For me, the best part of San Diego Comic Con (or, as it should really be named now, San Diego General Geek Interest Con That Just Happens To Include Comics As the Tiny Minority Interest They’ve Degenerated Into, or SDGGICTJHTICATTMITDI for short) isn’t going. In fact, it’s decidedly not going, because the building is pretty much at fire code capacity and the lines for everything are so long that you pretty much spend half the con queuing and frankly I’d rather go to a really well-run community-built mid-size con like CONvergence these days…but that isn’t to say that I don’t look forward to this weekend each year. Because this is the weekend that EVERYONE announces EVERYTHING.
There’s a lot to take in, and I’ll probably do some more dissection next week after the dust settles and we know everything (Lucy Lawless and Mockingbird in ‘Agents of SHIELD’! James Gunn signed to write and direct ‘Guardians of the Galaxy 2’! First images of Gal Godot as Wonder Woman!) But right now, I’m interested in talking about Marvel’s new ‘Star Wars’ comics.
Interestingly enough, they look like a giant leap backwards to Marvel’s old ‘Star Wars’ comics. That is to say, they’re all going to go back to the gap between ‘Star Wars’ and ‘The Empire Strikes Back’, filling in some of the gaps now that the old continuity has been thrown out and there’s a different group of people deciding what happened in the new expanded universe (and theoretically paying more attention to keeping things consistent than Lucas did, although that’s something that’s easy to promise and hard to deliver). Unlike Marvel’s old ‘Star Wars’ comics, though, they’re writing these with an actual awareness of the destination (Hoth), and less of an episodic random science-fiction structure. (Meaning that unless they’re keeping things very much under wraps, we won’t see Jaxxon the Space Rabbit.)
One other thing that I’m intrigued by (and I should stress here, I’m defaulting to “cautious optimism” more than enthusiasm, because my tolerance for ancillary ‘Star Wars’ material has gotten lowered over the years by…well, by reading lots of it) is that they also seem to be willing to explore the actual consequences of things that were glossed over in the old continuity. Mark Waid is going to be doing an entire series about Princess Leia dealing with the destruction of Alderaan, which is something that I don’t think has ever been sufficiently explored. That’s a horrifyingly traumatic experience, and I have to imagine that Waid has a lot to say about it. Another series, by Kieron Gillen, deals with Vader’s rise to power in the aftermath of the destruction of the Death Star. Since this is something I’ve talked about on my own blog, in which I suggested that there was a lot more going on behind the scenes than Tarkin “holding Vader’s leash”, I’m interested in seeing where they go with this one. (Plus, I’m always a sucker for stories about devious internal politics among the bad guys. I don’t know why.)
Oh, and there’s also a ‘Star Wars’ comic by Jason Aaron which presumably features some sort of conflict between the Rebels and an empire of some sort, possibly an evil one. I’m sure it will be competently executed, but the pitch doesn’t exactly sizzle. Still, I’m much more interested in these than I have been in any ‘Star Wars’ comic in a long time, which is definitely a good sign for Marvel. Good luck to them, I say, and watch out for the fans who can’t handle change!
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Maybe because in a game of political infighting, no matter the outcome, no one really wins, and if you have to watch that kind of pain and pathos — which is something that happens in real life, and frequently — it might as well be happening to bad guys.
Oh, they’ve greenlit a sequel? I am cautiously enthused!
I bet they feel really silly about destroying all those sets now.
I would like to cordially invite Gal Godot to go fuck herself.
You know, I sometimes feel like I’m the only person in the world who loved those things. The Starship Yards of Fondor! Running the imperial blockade around Yavin! Jan Dodonna blowing the hell out of the base!
There was all sorts of awesome shit in there.
Jaxxon or GTFO.
Does people still care about Star Wars? I honestly thought the prequels killed the interest in the franchise.
Thanks for that link, Murc. Now I’ve gone from ambivalent to a Gal Godot fan.
Mixed feelings.
On the one hand Marvel has attached at least three creative* teams to Star War projects so good that they’re likely to overcome the usual objections about media tie-ins.
*Though I will laugh in the face of anyone claiming a Cassidy book is “monthly”.
(Meanwhile the Women of Marvel panel announced that a character I don’t see the point of will get an ongoing series by a writer I dislike and an artist who traces porn. I love being able to completely ignore a series. It saves so much time and money.)
On the other hand, I was kinda hoping Marvel would forget to do anything with SW so I can keep the SW digital comics I stupidly bought from Dark Horse.
Seriously, why are we talking about anything else when Comixology going (partly) DRM-free is clearly the biggest news of the Con?
Happy to help. It’s always good to know who’s staggeringly ignorant and/or hateful and who is not.
Marvel put their three best writers on this, so there’s that.
As for the general public, a few months ago Lucas/Disney/whoever announced plans for a trilogy of movies set after the original trilogy, starring at least some of the original cast. That raised interest.
As for geekdom, we may be soured on the franchise somewhat due to the prequel trilogy, but like the first sentence of the post says, comic books are now a small part of geekdom. “Soured somewhat” on a franchise like Star Wars is still interested enough to drive several comic book series.
I think people who were not soured on the Star Wars franchise tend not to talk about it on the internet, so while it seems every fan everywhere hated them, that isn’t actually the case. I’ve personally met young fans for whom Phantom Menace was their first Star Wars theater experience, and they love the prequels as much as (or more than) the originals.
Lucas once commented on that when being interviewed by Jon Stewart. Folks whose first Star Wars were the original trilogy like it best. Folks whose first experience were the prequels, or “Clone Wars” cartoon, see those as the best respectively.
Kinda the same as the “Who is the best James Bond?” question. Typically it’s whoever you saw first in the role.
Fans who saw the original trilogy first had over twenty years to develop their own head cannon about the back story, the universe of Star Wars, even what themes and lessons were the important ones. Of course the prequels suffered by comparison. Prequel fans don’t have that problem and have already proven to have enough money to drive the series forward.
Wait, so Gal Godard should go fuck herself because she is sad when Israelis die, when she is apparently herself Israeli? So people who like her because she is sad when Israelis die are hateful?
I liked Jaxxon. The Magnificent Space Seven (including a Don Quixote-esque maybe Jedi Knight) was a freakin’ awesome story.
Wait, so Gal Godard should go fuck herself because she is sad when Israelis die, when she is apparently herself Israeli? So people who like her because she is sad when Israelis die are hateful?
Yes, because ghod forbid that anyone should demonstrate their foreignness by caring about their own country when it’s not the USA.
Or something.
I honestly don’t know wtf his problem is.
While I think “go fuck yourself” is a bit strong given what she said, I get where Murc is coming from re: Gal Gadot. It’s not about caring for her own country. It’s about cheering on that country’s frankly deplorable military actions in Gaza and parroting their excuses.
I can’t even imagine how important and relevant to the post above a celebrity’s political views are.
Off-topic, it’s a little strange for there now to be so much interest in Alderaan’s obliteration. Back in the day, it seemed like just a looming, insurmountable evil act that made the Galactic Empire that much worse and the Rebel Alliance that much better. It seemed almost like a background, historical event even though we saw it on-camera.
Part of that might be because the people making the movie didn’t have enough to show lots of reaction shots or peaceful crowd scenes. You know, to make us care that millions of people we don’t know got offed.
Even the Alderaanian Stormtrooper Princess Leia met that one time didn’t seem horrified by the destruction of his home and compatriots.
It’s been so long after it happened, and so much has changed, that I can’t really see it working as a focus. But Mr. Waid didn’t get where he is by failing to make things relatable and intriguing, so we’ll see.
And it’s a little scary how quick they’re falling into the same trap as before, working to ‘fill in’ gaps that don’t need filling and ‘explaining’ things that don’t benefit much from any explanation. Hopefully they’ll come up with stuff just as crazy as the 70’s comics did. The. Best thing about that stupid crap was how varied and imaginative it was, not bound by the need to be “like” the movies in every way.
“I can’t even imagine how important and relevant to the post above a celebrity’s political views are.”
Good God this.
I’ve had my fill of one-sided, reactive, shamelessly subjective, largely-meme-based “discussion” of the Gaza conflict, and all of the stupid (like, PAINFULLY fucking stupid) vitriol it breeds. I’m full. No more pie for me. Kindly fuck off (no, not you).
ON-TOPIC: I’ve found that I can’t get into anything Star Wars related anymore. It just doesn’t excite me, and I’d love to be swept up in that again. Lucas so thoroughly fucked the property that he killed my interest.
And I like JJ’s stuff in general!
One of the many missed chances of the prequels, in my mind, is that we don’t get to see Alderaan. They could have lent a lot more weight to the planet’s destruction if they’d given us some idea of the place.
Agreed. It wouldn’t have solved a lot of other problems, but using Alderaan instead of Naboo would have been a major improvement for the prequels.
“(Meaning that unless they’re keeping things very much under wraps, we won’t see Jaxxon the Space Rabbit.)”
http://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-1-party-variant-with-jaxxon-exclusive
WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW?