So I was cleaning out my basement, which so far is a task that consists of moving a bunch of Rubbermaid containers around. Now, I love looking through old junk, so at one point I found a Wal-Mart bag that seemed to contain some of my old stuff.
I open it up and inside is a bunch of old comics, mostly either Marvel or Scooby Doo, but precisely one of them is part six of Shadows of the Empire.
Oh man, that brought back memories. I’ve only ever owned four Star Wars comics, and I can’t remember what the other ones were, save that one of them had a story involving R2D2 and C-3PO being chased to a planet of trash, trash which came to life and killed all the stormtroopers that followed. All I know is that I got them all on the same day, during my first Star Wars craze. As I’ve said before, unlike most here I didn’t grow up with Star Wars–in fact, the most Star Wars my life had up until about 1995 was the Atari 2600 game and this Yoda puppet my parents had which me and my sis sometimes played with (and I didn’t even know who Yoda freaking <span class=“Italics”>was</span>). I was first exposed to Star Wars through a television airing of the trilogy (before the Special Editions), later bought the “Faces” VHS tapes. I guess my fandom must not have really taken off until the release of the Nintendo 64 and the Shadows of the Empire video game, which was not only excellent but at the time, I had a friend who was obsessed with Star Wars and his obsession kinda rubbed off on me. Didn’t last long though.
Still, looking through Shadows of the Empire, I can safely say that the art makes me feel more confident about my own pithy attempts to make comics–I love how Dash Rendar is blonde in one panel yet has dark gray hair in another–but even though I’m jumping in at what I think is the final issue, it’s a thrilling read (and to be fair, I remember the video game enough to know what the general plotline is).
In all honesty, just reading this makes me wish I could find the rest of my old Star Wars comic collection.
Ahh, memories.
I suppose I should top this off with a question. I was wondering if any of these older Dark Horse comics had been collected in trade paperback form? The Shadows of the Empire comic has a timeline and a few titles mentioned there interest me. Here’s the titles listed in that timeline:
TALES OF THE JEDI series:
The Golden Age of the Sith
The Fall of the Sith Empire
Ulic Qel-Droma & The Beast Wars of Onderon
The Saga of Nomi Sunrider
Thre Freedon Nadd Uprising
Dark Lords of the Sith
The Sith War
DROIDS
STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE
Splinter of the Mind’s Eye
Classic Star Wars: The Early Adventures
River of Chaos
Classic Star Wars
THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
Shadows of the Empire
RETURN OF THE JEDI
Classic Star Wars: The Vandelhelm Mission
X-Wing Rogue Squadron
Heir to the Empire
Dark Force Rising
The Last Command
Dark Empire
Dark Empire II
Boba Fett
Empire’s End
[Umm… I thought the empire ended when Palpatine died in Return of the Jedi?]