LOST Retrospective – Season 1: Plane Crash

"This show is about people who are metaphorically lost in their lives, who get on an airplane, and crash on an island, and become physically lost on the planet Earth. And once they are able to metaphorically find themselves in their lives again, they will be able to physically find themselves in the world again." 

– Damon Lindelof, co-creator of Lost

 

When I think about the first season of Lost, I often think of it as a season of superlatives. It has the best pilot episode in TV history. It's the best debut season of any show in TV history. It is, at least in my estimation, the single best season of television ever produced. Although I hated much of what the series eventually became, it's on the foundational strength of its first season that I still consider Lost my favorite TV show of all time.

I had watched the first season of Lost in full three times: once by myself, twice with friends. On September 22, 2024, twenty years to the day since the original series premiere, I started watching it for the fourth time.

 

It is still the best season of television ever produced.

 

 

Episode Tier List

S-tier

• Pilot
• Walkabout
• White Rabbit
• Deus Ex Machina
• Exodus

 

A-tier

• Tabula Rasa
• House of the Rising Sun
• The Moth
• Confidence Man
• Solitary
• Raised by Another
• All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues
• Special
• Outlaws
• ...In Translation
• Numbers
• Do No Harm
• The Greater Good

 

B-tier

• Whatever the Case May Be
• Hearts and Minds
• Homecoming
• Born to Run 

 

Notes

* In addition to the above superlatives, I'll also point to "Walkabout," the first John Locke episode, as the single greatest episode of TV ever made, with its last five minutes the greatest scene in TV history, but those are competitive categories.

 

* In terms of story continuity, Season 1 is fairly tight and I could almost believe that it was planned out from the start, despite being aware of how in real life most of the long-term mysteries and mythology weren't introduced until after ABC picked up the show for a full season and the writers had to come up with something to fill another 20 hours. But one thing in this season that's always stuck out to me as a pretty weak retcon is the revelation that Locke was the one who knocked out Sayid and destroyed his transceiver in "The Moth." 

 

LOCKE: The first week after the crash there was a cave in. Jack was trapped. Do you remember that?  

 

SAYID: Of course.  

 

LOCKE: You, Kate and Sawyer went out into the jungle to try and triangulate a signal.  

 

SAYID: Yes.  

 

LOCKE: You were hit from behind—knocked unconscious? When you woke up your transceiver, your equipment was destroyed. That was me.  

 

SAYID: This is one time you'd better not be telling the truth.

 

LOCKE: I did what was in everyone's best interest.

 

SAYID: You ruined my chance to find the source.

 

LOCKE: The source of a distress call that kept saying they're dead, it killed them all, over and over? Is that a place you really want to lead people to?

 

SAYID: Why wait all this time? Why not tell me then?

 

LOCKE: Because back then you wouldn't have engaged in reasonable debate, and nobody else would have. You were all so focused on getting off the Island that you weren't seeing things clearly. 

 

This exchange where Locke makes his confession in "The Greater Good," an otherwise strong episode, feels distractingly weak, like the writer got handed the assignment to work an explanation into his episode for this lingering mystery left over from the beginning of the season and just wanted to get past it as quickly as possible. "It's me, Austin! It was me all along, Austin! I kept it a secret for fourteen episodes but I'm telling you now for no reason!" Earlier in "The Greater Good," Sayid tells Locke that he knows when he's being lied to. Yet Sayid questioned Locke about the incident back in "Confidence Man" and had no clue that Locke was giving him the runaround. Not that Sayid should be a superhuman lie detector (he's not Emma Swan after all), but the discrepancy is noticeable enough to make this scene feel half-assed and unplanned. It smacks of the terrible and lazy writing habits the writers would develop in later seasons, either making up completely nonsensical bullshit excuses to avoid answering questions or answering them in the most perfunctory and resentful way possible.

 

* The only other story element in Season 1 that feels similarly desultory is the saga of Kate's stupid toy airplane. "Whatever the Case May Be" has a decently fun on-island story, with Kate, Jack, and Sawyer competing with one another to obtain the U.S. Marshal's Halliburton case and find a way to open it, but it's made one of the weaker episodes of the season by its pointless flashback story, which is completely wasted on building up the mystery of this pointless toy plane. The payoff, such as it is, comes in "Born to Run," where we learn that Kate cares so much about the plane because it's a keepsake of her childhood friend who was later killed due to Kate's thoughtlessness. You can see how that might have seemed like an okay idea at the time, but aside from an awkward scene in the season finale where the Marshal essentially just monologues to the camera for five minutes to explain the convoluted back story of the plane and why it mattered enough to have wasted so much time on it, neither the plane nor Kate's friend is ever seen or mentioned again for the rest of the show. So in retrospect it sticks out like a sore thumb. They had two decent ideas for Kate-centric stories in Season 1, but because Evangeline Lilly was so hot they stretched that second story across two episodes. As a result, "Whatever the Case May Be" and "Born to Run" both ended up feeling weaker than they might otherwise have been. Lose the lame bank robbery flashback.

 

* "White Rabbit" is my second favorite episode of the season after "Walkabout"; sometimes I think they're equally good. But it's kind of a bummer hearing Charlie desperately yell "I don't swim! I don't swim!" as he's searching for someone to save the woman drowning right in front of him. In the Season 3 episode "Greatest Hits," Charlie reveals, "I was junior swim champion in Northern England. I can hold my breath for four minutes." The plot of that episode actually hinges on Charlie's swimming ability. Did they just forget about what he said in Season 1? "Greatest Hits" is a great episode but it could have played out nearly the same without explicitly contradicting another great episode. People will try to justify this plot hole by saying that Charlie couldn't save Joanna because he was strung out on heroin at the time so he lied about not knowing how to swim. Um...

 

 

* "Homecoming," the season's second Charlie episode, features a mostly unnecessary flashback. The rematch against Ethan is tense and exciting, but it's somewhat anticlimactic how easily Jack beats him despite getting his ass thrashed last time. This episode would have been better off keeping the deleted scene of Locke stabbing Ethan prior to his fight with Jack, explaining his defeat. Unfortunately, aside from this one promotional still, no footage from this scene has ever been released. 

 

 

* I feel comfortable putting "Hearts and Minds," the season's Boone-centric episode, as a B-tier episode because its on-island story feels undercut by essentially being all a dream/bad trip. Despite the important character development, it ends up feeling like filler because the most exciting things that happened didn't actually happen. I wish they had found a way to write it that felt like less of a cheat. But I still feel a little bad because I think the flashback is great and it has one of the most memorable scene transitions in the entire series. The soundtrack grows more urgent as Shannon and Boone fall into bed together and then all the sound cuts out and it hard-cuts to Boone sitting hunched over, naked and pale, at the bottom of an otherwise black frame, out of focus so you can't even tell what you're looking at at first. Shannon says his name in the dark, then clicks on the lamp and is revealed sitting on the other side of the room fully clothed.

 

SHANNON: When we get back to LA, you should just tell your mom that you rescued me—again, just like you always do. And then we'll just go back.  

 

BOONE: To what?  

 

SHANNON: To what it was.  

 

BOONE: Like it's all up to you.  

 

SHANNON: [contemptuously] Get dressed. 

 

I can't say enough good things about the editing, framing, blocking, and acting in this scene, and how it reveals so much about the characters. You almost don't even need the dialogue, but I've often found myself hearing Boone's hollow "Like it's all up to you," in particular situations, for the last twenty years.

 

Yeah I've had this drug-induced fantasy before.

The Planet That Ate Everyone

Galaxy of Fear #1: Eaten Alive

Author: John Whitman

Medium: Junior novel

Publication date: January 1997

Timeline placement: 0 ABY

 

Back Tagline: A new evil lurks: Star Wars Galaxy of Fear. Terror is everywhere . . .

Interior Tagline: Welcome to the dark side of the galaxy . . .

 

Official Book Description:

Vanished?

D'vouran seems like a normal enough planet. The friendly locals welcome Tash, Zak, and their uncle Hoole with open arms.

But Tash has a bad feeling about this place.

There's a madman running around the streets shouting that people are disappearing. He's saying they've just vanished into thin air.

Tash knows that's impossible. But something is really wrong on D'vouran. Will she find the courage to trust her gut instincts . . . before it's too late?

Brief Synopsis:

Six months after the Battle of Yavin, thirteen-year-old Tash Arranda and her brother, twelve-year-old Zak, are living in the care of their Uncle Hoole, a shapeshifting Shi'ido anthropologist. Natives of Alderaan, Tash and Zak were off-world on a school field trip when the Death Star destroyed their planet, killing their entire family. Their only surviving relative is their aunt's alien husband, who takes them in due to his species' custom of treating all family like immediate family. Aunt Beryl herself never appears in the series. Did she also die on Alderaan? Hoole gives no sign of being broken up over the death of his wife if so. Did she die previously from other causes? Is she still alive somewhere and just wants nothing to do with her remaining family? Is she away on a business trip? Pick your headcanon explanation now, because she won't be mentioned again after this book.

 

Hoole and the Arrandas, along with their droid DV-9, who is just Marvin the Paranoid Android from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, are currently bound for the planet D'vouran aboard Hoole's ship, the Lightrunner. Hoole's work as an anthropologist takes him all around the galaxy; his current mission is to investigate this recently discovered planet that, according to the existing star charts of this region, shouldn't exist.

 

Despite his willingness to take in the children, Uncle Hoole remains a cold and distant figure who never talks about himself or his work. He keeps to himself while thrusting his charges off on DV-9, or "Deevee," an advanced scientific research droid who is in a deep depression about having to give up his career to babysit and tutor a couple of middle-schoolers. Zak, who has become a thrill-seeking daredevil as a trauma response to their parents' death, decides to sneak into Hoole's quarters and find out what he's working on. He is immediately caught, of course, because Hoole is still in his room at the time, but before his uncle can finish reprimanding him, everything is thrown into chaos when the Lightrunner drops out of hyperspace prematurely.

 

On the bridge, Tash had been pretending to pilot the ship at the time of the disaster. Hoole immediately blames her for disrupting the autopilot, even though she hadn't touched any of the controls. More introverted than her brother, Tash has only withdrawn further into herself since the destruction of Alderaan, and doesn't really miss anyone who perished there besides her parents. She was always an outcast among her peers due to her uncanny prescience. Using her leet haxorz skills, she uncovered restricted information about the Jedi Knights on the dark web and now dreams of being trained by one of them in the ways of the Force. Unfortunately, as we all know, there are no Jedi left.

 

Damaged by its premature deceleration, the Lightrunner sets down on D'vouran, where Hoole and the Arrandas are greeted by the ever-smiling Chood, one of the native Enzeen (pictured on the book cover). Chood explains that D'vouran was recently discovered by the Empire when a cargo ship, the Misanthrope, crashed on the planet after similarly being yanked out of hyperspace by an unexpected mass shadow. The sole survivor was the Misanthrope's captain, Kevreb Bebo. Here he comes now, being bodily thrown out of the local cantina.

 

I was genuinely surprised by how kind and compassionate Tash is in this scene. She immediately runs over to this crazy drunk and tries to help him, but he just raves about people disappearing. What a loon! Anyway, Hoole and the Arrandas enter the cantina, where they are immediately accosted by Gank mercenaries in the employ of Smada the Hutt, an old acquaintance of Hoole's. Smada wants wants Hoole to come work for him so he can use Hoole's shapeshifting abilities to assassinate his enemies or something. Hoole says no, but Smada vows that he will employ Hoole one day whether he likes it or not.

 

Fortunately for our heroes, however, also in the cantina are Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, R2-D2, and C-3PO, and they step in and force the Hutt to back down. Tash recognizes Princess Leia because I guess the Force tells her who she is. Everyone treats this like some big scandal even though the Arrandas lived on Alderaan so why wouldn't they recognize their planet's royalty? It turns out that the Millennium Falcon also experienced an unusual departure from hyperspace in the proximity of D'vouran and is currently undergoing repairs. Luke talks to Tash about the Force while C-3PO annoys Deevee.

 

Hoole arranges for Zak and Tash to stay with Chood, this complete stranger they've just met, while he goes about his mysterious work in the middle of the night. Tash is awakened by a mysterious slurping sound, which turns out to be for the best as she finds Whatsamatta the Hutt's goons trying to kidnap her. She kicks the nearest Gank in the balls and runs out of the house with Zak, who is still half asleep. They run into town screaming with the Ganks in hot pursuit, but when the townsfolk turn out to investigate, the kids' attackers are nowhere to be found. 

Tash once again encounters local wildman Bebo, who is wandering around crying about his friend Lonni Anderson vanishing. Chood explains that Bebo is just a crazy old lunatic but Tash takes pity on him and asks him about his friend. She intelligently follows him into the nearby forest, where he shows her a hole in the ground hidden beneath the roots of a tree. Suddenly aware that she's made a huge mistake, Tash tries to leave, only to be pushed into the hole by Bebo. 

They find themselves in the abandoned ruins of an Imperial science laboratory. Bebo explains the true history of the Misanthrope crash, how the crew actually survived only to start vanishing one by one, until only he and Lonni were left here in the lab, the one protected place on the planet. Bebo gives Tash a special pendant he always wears for protection, a miniaturized force field generator developed by the long-gone Imperial scientists. Tash takes it and goes to warn her family, then Smeagol the Hutt's minions appear and shoot Bebo.

 

Back on the surface, Smada makes another attempt at kidnapping the children to force the conspicuously absent Hoole to do his bidding, but all three are captured by Chood and the Enzeen, who are revealed to be essentially giant intelligent fleas that feed off of the planet by sticking their tongues into the ground. D'vouran itself is a living organism, either brought to life or wholly created by the Empire's mad scientists. It presents itself as a paradise world to lure in settlers, then—shhhluuuuuuuurrrrpp—sucks them into the ground and digests them. It now does exactly that to every non-Enzeen on the planet, except for the Arrandas, who are protected by Tash's pendant, and Smada, who is suspended on a hoversled.

 

The Enzeen drag their prisoners back to the Imperial laboratory, where they plan to throw them into a pit called the Heart of D'vouran. But just when all hope seems lost, one of the Enzeen turns on the others, revealing himself to be Uncle Hoole in shapeshifted disguise! Smada falls into the pit due to his own selfishness, and during the battle the pendant falls into the pit as well, clutched in the hand of a screaming Chood. Unable to digest the protective force field, D'vouran gets bad acid reflux and the whole planet starts coming apart.

 

Tash, Zak, Hoole, and Deevee make it back to the Lightrunner, but are unable to take off as the ship is seized by tendrils of molten earth. But suddenly the Millennium Falcon appears in the sky. As the Heroes of Yavin were on their way to their next adventure, Luke had a Force vision of the Arrandas' peril and made Han go back for them. Everyone makes it onto the Falcon, but D'vouran gives chase, following the starship across the system under the propulsion of I guess magic, or something. But eventually D'vouran's heartburn gets so bad that it digests itself and collapses into nothingness.

 

Later, after things have calmed down, the Galaxy of Fear heroes share everything they learned with the Rebels. "Someone is using science to create mutants," Hoole declares, vowing to put a stop to these shenanigans. Tash remembers Smada the Hutt's warning about how little the kids know about their uncle and wonders what he's really up to. But for now, at least this experiment is over, and no one else will ever be Eaten Alive.

 

But the twist is...

Elsewhere in space, a ship is prematurely pulled out of lightspeed by a mysterious planet that doesn't appear on any star charts. Somehow, D'vouran returned.

 

 

the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship:

Zak Arranda and his sister Tash, who disappears down a hole in the ground halfway through the book.

 

Questionable Uncling:

After Tash narrowly escapes being kidnapped by Smegma the Hutt's goons in the middle of the night and is chased through town while screaming for help only for her attackers to vanish into thin air, Hoole tries to gaslight her into thinking that she was just sleepwalking and it was all a dream.

 

Early 90s Cultural References:

The Internet, IRC chat, Stranger Danger, Goosebumps

 

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:

Ch. 3/4:

Something cold and slimy grabs Tash by the neck. It's... a flower necklace.

 

Genuine Scare Alert:

"If you thought your friends and allies on the surface suffered, you were wrong. Their deaths were quick and merciful—most of them suffocated when they were pulled under D'vouran's surface."

 

I remember reading this as a child and finding the idea of being buried alive and suffocated by dirt much more viscerally horrifying than whatever made-up nonsense it was being favorably compared to. Quick and merciful suffocation, sounds great!

 

Title Drop Alert:

"I am going to take you to the Heart of D'vouran. There you will meet a death that makes these other deaths seem like a gift. In the Heart of D'vouran, every last nutrient from your body can be carefully digested. You will be eaten very slowly. Eaten alive."

 

"Aaiiiiii!" the Gank screamed. "It's hurting me! It's hurting me!" His eyes were alive with terror. "I'm being eaten alive!"

 

Yes, it happened twice! 

Cameo Alert:

Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, C-3PO, R2-D2, and Darth Vader

 

Conclusions:  

Galaxy of Fear was one of the earliest EU series I ever read, along with Jedi Prince, Junior Jedi Knights, and Young Jedi Knights. I didn't find it particularly scary even as a child, but I loved the characters and the interesting new worlds they would visit and the strange creatures they would encounter. I read several Goosebumps books but was never a huge fan—Star Wars and Animorphs were more my jam at the Scholastic Book Fair—but any slim volume with colorful cover art is like a shot of nostalgia. Starting to read Galaxy of Fear again felt like coming home.

I've hyped these books up for years as one of the most underrated series in the EU, but really Eaten Alive is just all right. It's a lot of fun, never boring, and a quick read, but a grown adult reading it for the first time in 2025 probably won't get much out of it. Rereading it for the first time in 25 years is a real trip, but despite one or two (admittedly well-handled) emotional scenes, Eaten Alive isn't really aiming for any meaningful measure of depth or complexity. And that's fine! It's a better written, more interesting Goosebumps, and I'm looking forward to reading more.

To Take the Trigon

Escape Into Terror

Writer: Peter Sauder

Medium: Television

Air Date: September 14, 1985 

Timeline Placement: 15 BBY

 

En route to the big speeder race on the planet Boonta, Kea Moll's starship experiences a hyperdrive malfunction. Fortunately, there's an astromech droid aboard, and R2-D2 sets about repairing the hyperdrive just like he did on the Royal Naboo Starship seventeen years earlier. Unfortunately, this time he's assisted by C-3PO, who somehow lets the entire hyperdrive float away into space. Somehow this isn't the most catastrophic thing ever, and the gang decides to go stay with Kea's mother on the planet Annoo until they can get a new hyperdrive. How long will it take them to get there at sublight speed? Don't worry about it.

 

Meanwhile, the comical I mean notorious Fromm Gang is still hard at work building the Trigon One superweapon so they can become the number one criminal organization in the galaxy. I wonder what Black Sun has to say about this. We meet the big man himself, patriarch Sise Fromm, who we're told is 900 years old. Just like Yoda! Maybe they went to high school together.

Sise is upset about the events of the previous episode, where his son's incompetence caused their scheme to be discovered. He's got it out for our heroes, whose roster he describes in a very specific way three times in twenty-one minutes: "The two who infiltrated our secret base are here on Annoo with a girl and two droids. I'll find those two young meddlers myself, the girl, and the two droids. My men will find them: two males, a girl, and two droids." Geesh, Mr. Dramatis Personae over here.

The gang lands on Annoo, where two Fromm goons are waiting for them at the spaceport. R2-D2 creates a distraction by spraying C-3PO with oil and spazzing out like a "mad droid." Nonsensically this allows the humans and droids to escape undetected in the White Witch.

 

At Kea's mom's house, the droids bungle onto a secret room and discover that both women are secretly members of the Rebel Alliance! Which shouldn't exist for another thirteen years! Let's just assume they meant lowercase "rebel alliance" instead of the formal Alliance to Restore the Republic. 

"Freedom is everybody's fight," Kea's mother declares. This becomes C-3PO's new mantra that he repeats while practicing the fabled martial art of gravik-nez at inopportune moments throughout the episode. Threepio’s martial antics were played for laughs in this episode and then never mentioned again, but the Expanded Universe took his combat programming very seriously, revealing that Threepio could be seen attempting (and failing) to use it against one of Jabba’s Gamorrean guards in Return of the Jedi, and that gravik-nez was in fact an Affan martial art. (Affa, of course, was the planet where C-3PO was originally built almost a century before Anakin Skywalker salvaged his disassembled parts on Tatooine.)

Also, Threepio observes, "Why, I'd rather be feeding tauntauns on Hoth." It's weird that Hoth and its native fauna are apparently common knowledge at this time.

 

They hatch a plan to destroy the Trigon One. Thall Joben and Kea hide in a shipping container about to be loaded onto the Fromms' ship. After they're locked in, Jord Dusat announces to no one that he's going to stay behind to bang Kea's mom while the droids load the container. High jinks ensue, but in the end our heroes easily hijack the Trigon One right in front of Sise Fromm's fat face and blast their way to orbit. Strangely, the superweapon is explicitly called a satellite, but it seems to be just a spaceship.

 

The Fromms dispatch a group of droid starfighters to retrieve their weapon, fourteen years before George Lucas featured droid starfighters in The Phantom Menace. These ones are just about as useful and our heroes get away. Kea argues that they should use the Trigon to end all organized crime in the galaxy or something, which seems like it would outside the scope of the [r]ebel [a]lliance's goals, but Thall insists that the Trigon One is too dangerous to be left alive and Kea immediately agrees with him because she has strong convictions. Threepio tries to do a karate move and falls down.

I'm ashamed to say I laughed more times at this episode than was appropriate.

 

"Stop, Artoo! ARTOO, STOP!"

MyComyc #1: Neutralizing Trigon I

Writer: Uncredited (translated by Abel G. Peña)

Penciler: Beaumont Studios

Medium: Comic

Publication date: 1986

Timeline placement: 15 BBY

MyComyc was a Spanish-language anthology comic telling short, two-page stories featuring characters from various licensed properties. In Star Wars' case, that was the Droids and Ewoks animated series. These comics' place in Expanded Universe canon is a fuzzy one, however; while the events of the some of the Droids strips are directly referenced in the two-part StarWars.com article The Droids Re-Animated, the behind-the-scenes word is that Dark Horse wanted to include them in one of their Omnibus collections, but "despite the comics bearing appropriate copyright information, Lucasfilm was unable to locate paperwork proving Editorial Gepsa had actually licensed the titles." So while at least some version of at least some of these comics happened in continuity, the strips themselves as published cannot be considered fully canon.

 

This first strip in particular proves that point, as Neutralizing Trigon I tells a story seemingly incompatible with the events of the Droids cartoon. Thall Joben and Jord Dusat eavesdrop on a video call between Tig and Sise Fromm and discover that the Trigon One (here called the Trigon I) is hidden in the desert mountains. While Thall and Threepio distract the Fromm guards, Jord and Artoo sneak about the Trigon I, where Artoo "disconnect[s] the computer's main memory," because "without its central memory, this machine is worthless!" Then they escape, and Threepio tells Artoo that he's proud of him.

 

For this story to coexist with "Escape Into Terror," it would need to take place during the events of that episode, as Thall and Jord first learn of the weapon during the episode and have stolen it by the end. However, there's no real time in "Escape Into Terror" where Neutralizing Trigon I could logically take place. The sequence of events would have to be: 1) Kea's mother tells them about the weapon, 2) they travel back to Ingo to sabotage its central memory, then travel back to Annoo the same day, 3) the next morning they sneak onto the Fromms' ship to go back to Ingo again, where they steal the Trigon despite having just rendered it inoperable.

 

Alternatively, this could be taken as a retelling of the events of "Escape Into Terror," like a drastically more extreme version of the Adventure in Beggar's Canyon vs. Luke Skywalker's Walkabout case. In that event, this comic is completely pointless and there was no reason to even bring it up.

 

Since the MyComyc stories aren't confirmed canon anyway, I don't see any point in getting bent out of shape trying to make Neutralizing Trigon I fit. The strips that already conform to established continuity make for easy headcanon, and the ones that don't can just be ignored. Wait, what was I talking about?

The White Witch

 

The White Witch

Writer: Peter Sauder

Medium: Television

Air Date: September 7, 1985 

Timeline Placement: 15 BBY

The first episode of the animated series Droids: The Adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO begins with our intrepid robotic heroes marooned on the salt flats of the planet Ingo, having been dumped by their most recent master along with his illicit cargo when he was arrested by the authorities. In a familiar turn of events, they wander the desolate wastes until they're come upon by two landspeeder racers, best friends Thall Joben and Jord Dusat. Threepio attempts to give his usual used-car salesman speech about how useful he is but the racers ignore him, showing much more interest in Artoo's astromech abilities to help them soup up their speeder.

 

On the way back to their repair shop, the gang accidentally strays into the territory of the notorious Fromm Gang. Tig Fromm, son of the feared gang boss Sise Fromm, has built a secret base out here in no man's land where he is constructing a massive weapons satellite called the Trigon One. Spherical seeker droids are dispatched to dispatch the interlopers, but a young girl wearing Rey's scavenger costume from The Force Awakens thirty years early helps them escape.

 

Later, the girl, one Kea Moll, visits Thall and Jord's shop seeking repairs for her ship, which she calls the Star Runner but was later retconned to be a Starrunner-class vessel called the The Sand Sloth, for... some reason. However, she only arrives in time to see Jord Dusat being abducted by "muscle droids" sent by the Fromm Gang to silence the trespassers, who saw and know nothing of Tig Fromm's evil plans. Kea meets up with Thall and the droids and they make a daring escape from more muscle droids, then set out to rescue Jord in Thall's hot rod landspeeder, the White Witch. 

The gang is able to infiltrate the Fromms' hideout using Artoo's technical skills and a lightsaber that a previous client of Thall's left behind. You would expect this to have been retconned at some point to be the lightsaber of some obscure Jedi character from the Star Wars RPG who no one has ever heard of but no, I don't think the identity of this mysterious lightsaber-owner was ever revealed. It hearkens back to the 1976 Star Wars novelization where Obi-Wan tells Luke that lightsabers are still used as tools in some parts of the galaxy; in this early era of the franchise, they weren't yet seen as belonging exclusively to the Jedi.

 

But maybe Thall Joben had a Jedi customer come into his shop and never knew it!

 

Artoo procures schematics of the base, then goes with Thall in the White Witch through the base's service tubes to reach the detention area where Jord is being held. Meanwhile, Threepio and Kea have to play an '80s arcade game to clear obstacles out of their path. Threepio is uncharacteristically useful and clever in this scene, as he quickly outwits a security droid that catches them in the act and causes it to violently explode by gently bumping into another droid.

 

Jord is in a random hallway in the custody of two security droids when the Witch comes blasting out of an elevator shaft. He climbs aboard and they make for the exit, stopping only to pick up Kea while Threepio chases frantically after them. They find their escape blocked by an army of droid cruisers, but Threepio again comes to the rescue by activating the Fromms' dormant Tower Droids, and the two groups of automata destroy one another.

 

The gang makes it to Kea's starship and blasts off for the planet Boonta, where Thall and Jord plan to enter the White Witch in the annual Boonta Speeder Race. Threepio tries to act like he's super cool for how he saved the day, then awkwardly falls over.

 

Very fun and charming if you're in the right mindset to watch a low-budget '80s children's cartoon. Anthony Daniels's voicework as C-3PO is on point and the opening theme slaps hard. Love everything about it except Thall Joben's Skrillex haircut.

 

The White Witch: A Droid Adventure

Author: Emily James

Illustrator: Bunny Carter

Medium: Picture book

Publication Date: December 1986

Timeline Placement: 15 BBY

 

This is an adaptation of the first episode of the 1985 animated series Droids: The Adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO. As such, it's not an original story, but I'm including it in this reading list anyway because it adapts EU-exclusive material.

Our story begins with R2-D2 and C-3PO already in the service of Thall Joben and his friend Jord Dusat. Thall and Jord are speeder racers whose landspeeder, the White Witch, may be the fastest ever built, or at least the fastest directly involved with this specific story. The only problem is, the duo have no way transporting the speeder from their homeworld of Ingo to the big speeder race on Boonta!

But while piloting the White Witch one day, the gang is attacked by a seeker drone. They manage to evade it, but don't evade the attention of a seventeen-year-old girl named Kea Moll. Later, after leaving Jord to work on the Witch, Thall and the droids are approached by Kea, who warns them that they blundered into the territory of the infamous Fromm Gang, and local gang boss Tig Fromm will be coming after them. They race back to the garage in time to see Jord being taken by Fromm thugs.

 

Thall wants to immediately give chase in the White Witch, but Kea suggests they wait until morning so they have better light. Thall rejects this idea, not because he's worried about Jord being tortured or killed in the intervening hours, but because the big race is tomorrow and he needs Jord ready to pilot the speeder by then.

They make their way to the Fromms' secret base and find Jord whining about being locked in a prison cell. Artoo cuts through the bars with his welding laser and they make their escape. Tig Fromm orders all his security droids deployed to stop the interlopers, but apparently the Fromm Tower Droids are programmed to attack anything they see. They open fire on the droid cruisers and all the Fromm droids destroy each other while the White Witch and her passengers get away.

Kea gives Thall and Jord a ride to Boonta on her spaceship, and all's well that ends well as Tig Fromm is taken into custody by the "space police." Threepio says something cowardly and everyone laughs at him, freeze frame, roll credits.

Cute book and very short, but I'd just watch the episode instead.

I ship them.

Separation Anxiety

 

Droids (1986) #5: Separated!

Writer: George Carragone

Penciler: Mary Wilshire

Medium: Comic

Publication date: September 1986

Timeline placement: 15 BBY

 

Ignore everything I said in the previous review about the Droids comics possibly being set a hundred years in the past, because issue #5 references the Galactic Empire by name, placing this story firmly within the lifetimes of the movie characters. I guess the explanation for the droids time-traveling a century into the future to meet the Ewoks is that no one working on this series had any clue what they were doing. 

Artoo and Threepio find themselves in search of a new master on the planet R-Duba, a backwater trading world governed by the young Prince Jagoda. A wall divides the planet into halves, and anyone wanting to travel from one side of the planet to the other has to pay a heavy travel tax. Just like in 1980s Berlin.

 

The droids come across The Droid Store, operated by one Van P. Quist. Kirk Windjammer, captain of the water-based cargo loader Seaskimmer, comes in and buys R2-D2 to help him run his business, but he has no need for a protocol droid. After a tearful separation, Threepio is left behind to languish. Eventually he's purchased by Baron Starlock, an adviser to the prince.

 

Kirk Windjammer, who gives no indication in the comic of being anything other than a native of R-Duba but was pointlessly retconned to being an immigrant from the prequel-era planet Vanqor, puts Artoo to work helping him pilot the Seaskimmer, which Artoo does by extending a number of mechanical arms from his face and jacking into the watercraft's computer console. On their first delivery job together, Artoo accidentally drops their cargo onto the deck of their customers' deck, revealing that the crates are full of illegal blasters. Surprise, it turns out they're working for disguised Skrulls trying to take over the planet!

 

Meanwhile, C-3PO is putting his translation skills to work in the palace of Prince Jagoda when his "advanced hearing" picks up a conversation between Baron Starlock and Skrull Ambassador Kawakal where they discuss their plans to assassinate the prince and and seize power. Threepio goes to warn the prince but Starlock's droid, BX-00, strikes first. Threepio beats the assassin to death with a piece of statuary, then sees himself promoted to the position of chief adviser as the two conspirators are banished.

 

Kirk Windjammer and R2-D2 arrive at the palace to warn the prince about the Skrulls' secret invasion, only to find Threepio being chauffeured through the gates in a purple space limo. "Artoo-Detoo! Oh, my! Artoo, it is you! It is you!" Threepio exclaims, as after 15 pages the two friends are reunited at last.

 

Using his newfound influence, Threepio is able to get Artoo and Kirk in the door to meet with the prince, who appoints Kirk in charge of the planet's defenses for some ineffable reason. Kirk and the droids lead a fleet of 20 ships to confront the Skrull invasion fleet, which for some reason is attacking from R-Duba's own ocean instead of, you know, space. The flagship's captain asks Threepio for orders, but before the chief adviser's hesitation and confusion have a chance to get everyone killed, the Skrulls call off their invasion and go home, cowed by the slightest pretense of resistance.

 

The prince asks what he can do to repay Kirk Windjammer, who did nothing. Kirk replies, "Mr. Jagoda, tear down this wall." The droids sneak away in the middle of the night, leaving a note that names Kirk as C-3PO's replacement as chief adviser. Kirk accepts the job, and his first piece of advice to the prince that they never forget those two droids who saved their planet and ended the threat of communism for all time.

 

These Droids comics are fun but exhausting. Every issue introduces an all-new cast, location, and premise, but eventually ends up feeling pretty samey. It would have been nice to see some longer story arcs, but that won't happen until Dark Horse's Droids comics in the '90s. So it might be for the best that the droids' early adventures only lasted for five issues. Just like R2-D2 and C-3PO during their servitude to their various masters, this cute little comic knew not to stick around long enough to wear out its welcome.

Somewhere in Time

Droids (1986) #4: Lost in Time!

Writer: David Manak

Penciler: John Romita Sr. and Warren Kremer

Medium: Comic

Publication date: July 1986

Timeline placement: 15 BBY; 1 ABY

 

The droids' next assignment finds them working as diplomatic couriers for the Republic Diplomatic Corps. They arrive on the planet Sooma at the palace of King Zornog, where... I'm not sure what they were actually going there to do, because it turns out that Prince Plooz, the toddler-aged son of King Gokus of the planet Alzar, has mysteriously stowed away on a Sooman freighter and ended up in King Zornog's court, where he is attempting to throttle the king with a piece of cloth. The droids save him, and in gratitude the king gives them the mission of escorting Prince Plooz back to his homeworld to avoid an interstellar war between Sooma and Alzar.

 

But the prince's disappearance has been a ploy engineered by Alzarian General Sludd, who wants Alzar and Sooma to destroy each other so he can conquer both planets. And rule over the ashes, I guess? This plan doesn't seem very thought out. 

Artoo and Threepio are en route to Alzar with Prince Plooz aboard their courier ship, where we learn that ships in Star Wars apparently have food synthesizers and power their faster-than-light engines with antimatter, just like in Star Trek. General Sludd's armada appears and opens fire on the droids, trying to assassinate Prince Plooz and hoping that King Gokus blames it on the Soomans, I guess. Sludd stupidly reveals his identity and evil plan on the viewscreen. I'm sure that won't come back to bite him.

 

Prince Plooz tries to help by pulling a lever that disrupts the courier ship's antimatter pods. The only way to escape certain doom is to jump to lightspeed without full antimatter, which naturally creates a rip in the spacetime continuum. The droids and Prince Plooz find themselves flying through a starless black void, finally emerging in a strange region of space. R2-D2 reports that they have gone through a time warp and traveled 100 years into the future!

 

Sadly this chronology did not stand the test of continuity; ultimately they only travel about 16 to 18 years into the future, and the EU's only explanation for Artoo's misstatement is to amend it to "anywhere from ten to one hundred years." But it's cool to think about how this date must have been chosen at the time. The 1986 Droids comics were produced as tie-ins to the Droids animated series, which had aired on TV the previous year. The cartoon has several references and appearances that set it during the reign of the Galactic Empire, requiring it to take place relatively close to the Original Trilogy. The comics, on the other hand, have no references to the Empire, or any other established Star Wars institutions or locations. One issue does feature an appearance by the Fromm Gang, but their race, the Annoo-dat, was established in the animated series to be able to live for centuries. The final piece of the puzzle is C-3PO's backstory prior to The Phantom Menace, which came directly from George Lucas and had Threepio being built on the planet Affa 112 years before the OT. So if it hadn't been for the Star Wars prequels featuring the first meeting between R2-D2 and C-3PO, these comics could officially be placed around 100 BBY, which would have been awesome.

 

But instead George Lucas changed his mind and made something way dumber. Anyway, the droids land on Endor and meet the E-e-e-e-ewoks. CONTINUED NEXT ISSUE! 

Ewoks #10: The Demons of Endor

Writer: David Manak

Penciler: Warren Kremer and John Romita Sr.

Medium: Comic

Publication date: July 1986

Timeline placement: 1 ABY; 15 BBY

Prince Plooz lauches himself out of the ship in an escape pod and lands on the Forest Moon below, where the Ewoks find him and mistake him for a magical Star Child bringing good fortune for their forthcoming peace treaty with the Duloks. The adult Ewoks take the Star Child back to their village, but Wicket and Princess Kneesaa dawdle and are left behind, whereupon they come across R2-D2 and C-3PO searching the swamp for the lost prince. "Omigosh, Wicket, look!" cries Kneesaa. "Demons!"

 

The droids give chase, asking the young Ewoks if they've seen Prince Plooz, and they all blunder into a deadly booby trap set by the Duloks. A giant boulder falls off a mountain to crush them, but Artoo balances himself on his retractable middle foot and rotates his other two legs 180 degrees over his head, catching the boulder and tossing it harmlessly over the back of his head.

 

What. 

C-3PO starts speaking the Ewok language, calling it an obscure dialect of the Inner Zuma region. Weirdly he's completely fluent in it in this comic despite barely understanding what they were saying when he had to translate for them in Return of the Jedi. He explains the whole situation about the interstellar frog prince and the two warring planets and the Ewok children completely understand what he's talking about.

 

They take the droids back to their village to warn Chief Chirpa and the others of the Duloks' treachery, but everyone has already gone out to meet the Duloks and sign the treaty. Logray, the old medicine man, comes running out and levitates the droids with his wizard staff, also mistaking them for demons, but Wicket and Kneesa set him straight and they all run off to the peace treaty making place.

 

Meanwhile, King Gorneesh and his Duloks are waiting to murder the Ewoks when they show up. Chief Chirpa comes in waving the Star Child over his head like a moron but King Gorneesh snatches Prince Plooz away and dangles him over a pit. But the droids show up and the sun reflects off C-3PO, making the Duloks think he's a demon. Man there are some weird demons on this moon.

  

"Unhand that child, you ruffians!" Threepio demands. The Duloks drop him and run for their lives.

"Droids! Droids! Me come!" Prince Plooz shouts, then falls into the chasm. Wicket swings down on a rope to catch him and all is well. 

 

Threepio recaps the whole story yet again, and even the Ewok elders understand the stakes involved with flying a spaceship through a time void. 

The droids and Prince Plooz return to their own time through the portal, which is identified in StarWars.com's 2013 blog article The Droids Re-Animated as the Endor Gate, the infamous wormhole that transported Darth Vader's indestructible gauntlet across the galaxy from Endor to Mon Calamari (don't ask). The indication given in the story itself is that the droids traveled back in time by creating a wormhole that collapsed at the end of the issue. But the Endor Gate is a black hole, and judging by the Bermuda Triangle-level of legends that are supposed to surround it, it seems like it should have been around longer than 20 years. Also they were nowhere near Endor when they flew into it.

Anyway, General Sludd is still up to no good but Artoo plays a recording of his self-confessed crimes to the king, the conspirators are taken into custody, and all is well.

The Droids and Ewoks crossover is infamous in the EU fandom as one of the very few canonical instances of time travel in Star Wars. For years I labored under the assumption that this comic explained why the Ewoks revere C-3PO as a golden god when they see him in Return of the Jedi. The Droids Re-Animated even says as much: "The fascinated Ewoks helped the droids find the missing child, so awed by C-3PO's shiny exterior that they assumed him to be a god. Thus, when he returned to Endor years later, they recognized him immediately and dropped to their knees in reverence."

But really that isn't the case at all. Initially the Ewoks mistake Threepio for a demon, not a god, and even run from him in fear or attack him. By the end of the story, though, he's explained his real identity to them and they completely understand what's going on. Then when he returns to Endor only three years have passed. The Ewoks the Rebels met then are the same Ewoks in this comic! They already know who C-3PO is, they just met him a couple of years ago, and they never thought he was a god in the first place. But when they meet again in the movie, neither appears to remember the other.

I had high hopes for this story after Part 1, but Part 2 completely blew it. The droids should have gone back in time to Endor's past, to the earliest days of Ewok civilization, and accidentally created a religious myth that was passed down for generations. Then when he finally returns, the Ewoks think it's scripture coming true. But instead of doing a cute little time loop story where Threepio unwittingly invents his own divinity, they made an unnecessary jumble of continuity where the Ewoks worshiping him makes no sense now. I'm sorry to say that David Manak and the crew at Star Comics completely dropped the ball on this one.

 

 

On the other hand, Prince Plooz is completely hilarious and adorable. I want him to come live with me. Lucasfilm could have been cashing in on the Baby Yoda merch craze decades earlier if they'd made some Prince Plooz plushies. Unfortunately the only time we'll ever see him again is when he returns to Endor in some ambiguously canon German comic.

Wolf in the Fold

Droids (1986) #3: The Scarlet Pirate!

Writer: David Manak

Penciler: John Romita Sr.

Medium: Comic

Publication date: May 1986

Timeline placement: 15 BBY

R2-D2 and C-3PO have been purchased by Ambassador Zell of the planet Majoor, who puts them to work babysitting his son Llez while he's away performing his diplomatic duties. Llez is a spoiled brat whose father doesn't love him enough and buys him expensive toys to compensate. 

 

Llez is a huge fan of the adventure show Space Pirates of the Galaxy, and imagines himself to be a swashbuckling buccaneer called the Scarlet Pirate. He also idolizes the real-life space pirate Redjac, a noncorporeal lifeform who travels from planet to planet, possessing people's bodies and committing serial murders to feed on the resulting garmonbozia (pain and sorrow). Just then, a news broadcast cuts into the program: Redjac has been captured and is, coincidentally, being brought to prison right here on Majoor! Llez takes one of the family landspeeders and rushes off to rescue his hero, with the droids in hot pursuit.

 

Llez uses a magno-neutralizer to deactivate the droid guards escorting Redjac to the prison and they steal the guards' police ship to escape the planet, with Artoo and Threepio arriving close behind and just managing to sneak onboard. Llez tells Redjac about how he feels neglected by his father and reveals that the ambassador is currently leading a convoy of ships on a peace mission to the planet Armath. "I AM WITHOUT ENDING. I HAVE EXISTED FROM THE DAWN OF TIME AND I SHALL LIVE BEYOND ITS END. IN THE MEANTIME I SHALL FEED, AND THIS TIME I DO NOT NEED A KNIFE," says Redjac commiseratingly.

 

They arrive on Redjac's ship, the Blood Brother, where his pirate gang, the Red Fury Brotherhood, prepares to attack Ambassador Zell's convoy. Llez protests that this is wrong, but the brigands reveal the true nature of pirates, shattering the boy's childhood delusions. Redjac mistakes Artoo and Threepio for pirate droids on his crew and orders them to take Llez to the brig. 

 

Llez dries his tears and vows to save his father. He and the droids find the ship's control room, where Llez dropkicks the two-headed Dyclops gunner firing plasma torpedoes at the ambassador's ships. Artoo jacks into the computer console and orders the torpedoes to self-destruct, saving the convoy. Zell leads a security team aboard the Blood Brother, where Llez and the droids have already taken out most of the pirates via cartoonish antics. "I was a fool to make a hero of you, Redjac!" Llez declares.

 

Redjac puts Llez in a headlock and orders the droids to stand back. "YOU WILL ALL DIE HORRIBLY IN SEARING PAIN!" he promises, adding, "REDJAC! REDJAC! REDJAC! REDJAC! REDJAC!" Ambassador Zell arrives and beats the shit out of Redjac, revealing himself to be a former Republic Space Ranger, just like Buzz Lightyear. As Redjac is taken away by the ambassador's guards, Zell and Llez restore their father-son bond, with Zell promising that Llez will accompany him on all his diplomatic missions from now on. "That sounds super boring, Dad!" says Llez.

 

Threepio sighs dejectedly with the understanding that they are no longer needed here and have lost yet another master, but "this time.. it was worth it!" I don't think that's how property ownership works, but okay.

 

Next time, the droids babysit another green alien child! Also, time travel! Stay tuned!

Existentialism on Fromm Night

Droids (1986) #2: The Ultimate Weapon!

Writer: David Manak

Penciler: John Romita Sr.

Medium: Comic

Publication date: March 1986

Timeline placement: 15 BBY

Apparently it was an Intergalactic Droid Agency shuttle that picked up Artoo and Threepio from Dodz, because that's where they are at the start of issue #2. Artoo's condition continues to deteriorate and he's on the verge of blowing up when Nikki Idd, co-captain of the vessel along with her brother Vik, inserts an energy feedback shield into R2-D2 to contain his excess energy. Their father, Lonn, will be able to repair Artoo, but Threepio explains the existential despair that droids feel when they don't have a master, so the two teens agree to act as their temporary masters until they arrive at Lonn's droid repair shop.

 

When they arrive, however, their father is nowhere to be found. The droids stay with Vik while Nikki goes off to find him, only to be captured by Tig Fromm and Vlix Oncard, members of the notorious criminal organization, the Fromm Gang. The Fromms have been attempting to coerce Lonn Idd into installing his new laser device onto their ship. When they threaten Nikki's life, he finally agrees. 

 

Thinking quickly, Nikki is able to push a button on the nearby computer console, transmitting a video feed back to her brother and the droids. Alerted to the intruders, our heroes set out to stop them, while Lonn sets to work installing his laser and Nikki is locked in a broom closet. '

 

Vik and the droids discover a non-functional Guardian Droid owned by Lonn, later retconned as an HK Guardian Droid, presumably making it of the same lineage as HK-47 from Knights of the Old Republic and HK-01, who led the Great Droid Revolution on Coruscant in 4015 BBY. HK Guardian Droids were known for being impervious to blasterfire, but Lonn Idd didn't allow any weapons on his space station, so R2-D2 volunteers himself to be their weapon.

 

Vik and and the droids confront the Fromms. Vik removes Artoo's energy shield, and Artoo starts bleeding electricity everywhere. Vik is able to free his sister from the closet, but Artoo is blasted by a Fromm hover guard droid and taken out of commission. The Idds are all taken prisoner, leaving C-3PO to save the day. 

After Lonn finishes installing his laser on Tig Fromm's ship, the Fromms decide to test it by killing the entire Idd family. But just then, the HK Guardian Droid comes in, its armor deflecting the blaster bolts of the hover guards. "Now it's my turn, you mechanical insects!" shouts Threepio from inside the Guardian Droid armor, destroying all the hover guards with his fists. Nikki blinds Tig Fromm with a spray of her perfume because she's a girl, then Vik drops a net on the Fromm Gang. Lonn promises them that they'll face justice, which of course they won't because they're the villains of the first story arc of the Droids animated series.

 

Later, Lonn finishes repairing Artoo and tells the droids that Nikki and Vik will take them back to the Intergalactic Droid Agency to be assigned to a new master. However, Artoo refuses to leave until someone fills him in on what he missed. Everybody laughs for some reason.

One thing I really appreciated about this issue is the art design and coloring. I like the colors used on R2-D2 by Al Williamson and/or Jon D'Agostino, the credited inkers on this issue. He's primarily white, yellow, and red, completely the wrong colors. He looks like a cheap Star Wars knockoff you'd find at the dollar store, a toy labeled something like STAR ROBOT and having nothing but blank cardboard on the back of its package. He looks so awesome.

 

I also love the Idds' cheesy-looking space jumpsuits, like costumes out of Lost in Space. The decades' worth of styles, designs, and influences spanned by the EU were among its greatest attributes, and really helped create the sense that this was a whole universe with different fashions and cultures, and the (frequently underutilized) potential to tell any kind of story you could imagine. Modern Star Wars continuity begins in the mid-2010s and everything sucks.

From the Adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO

 

Droids (1986) #1: The Destroyer 

Writer: David Manak

Penciler: John Romita Sr.

Medium: Comic

Publication date: February 1986

Timeline placement: 15 BBY

 

 

Four years after the rise of the Galactic Empire and the deletion of C-3PO's memory of the Star Wars prequels (were we all so lucky), the lovable droids are now in the employ of the Intergalactic Droid Agency, having found themselves lost in space due to the incompetence of Tantive IV nepo hire Corla Metonae. The agency has set them up with a new master on the planet Dodz in the Outer Rim Territories.

 

The droids arrive at the home of their master, Lott Kemp, only to find it burned to the ground and Kemp himself nowhere in sight. They encounter a young boy named Jost Ellon, who tells them that Kemp was driven off-world by the corrupt Governor Kugg for refusing to pay his taxes. The citizens of Dodz live in fear of the governor's giant combat droid, the Destroyer, which he uses to extort the populace. 

 

The droids adopt Jost as their new master and accompany the orphan home to his dilapidated hovel. There they discover that Jost has unknowingly scavenged an antique Ranger X-1 defense droid. They explain its history and what it is to the boy, who hopes that they can use it to free the planet of Kugg's tyranny. Unfortunately, the droid has corroded power cells and will not be able to remain active for long.

 

Jost Ellon and his three droids travel to the monthly town council meeting, where the citizens are voting on a resolution to stand up to Kugg and refuse his demands for higher taxes. Governor Kugg himself walks in and declares that their taxes are now tripled, with the Destroyer bursting through the wall to emphasize his point. As the adults all kowtow before Kugg, only Jost has the courage to stand up to him, pitting his X-1 against the Destroyer.

 

At first the X-1 clobbers its opponent, but as its power cells run dry it starts to lose the fight. But Artoo intervenes, hooking himself up to both droids and transferring power from the Destroyer to the X-1. The battle resumes, and when it's over the Destroyer has been destroyed, with the X-1 left standing tall. Governor Kugg is taken into custody to await intergalactic trial.

 

The day has been won and the citizens of Dodz are now free, but Artoo sustained "some pretty serious microsynapse damage" during the fight, so he and Threepio have to leave their new master to find someone with the skills to repair him. It's unclear if they call a shuttle to come pick them up or if the people of Dodz just give them their own spaceship, but as the droids blast off back into space and their next adventure, Artoo asks, "Dok-do-eet-denn?" To which Threepio replies that of course he's proud of him.

 

Definitely child-oriented but still plenty enjoyable. I like the idea of the droids as Kwai-Chang Caine-type characters wandering backwater worlds beyond the Empire's notice and helping people in need when they can. What adventure awaits them next!

Second Death

FIRST LIFE

 

 

Although C-3PO achieved consciousness in a Mos Espa slave hovel, his frame is actually quite old, and some of his components date back a century, forged on the mechanized world of Affa. 

– StarWars.com Databank

SECOND LIFE

 

 

Young Anakin Skywalker cobbled together enough pieces to give Threepio new life. He was more than a run-of-mill Cybot Galactica 3PO-unit. His salvaged nature imbued in him special qualities that set him a brand apart from his droid cousins.

– StarWars.com Databank

 

Memory Loss...

Writer: Christopher Cooper

Penciler: Andres Ponce
Medium: Comic

Publication date: December 2014 in Star Wars Comic #13

Timeline placement: 19 BBY

 

At the end of Revenge of the Sith, C-3PO is being led away to be mind-wiped aboard the Tantive IV Sundered Heart Bail Organa's Starship by Raymus Antilles Colton Antilles Jeremoch Colton the captain. The captain is called away to the bridge and assigns R2-D2 the task of murdering his friend. As Threepio is marched to his execution, he laments that they were unable to save Padmé, and recalls how happy he was assisting her on diplomatic missions, mentioning how valuable the secret information in his memory banks is. 

I fully expected that Artoo would try to help Threepio avoid his fate but instead he cheerfully puts him into the brain drain machine and is about to throw the switch when he gets blasted. A bounty hunter droid has infiltrated the ship looking for information to sell to the new Empire, and after overhearing their conversation he's set his sights on C-3PO's memory banks. 

 

Threepio realizes that his knowledge could lead the Empire to baby Luke and Leia. He knows he must protect the children, but he's too clumsy, awkward, and useless to do anything. Plus his arms don't even bend. He wishes Artoo would wake up and save the day like he always does. "He'd do something silly and brave and selfless, like... Oh, of course."

 

Threepio wrestles the bounty hunter's vibroblade away from him, then pushes the two of them into the memory-wiping machine. Knowing the twins will be in danger as long as he remembers them, C-3PO activates the machine, erasing his own memory and finally getting the heroic moment Anthony Daniels always wanted, five years before J. J. Abrams had him do the same exact thing in The Rise of Skywalker. 

As his memory banks are deleted, Threepio's life flashes before his photoreceptors, culminating with his earliest memory:

 

 

Then nothing.

THIRD LIFE