So yeah, I thought Infantino rocked.
I’ve been in Oslo the last few days to celebrate Norwegian Constitution Day, and I managed to find a copy of the Norwegian album-version of “The Wheel” story arc in great condition. I already own one, but that version is practically falling apart at the seams and is covered in thirty year old yellow tape. I was lucky to get this version for a decent price as well. A lot of people online assume its much rarer than it actually is and charge ludicrous amounts for it.
As you can see they’ve re-drawn (or rather “re-painted”) the cover to SW #18.
“Ruletten” is Norwegian for “The Roulette”, which is what they called The Wheel. I actually really like the Norwegian translation in this case; it makes sense as the name for a circular-shaped gambling establishment.
Since SW #16 “The Hunter”, as well as the whole Eight for Aduba story arc, was never published in Scandinavia they cut Vader’s introduction on Telos IV, and the page above was his first post ANH appearance that we got over here.
In addition to cutting out a whole scene, I’m sure they did a lot of panel editing as well, just like they did with the 5th album, but I haven’t had the time to compare every page and panel to the original American version. I have noticed (just from memory) that a few splash pages have been reduced to smaller panels, or simply cut out entirely (as some are quite superfluous and repeat what was seen in the previous issue), but I’m sure there’s more tampering with the art than just that. Funnily enough though, they didn’t cut any of the “recap” moments. It makes sense for the characters to summarize the events of the previous issues in the serialized version, but in the Norwegian album-version they’re literally just repeating what you just read some pages earlier.