Touring Marvel’s Star Wars #7 – Stop Trying To Make “Star-Hoppers” Happen

Don’t let the cover hype you up too much. We are finally going beyond the movie with this issue, but we’re also bypassing the realm of a plausibility and going straight to where pants-less space-pirates roam!

STAR WARS #7

Publication Date: January 1978

Story: “New Planets, New Perils!” (17 Pages)

Credits: Roy Thomas (writer, editor); Howard Chaykin (penciler, co-plotter); Frank Springer (inker); Carl Gafford (colorist); Joe Rosen (letterer); Archie Goodwin (consulting editor)

Before we dive into this insanity, I have to point out that this is the third time in recent memory that I’ve read this issue—and the second time this year. I read it once out of interest, and various projects have required me to revisit this four-issue stretch of “Star Wars” since then. I bring this up only because I now think that both Artoo Detoo and myself deserve medals for our brave deeds. Now, on with the recap…

Picture it—November 1977. You’ve seen “Star Wars” a half dozen times in the theater—at least—over the past six months. The action figures don’t exist yet; in fact, you’ll probably get a piece of Star Wars cardboard and an IOU from your parents when the holiday season rolls around. Once “Star Wars” exits your local theater, as far as you know, you will have no hope of seeing the film again. That’s why you have all these movie adaptations. That’s why you’ve been reading Marvel’s “Star Wars” comics over and over again. And now, finally, the very first issue of “Star Wars” set after the movie arrives. This is the very first expanded universe story ever, and it will remain the only one until the novel “Splinter of the Mind’s Eye” comes out in March 1978. You open the cover.

I’m not knocking this opening splash page. It has everything you wanna see in it: all six protagonists and the Millennium Falcon, all alive and well after their battle with the Empire. The victory sounds even more decisive in that caption box, which describes Darth Vader as “fleeing across the galaxy.” Really makes it sounds as if his TIE Fighter has its tail tucked between its solar array wings, right? This splash also establishes that the Rebels will be looking for a new planet to call home, which is a plot point that we’ve seen play out in a number of modern Star Wars tales set in this time period (most recently in Brian Wood’s “Star Wars” series over at Dark Horse Comics). But there’s a problem—a big problem—on this page, and it’s in Han’s second speech bubble.

“I still wish you were coming with us, kid—you’d make a helluva star-hopper.”

What. Is. A. Star-hopper? You’re probably asking yourself that right now. Truth time: you will get no answer here, because the comic doesn’t give one. For some reason, after six straight issues working directly from George Lucas’ script, Roy Thomas has decided that everyone should start using colorfully out of character space lingo. Star-hopper, star-spurs, spacer, space-pirate, space-mercenary, small battle-spacer, planet-jumpers—these phrases inexplicably appear on nearly every page of this issue, as if Thomas thought George Lucas had screwed up by not filling his film with antiquated and on-the-nose sci-fi terms. This is like if I had been hired to write the “Cheers: Season 12” comic and started referring to Sam Malone as a “Beerer” and “Brew-slinger” on every page. Also, note to whoever owns the comic book rights to “Cheers”—I would never really do that! Tweet at me.

Han and Chewie take off from Yavin on their mission to pay Jabba the Hut (sic) back with the reward they got from the Rebellion. They pass a number of interesting planets on their journey.

Of course, Han and Chewie can’t pay Jabba back. That bounty plays a big part of both “Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi.” Who knows if George Lucas really knew that back in 1978? There’s a note in this issue’s letter column informing the reader that Roy Thomas had actually met up with Lucas and Mark Hamill to map out where the ongoing comic book adventures could go. You know, picturing what’s about to happen as something Mark Hamill suggested to humiliate Harrison Ford’s comic book counterpart actually makes it make some sense.

Before the duo can reach Tatooine, they run across a giant star cruiser run by space-pirates. Not just any space-pirates, mind you, but Cap’n Crimson Jack.

Yep, Cap’n Crimson Jack, the bearded and pants-less space pirate boards the Millennium Falcon and steals all of the reward. That’s a pretty swift blow to Han’s ego, and I can kinda hear Hamill excitedly telling Thomas, “Oh yeah, and make sure the guy’s not wearing pants!” 

Listen, I’m a big proponent of any bearded and pants-less character in comics. Crimson Jack looks like the redheaded brother of Marvel’s Hercules, so that’s all right with me. The problem is, well, he should be the redheaded brother of Marvel’s Hercules, and he shouldn’t be in a Star Wars comic. He looks so incredibly out of place with everything we saw in “Star Wars”—the shoulder pads, buccaneer boots, smokin’ hot legs—it makes me wonder how he made it into this issue. I wouldn’t be surprised if Chaykin just had a drawer filled with unused character designs and decided to burn them off here. But, here we are. Cap’n Crimson Jack is a character that exists on some level of Star Wars canon, and he should really become the franchise’s gay icon. Get your leotard ready and grow out your beard, cosplayers!

With no reward to give to Jabba, Han and Chewie decide to lay low on “one of those rim worlds,” which leads them to Aduba-3 and the second half of this issue. Upon arriving on Aduba-3, the “incognito planet-jumpers” wander into a seemingly abandoned spaceport town. Then, they hear a commotion just outside the cantina. The locals are hassling a buglike alien priest that’s riding on a bantha. 

“Can’t identify the exact religion; I guess I shouldn’t have skipped so much Sunday school as a kid.”

What is happening Roy Thomas? You just established that Sunday school—an incredibly specific and predominantly Christian religious tradition—is a thing that exists in the Star Wars universe and that everyone in the galaxy uses the same names for the days of the week as we do. That’s bananas. These two things together form a bigger revelation than “No, I am your father,” as far as I’m concerned. 

Han and his Wookiee pal then intervene and rescue the bug priest from the crowd.

Okay, again, what is happening, Roy Thomas? Incredibly specific terms like “Sunday school” are dropped and yet the words “pera” and “fi” are used when they really just mean “father” and “son”? It’s also odd that Han knows those “high galactic” terms when he couldn’t even identify the priest’s religion on the previous page. I guess the star-hopper learned something in Sunday school after all.

The priest explains that he’s trying to bury a borg, a pilot that’s half man and half machine, up on—and I’m being serious—Spacers’ Hill. That’s where all the pilots on Aduba-3 are buried, except spacers don’t trust robots and don’t want a half robot pilot buried on their hill. The priest had just about given up on his mission when he ran into the two smugglers—or should I call them space-smugglers? Or are they still star-hoppers? Wait, what’s a spacer? A space-smuggler is also a star-hopper, but a star-hopper is not a spacer? Are spacers space-pirates? I can’t even.

It’s really charming that Han, who previously claimed to have zero clues about what was going on, immediately cops a holier-than-thou attitude after agreeing to bury the borg—for money. You do you, Han, you do you.

With all the metaphors and hidden messages flying around, this really feels more like a “Star Trek” plot than a “Star Wars” one, right? Anyway, the spacers on the ground didn’t take too kindly to Han’s new attitude and promptly resumed hurling rocks and insults (“dirty borg-lickers”). A riot broke out, with the two…um, space fighters and the one space-priest all banding together against the attacking spacers.

As hard a time as I’m giving Roy Thomas, I should point out this one caption that’s actually pretty awesome: “A seven-foot anthropoid who hails from a world where violence is such an everyday occurrence that there are fifteen separate words for it in the Wookiee vocabulary.” 

When the laser blasts die down, a number of spacers have been killed—as has the priest’s bantha. Chewie throws the borg on his back and carries him up to Spacers’ Hill where he is then given a proper burial by the priest. Han and Chewie then head back down to the cantina for a drink, using their reward money to buy everyone a round or two of drinks. Drinks make up for the massacre, apparently. 

The issue ends with our two heroes hitting on women in the cantina—yes, Chewbacca ends the issue with a girl on each arm.

And that’s the end of the issue! Okay, actually, there’s one panel after that one, and it’s so incredibly racist—like, World War II-era “Captain America Comics” racist—that I do not want to show it here. Basically, a trio of robed individuals arrive in the cantina with a proposal for Han, one that they warn will probably kill him. They all just so happen to be horrible Asian stereotypes, and they don’t appear in the next issue.

So, that’s the very first “Star Wars” story to be published in the expanded universe. Trust me, it only gets weirder. 

NEXT: “Eight For Aduba-3”