Hello everyone and happy “Revenge of the Fifth!” Today we continue our issue-by-issue analysis of the original Marvel Star Wars comic book with #2, which was first published on May 10, 1977– just 15 days prior to the release of the movie in theaters. I’ll be going through each page and panel, pointing out any interesting differences or unique moments in this adaptation.
- Cover: Obi-Wan has a red lightsaber again, and there are some interesting-looking variations on the denizens of Mos Eisley Cantina. “Lightsaber” gets an alternate spelling here too. As Wookieepedia points out, the first two and last two letters in the title are not connected, though they will be in future issues.
- Page 1: The title of this issue is “Six Against the Galaxy.” I guess the six are Luke Skywalker, R2-D2, C-3PO, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Han Solo, and Chewbacca? Princess Leia will join them later, I suppose.
- Page 2 (panel 2): The caption says Obi-Wan has an “ancient leathery face.” Take that, Sir Alec Guinness.
- Page 3 (panel 3): Leia says her father is named Bail Antilles, not Bail Organa. Again, I have to assume writer Roy Thomas was working from an earlier version of the script. The classic line “help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope” has also been changed to simply “you are our last hope.”
- Page 3 (panel 6): Obi-Wan actually tells Luke which specific button activates his lightsaber. This has been the subject of much debate for decades.
- Page 4 (panel 1): Luke’s lightsaber blade is pink here, and they’re still spelling it “lightsabre.”
- Page 4 (panels 2-4): Whenever Ben or Luke refer to “The Force,” it’s in quotation marks like that for some reason.
- Page 4 (panel 4): “‘The Force’ is with all men.” Star Wars sexism started early! But the idea that “the suffering of one is the suffering of all” is an interesting one.
- Page 5 (panel 2): The interrogation droid is humanoid here, and not the spherical floating robot we see in the movie.
- Page 5 (panel 5): Even the comics can’t decide whether it’s “gaderffii stick” (as in issue #1) or “gaffi stick.”
- Page 6 (panel 6): Luke shouts for “Uncle Ben” instead of Uncle Owen. Heat stroke or Spidey-sense?
- Page 8: Ponda Baba and Dr. Evazan both look very different than they do in the film.
- Page 8 (panel 6): Now Obi-Wan has a pink lightsaber blade too.
- Page 10 (panel 4): “Millennium” is misspelled with only one “n.”
- Page 12 (panels 1-4): Greedo just speaks Basic here instead of translated Huttese.
- Page 12 (panel 5): Han definitely shoots first.
- Page 13 (panels 2-3): Garindan is missing his famous long snoot, and just has a regular-looking nose.
- Page 13 (panels 4-5): Jabba the Hutt is, of course, completely unrecognizable here. But this was long before George Lucas and company settled on the crime boss’s slug-like appearance for Return of the Jedi.
- Page 14 (panels 1-3): This scene is based on the deleted Docking Bay 94 sequence that was famously reinserted with a new CGI Jabba in the 1997 Star Wars Special Edition.
- Page 16 (panel 2): The caption has to explain how much bigger a Star Destroyer is than the Millennium Falcon, because they sure don’t look bigger.
- Page 16 (panel 4): Hey, it’s Han’s famous dice– though these look more like regular board-game dice than having come from a Sabacc deck.
- Page 17 (panel 2): I’m not sure where the characters are supposed to be, but it looks like a much bigger space than the Falcon’s cockpit.
- Page 18: Interestingly, this issue is one page longer than #1. Tomorrow– “Out of Hyperspace… and into the Death Star!”
