later, the Imperial probe droid discovers that the Rebels are on Hoth and transmits the information to the Imperial fleet, before being destroyed by Han. The message is received by Captain Piett and relayed to Darth Vader, who immediately orders the fleet to set course for the Hoth system.
Comments: So, after a month's delay, the Marvel Comics' adaptation of
Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back begins. Actually, by the time that this issue hit the stands, the adaptation had already been available in paperback, treasury and magazine form for a good month or more. Like the Marvel Comics' adaptation of the first
Star Wars film, this one is spread over six issues of the
Star Wars comic series. I'm going to start this review with a little background history, so if you're not terribly interested in how the adaptation came to be you can definitely skip this part and just read the review, which is located further down...
Background:Artist Al Williamson was already a comic book legend by the time he drew the adaptation of
The Empire Strikes Back, having worked on the notorious EC science fiction and horror comics of the '50s and the
Flash Gordon books of the '60s. In fact, Williamson was an artist that George Lucas himself had hand picked to work on the
Star Wars comic. Lucas had first seen Williamson's work in the EC books as a youngster and approached him as early as 1975 to ask if he would be interested in drawing a comic based on
The Star Wars (as it was then titled). Unfortunately, Williamson's schedule didn't allow him the room to take on the assignment.
Later, once
Star Wars had become a global success, Lucasfilm again contacted Williamson about the possibility of him drawing the
Star Wars newspaper strip. He drew two weeks worth of unpublished samples, in which he adapted the start of
Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, but ultimately Williamson declined the offer, in order to continue work on the
Secret Agent Corrigan strip (he would eventually become the regular artist on the
Star Wars newspaper strip from 1981 to 1984).
When it came time for Marvel to do the adaptation of
The Empire Strikes Back, Lucasfilm once again requested that Williamson draw it. Lucasfilm wanted someone who could provide the kind of realism that he specialised in, while also ensuring that the adaptation had a distinctly different look to the superhero fare that Marvel was best known for. In addition, according to what writer Archie Goodwin told Williamson, George Lucas wasn't a very big fan of the way in which the series' regular artist, Carmine Infantino, had been drawing the
Star Wars universe.
As the regular writer on the
Star Wars comic, Goodwin was an obvious choice to script the adaptation. In addition, he and Williamson had worked together a number of times in the past. The pair first collaborated on a story called "Hermit" in
Alarming Tales #1 from 1962 and they also worked together on various stories published in Warren's
Creepy and
Eerie magazines in the mid-'60s. They next joined forces on a number of stories in King Features'
Flash Gordon comic and also worked on the
Secret Agent X-9 strip (later renamed
Secret Agent Corrigan) from 1967 until 1980. Subsequently, the pair would collaborate on the Marvel Comics' adaptations of
Blade Runner and
Return of the Jedi, as well as on the
Star Wars newspaper strip.
Goodwin and Williamson both started work on the adaptation of
Empire in late summer 1979, beginning with Goodwin receiving a copy of the shooting script and visiting Lucasfilm's Los Angeles offices to select some 750 reference photographs for the project. Along with stills taken on the set, these photos included copies of Ralph McQuarrie's concept paintings and various panels from Joe Johnston's storyboards.
As work on the adaptation began, Lucasfilm's comics liaison officer Diana Attias kept the pair abreast of the latest changes to the screenplay and also supplied them with shots of the various models used in the film. However, this wasn't enough to prevent a few mistakes creeping in, like a very different looking version of Yoda appearing in the earliest published edition of the adaptation in
The Marvel Comics Illustrated Version of The Empire Strikes Back (read more about that
here).
Review:The first thing to say about this issue is that, when it comes to Al Williamson's artwork, you must understand that I simply cannot be objective at all. I love...no, make that ADORE...Williamson's art. It's highly detailed and photo-realistic, without ever sacrificing its comic book sensibilities. His worlds and characters have a lived-in look that plays extremely well into Lucas's "used galaxy" aesthetic, and, of course, there's all that wonderfully crumpled clothing that he always draws on his characters. His action sequences are fluid and full of movement, and I love the bold and dramatic way he uses shadow. His pacing, staging and panel-to-panel storytelling is always faultless, and you never have to look twice at a Williamson panel to figure out what's happening. It's always crystal clear exactly what is going on.
The way Williamson and his assistant Carlos Garzon worked on
Empire was somewhat unusual, in that the former would do the panel and page layouts, and then both artists would pencil and ink their own contributions. Williamson would do the figures and foregrounds, while Garzon did the backgrounds and hardware. Of course, that wasn't a hard and fast rule, and sometimes the lines of that delineation became blurred, but as a rule of thumb, that's how the art chores were shared out.
Unsurprisingly, given my love of Williamson's art, I think that this comic is the best looking issue of
Star Wars that Marvel had published thus far. For the first time Han, Luke and Leia actually look like Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher. And even Darth Vader, who Infantino so often mangled in his artwork, actually looks like he did in the films. In addition, Williamson's inking work on Han, Luke and Leia is really nicely done. He manages to make the guys look like a couple of rugged space warriors and the princess look like the smart, feisty beauty that she is. Williamson and Garzon also effortlessly capture the look of the ships, weapons, technology and various locales in the film. Simply put, Williamson was born to draw
Star Wars comics!
In fact, the art is so gorgeous that, on occasion, I find it annoying when some of the fantastic detail in a panel is obscured by another, equally lovely panel. Take this example below, for instance...
Just think of all the cool tech and background detail that might've been where that panel of Han putting his jacket on is. *sigh*
Something else that I particularly like in this issue is how Williamson draws Luke's lightsaber, with simple parallel lines that give it a flowing, slicing sense of movement, as well as a cool after-image or tracer bullet-like effect. It's an effect that we'll see him use again, both in this adaptation and in the
Return of the Jedi one as well...
During production of the adaptation, George Lucas requested that Wiliamson not show the Wampa ice creature in any detail, to preserve the surprise for cinema goers, which is why we get panels like these...
Having Williamson not show us the entire creature and instead teasing us with a huge, swiping claw coming from off panel works really well because, as horror movie directors have long known, monsters are always scarier when you can't see them in their entirety.
While I'm on the subject of the artwork, it's worth noting that there's a brand new corner cover symbol on the top left of the front of this issue. Gone is the familiar image of Luke Skywalker, lightsaber in hand, that has graced every cover of
Star Wars since early 1977, and in its place is a drawing of R2-D2 and C-3PO by Williamson and Garzon. This new corner image would grace every issue of the comic for the next four years (with the exception of the double-sized issue #50).
As for Goodwin's scripting, he does an excellent job of bringing this instalment of the film to life, although it's worth noting that he had Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan's already brilliant screenplay as a starting point. Like the Marvel adaptation of
Episode IV – A New Hope, one of the things that immediately strikes a modern reader is the differences in the dialogue, when compared to the movie. As previously stated, Goodwin worked from the shooting script, which obviously didn't include any changes to dialogue made by the actors or director Irvin Kershner on the set. There are also a couple of scenes in this comic that were ultimately deleted from the cinematic release of the film. Among these are an extended scene in the Rebel base medical centre, where Han, Leia and C-3PO watch Luke being treated in a Bacta tank, and an interesting sub-plot about Wampas being loose inside the Rebel base, that was excised entirely from the finished film. I can definitely see why this sub-plot was dropped, but in the context of this issue, it actually works quite well, providing another seam of threat and action to the comic.
There's also a noticeably different opening crawl at the start of this issue to the one that rolled past cinema audiences, and again, its based on the one that was included in the shooting script...
Overall, I think that Goodwin does a masterful job here of translating the screenplay into comic book form. This issue is very well paced and he captures the voices of the individual cast members extremely well, while his narration boxes expertly convey the excitement, suspense and mystery of the story as it unfolds. With the combination of Goodwin's excellent scripting and Williamson's beautiful artwork, this is without doubt the best issue of the
Star Wars comic so far.
Continuity issues: None
Favourite panel:
Favourite quote: "You have all the breeding of a Bantha...but not as much class! Enjoy your trip, hotshot!" – Princess Leia bids an angry farewell to Han Solo.
