Blood And Lightsabers, My Friend. Blood And Lightsabers.

As hard as it was to become a Jedi ... it was even harder to stop being one.

I picked up Star Wars: Showdown on the Smuggler's Moon written by Jason Aaron and illustrated by Simone Bianchi and Stuart Immonen (ISBN 9780785192145) Sunday when my family and I were at Main Street Books for the post-Waldo search party. Even though not all the participants in The Great Waldo Hunt last month were there to pick prizes, Sarah, Jeffrey, and I picked out ours -- me a Gourmet Chef gift card, Sarah a book-shaped purse, and Jeffrey a six-book Where's Waldo set -- and made themed cookies too!


The rich princess in trouble. Yeah, Han could never resist those.


In Marvel Comics' regaining of the right to print Star Wars stories since both Marvel and Lucasfilm are now owned by Disney, this book picks up with Han Solo's estranged wife (wait, it gets better) Sana pulling a blaster on Han and Leia yet before being able to turn them in to the Empire abscond with them to Nar Shaddaa, the Smuggler's Moon of the title to this previously-printed and quotable six part story. Luke Skywalker's journey at this time to learn more about the Jedi unknowingly leads him to a collection of Jedi artifacts gathered by a rather eccentric Grakkus the Hutt.


No, you won't answer? Or no is your answer?


From one direction you have Threepio and Chewie and the other you have Han, Leia, and Sana rushing to rescue Luke from death in the Hutt's gladiatorial arena, something befitting "the last Jedi". From Luke nearly getting slashed in training with Grakkus' Gamemaster, he's still got a lot at this time (between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back) to learn. Getting to the scene where Han, Leia, Luke, and Chewie are brandishing lightsabers with stormtroopers rushing them makes this SO worth the read. Several times, to me so far.


Congratulations, you're already dead. And half the people haven't even found their seats yet.


At Main Street that day the person in front of me bought a used copy of "The Truce at Bakura" which was set right after the events of Return of the Jedi. I remember that one pretty well too, even though its events are now set Crisis-like in the alternate universe of "Legends" while everything since Disney bought Lucasfilm as well as the films are now "Canon". Hard to imagine most of the Expanded Universe novelists rushing to fill gaps in a universe that seems to have dismissed them and their work so casually -- at least as an author myself, that's what it looks like to me.


What do you mean, we'll fight our way in? That doesn't sound like much of a plan at all.


Of course, I could be reading way too much into this! But you know, when you look around enough at what's going on, you make connections you don't even realize you remember. Sana from that story I refer to above strongly resembles Katya M'Buele, a smuggler friend of Han's who appeared in the 1979 Star Wars Annual #1 that I read again and again when I was a kid. I wonder if the creative teams on Star Wars NOW have stories like that in mind the "Legends" they grew up reading when they were my age, and that's leaking through. A little.  

Great. Next some old wizard will be telling me to use the Force.


I now return you to reality (if you want to go), David