That Bounty Hunter We Ran Into On Ord Mantell Changed My Mind!

Now, the rebel heroes have a new mission; to save the worlds in the greatest danger, to take resources and power from the Empire, and to gain new allies in their war to save the galaxy.


Constancia. Kashyyyk. Vorzyd 5. Tatooine. And many other planets than Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa -- why the heck was she still called "Princess" after her home planet got obliterated? I've never gotten that -- Han Solo, Chewbacca, Artoo, and Threepio visited in the three-year interval between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back (including the aforementioned Ord Mantell, expanding on a throwaway line from that movie) had Darth Vader and the Imperials popping up everywhere they were! And you could read ... well, most of it in the comics section of your daily newspapers in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Volume one of Star Wars: The Newspaper Strips (ISBN 9781302904647) includes a comic version of the Brian Daley novel Han Solo at Stars' End and the first appearance of Boba Fett as well, when he's piloting a TIE fighter that Luke shoots down over an ice planet.


Now it's "classic".


Or to adapt some current political phraseology, alternative truth. ("Alternative facts" doesn't sound quite right when dealing with fiction.) Since Disney bought Lucasfilm a few years ago it's questionable how much of what you'll read in this volume is still valid unless a character in a movie, television show, comic, or novel post-Disney's buyout -- the original films, though, are still official -- refers to it, making at least the name "canon" or official if not the event. But a few things have changed, among them that Threepio is not several centuries old (an early Russ Manning strip states that, and The Phantom Menace moved his construction by Anakin Skywalker back to a few decades before the events of Star Wars) and that Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker's father are not two separate people.


Or are they?


I don't know if I want Sarah to continue saving her homework until the morning before it's due. I saw her take the time to work on details about countries on six different continents AND get in the shower I ask her and Jeffrey to get in on Wednesdays without too much prodding on my part, but I remember how rushed I would feel. And my spending last night and this morning working on some student loan paperwork and then finding out I can't get into my account because it was set up with an email I no longer use ... it's not really frustrating, but if Sarah's right and I try to make a joke out of everything, I perhaps shouldn't. Getting them to bed on time is difficult enough, but at least for the next few days I shouldn't have to worry about that. After today the kids in Minot Public Schools are on Spring Break until Monday. Bleh. Now it's down to the length of Thanksgiving weekend.

But we can still make this work,

David