Hello and welcome to Laughing Place’s ongoing analysis of Marvel’s original Star Wars comic book. Issue #9 was released on December 13, 1977, making it the final issue to come out during the year Star Wars first debuted in movie theaters. This issue continues the Seven Samurai-inspired story that has been playing out since the adaptation of the movie ended with issue #6. In the bullet-point list below, I’ll comb through issue #9 panel by panel and pick out any interesting oddities or tidbits that jump out to me.
- Cover: As I mentioned last time, the Cloud Riders’ name was much later repurposed for Enfys Nest’s gang of marauders in Solo: A Star Wars Story. Han does not appear to be using his usual blast in this illustration, though it looks correct inside the actual issue.
- Page 1: The title of this issue is “Showdown On a Wasteland World!”
- Page 2: Han Solo recaps the events of the past few issues, just in case you’re jumping in mid-story.
- Page 3 (panel 1): According to Wikipedia, “Luna-weed” has only ever been mentioned twice across all of Star Wars history– in this issue and the next one. The name “Don-Wan Kioti” is spelled differently than it was in the previous issue. Han compares Jaxxon to a plain old rabbit, which do exist in the Star Wars galaxy.
- Page 3 (panel 2): The “Ji-ant” species of insect has only ever been mentioned here.
- Page 3 (panel 4): This is also the only time “high-hounds” ever appear in Star Wars.
- Page 5 (panel 3): Surprisingly, Don-Wan does actually know how to wield and fight with his lightsaber.
- Page 7 (panel 3): The Wodanian Wood-Sprite is another creature mentioned here that never made it past the pages of this particular issue.
- Page 8 (panel 4): Drexel, however, is a system that would go on to be incorporated into the Star Wars roleplaying game and then later mentioned in the current (post-Disney acquisition) cannon– after first appearing in these pages.
- Pages 8-9: Once again, Luke and Leia’s adventure is limited to just a couple pages in this issue.
- Page 12 (panel 5): Han acts as though he has never been in a ground-based blaster fight before, which we know very well is not the case.
- Page 14 (panel 1): RIP FE-9Q (called FE-9O here). We hardly knew ye.
- Page 17: This Behemoth creature only ever appears here and in the NEXT ISSUE: “Day of the Behemoth!”
