The Pirates and the Prince

The Revenge of Kylo Ren

Writer: Peter Sauder

Medium: Television

Air Date: October 26, 1985 

Timeline Placement: 15 BBY

 

It's the night of the peace talks between Mon Julpa, rightful king of Tammuz-an, and the renegade barbarian warlord Malameu Toda. Toda distrusts Julpa for reasons that we're never told, but the droids' bungled delivery of a giant cake that ends up smashed over C-3PO's head helps to lighten the mood. While Julpa makes time with Toda's daughter, Princess Gerin, Jann Tosh and R2-D2 do some work on Jann's R-22 Spearhead, but Threepio accidentally seals the cockpit, locking them inside. He goes to look for Jessica Meade to help get it open and happens across Jyn Obah, first mate of the Dread Pirate Kylo Ren, freeing his boss from Mon Julpa's dungeon, where he was imprisoned off-screen at the end of the last episode.

 

The escaping pirates happen across Julpa and Gerin taking a moonlight stroll. While Jann watches impotently from the cockpit of his Spearhead, the pirates blast Julpa with a mini-stunner, but the princess handily disarms them, kicks Jyn Obah's ass, and holds Kylo Ren at stunner-point. Woke!

 

For no reason at all, Threepio then bungles in and attacks Kylo Ren, perhaps attempting to use the fabled martial art of gravik-nez once again. His incompetence allows Kylo to take back the stunner, which he uses to knock out Princess Gerin. Jann escapes from his starfighter by pushing on the canopy slightly harder than he had been before, but he too is stunned and drops like a sack of steak knives. 

 

Kylo grabs Gerin and jumps into the open cockpit of a different Spearhead, because Jann's is just too iconic for him to steal. Jess chooses this moment to come running out of the palace, but because she's relieved not to be the damsel in distress this time she just stands around and does nothing. 

 

Lord Toda demands C-3PO's execution, but Jann says no and then he forgets about it. Kylo Ren sends them a ransom Skype call demanding the return of his ship and the release of his crew. This includes Jyn Obah, who was left behind to take his boss's place in Julpa's dungeon. Determined to make up for his earlier blunders, Threepio goes to see him and desperately begs him to reveal where Kylo has taken the princess to spare himself the horrors of the palace torture droid (R2-D2 with all his appendages sticking out). Terrified, Jyn Obah reveals that Kylo has a hideout on one of the moons of Bogden. But not the same moon of Bogden where Darth Tyranus hired Jango Fett to become the template for the clone army. A different moon of Bogden. The "bog moon of Bogden," to be precise.

 

Jann, Jessica, and the droids stage a commando mission to rescue the princess. They infiltrate the pirate hideout, where Threepio says that Artoo's sensors detect two human lifeforms, one on an upper floor and one on a lower floor. This is peculiar, because neither Gerin nor Kylo Ren is human. Jann and Threepio investigate one reading, while Jess and Artoo head for the other. The latter two discover Kylo's command room, but they are unable to reach him because he's protected by a force field. Sentient vines tie up Jess and hang her upside down from the ceiling while Kylo makes his getaway.

 

Meanwhile, Gerin has escaped from her cell but is surrounded by a pack of ravenous SungWons. Threepio lures the beasts away, allowing Jann to get to Gerin. They find the golden droid dismembered but undigested, and together they head back to the hangar. There they meet Jess and Artoo, who saved the day with his little cutting arm, but they are soon surrounded by Kylo Ren and his pirate crew, who Lord Toda has set free in an attempt to save his daughter. 

 

But Toda and Julpa were working together all along. A secret compartment opens in the pirate vessel, and Tammuz-anian troops rush out to apprehend the pirates. Kylo Ren makes a run for it but trips over C-3PO's broken metal body. He is taken back into custody along with his crew, spelling the end of the illustrious career of the Dread Pirate Kylo Ren and the Pirates of Tarnoonga.

 

Our heroes all return to Tammuz-an, where Julpa and Toda finally sign the peace treaty so Julpa can bang Toda's daughter. Jess abruptly announces that she's exiting the show, leaving Jann distraught over never making it to first base. Toda's son, Coby, asks Threepio how the droids managed to apprehend the most dangerous pirate gang in the galaxy, and C-3PO explains that he got by with a little help from his friends.

 

Tune in again next time, where this story arc drags on for another episode even though everything has already been resolved. 

 

Las Aventuras de R2-D2 y C-3PO

MyComyc #4: Sabotaged Droid

Writer: Uncredited (translated by Abel G. Peña)

Penciler: Beaumont Studios

Medium: Comic

Publication date: 1986

Timeline placement: 15 BBY

 

Meanwhile, in another universe, Jann Tosh and the droids travel to a communication satellite belonging to the planet Roon. The droids don't go to Roon until the series' third story arc, after they've left Jann's service. I guess technically they could have been there before, but the planet is treated like a big mystery later in the cartoon so that would be weird. In this comic, they technically don't land on the actual planet, so there's that at least. Or maybe it's a different planet called Roon. Or maybe it doesn't matter because this is clearly non-canon.

 

Anyway, Jann is here to visit his old friend, Professor Smith. Unfortunately, they've arrived just as the professor's droid, XR, has been taken over by the evil General Koong. Curiouser and curiouser, the cartoon's Roon arc features a villain called Governor Koong, but that character is a human being and this one is a green alien. That might be enough to call them different characters who coincidentally have the same name, but Jann is also drawn completely differently; in this comic he looks more like the Mad Max version of Carrot Top.

 

R2-D2 fires a blaster, which he apparently now has built in to his chassis, into some kind of reflective surface mounted on the wall. Is it a mirror? Perhaps the viewscreen that Governor Koong was calling on in the previous panel? Who knows, the point is that Artoo's blaster bolt bounces back and shoots off XR's head. Note that the panel depicts XR standing approximately one foot away from Artoo, so he could have just turned his head 90 degrees and shot XR directly, thus saving the trouble of calculating the ricochet.

 

"Your blasters deserve a hurrah, R2-D2!" says C-3PO. 

 

"General Koong will be getting a big surprise..." agrees Jann. "Ha, ha, ha!" 

 

Ha, ha, ha indeed.

 

MyComyc #5: Troublesome Outing

Writer: Uncredited (translated by Abel G. Peña)

Penciler: Beaumont Studios

Medium: Comic

Publication date: 1986

Timeline placement: 15 BBY

 

This comic begins with the droids enjoying a peaceful outing while Jann goes shopping. Suddenly, C-3PO falls through a hidden trapdoor in the ground and finds himself in the laboratory of Professor Broom, a sadistic kleptomaniac who steals droids and conducts experiments on them until they're scrap. 

 

"Look at them! They're inactive because I deactivated their memory diskettes! You'll end up the same! Ha, ha!"

 

Suddenly, Jann and Artoo burst in, coming to the rescue! But Professor Broom has the drop on them and is about to shoot them with his blaster. "You forgot about me... and I am active!" says C-3PO. He cracks the professor over the back of the head with a metal pipe, presumably killing him.

 

FIN  

 

Droids: Rescue in the Mine 

Author: Unknown 

Illustrator: Unknown 

Medium: Picture book

Publication date: 1986

Timeline placement: 15 BBY 

 

Jann Tosh and the droids, along with Jessica Meade, have returned to Tyne's Horky to visit Uncle Gundy. While Threepio prepares a classy banquet, there is another cave-in at Uncle Gundy's mine. Artoo manages to save Gundy and several of his miners but Jann and the rest are still trapped inside. "Bip-pi-pi-ta-scrof-ta," says Artoo. That sounds just like him.

 

Jessica and the droids dig through the rubble and are able to free Jann and the miners. They make a break for the exit and just manage to escape before the whole place comes down around their ears. "Well, now we'll have to start rebuilding the mine," Uncle Gundy complains. Yeah, I hope you build it a little more OSHA-compliant this time, asshole. 

 

No, not that Osha.

Droids: Holiday in Tammuz-An

Author: Unknown 

Illustrator: Unknown 

Medium: Picture book

Publication date: 1986

Timeline placement: 15 BBY 

 

We now begin our transition back to the tale of The Pirates and the Prince. Jann and the droids are on their way back to Tammuz-an, this time with Uncle Gundy accompanying them for a vacation. I guess after his mine collapsed he figured this was a good time for a little R&R. Unfortunately, they arrive to find that all is not well on Tammuz-an. The Dread Pirate Kylo Ren has returned with his flagship, the Dianoga, and has been menacing Mon Julpa's world in an attempt to steal its reserves of Nergon, "the most dangerous element in the universe." I think this ambiguously official children's book is the only source for Nergon (presumably Nergon-14, the element Kleb Zellock was mining for the Empire on Tyne's Horky a few episodes earlier) apparently being abundant on Tammuz-an, but I guess this can explain why Kylo Ren is intent on harassing the Tammuz-anians in the next episode of the cartoon, maybe?

 

Jann and Mon Julpa devise a plan to drive off the pirates for the rest of this book so Uncle Gundy can enjoy his vacation in peace. While Jann and the droids distract the Dianoga, Mon Julpa's space fleet sneaks up on it from behind and shoots lasers at it until the pirates retreat. "The intergalactic police won't let him go so soon," C-3PO declares. "Kylo Ren won't be bothering us again!" Oh, Threepio, if you only knew how wrong you are! 

 

Needless to say, all of these aventuras españolas are muy sin sentido. However, they are also very short and very harmless. I wouldn't spend a second trying to track them down, but if you already have them in front of you, you could do as lot worse as far as Star Wars Expanded Universe stories go. You could be reading something by Troy Denning. 😬

Who Disrupts My Coronation?

The New King

Writer: Peter Sauder

Medium: Television

Air Date: October 12, 1985 

Timeline Placement: 15 BBY

 

The tale of deposed monarch Mon Julpa's quest to retake the throne of Tammuz-an continues. Jann Tosh and the droids accompany their friend back to his homeworld aboard a transport ship piloted by Jessica Meade, a badass tramp freighter captain who, as the female lead of these episodes, suffers the unfortunate fate of being repeatedly kidnapped and gooned over by various ne'er-do-wells throughout this arc.

 

Jessica Meade (left), alias "Old Iron Pants" because of her fat ass.

Jessica's ship comes under fire by space pirates, led by the Dread Pirate Kylo Ren. They get away in an escape pod as the Corsalys is destroyed, but the infamous droid bounty hunter IG-88 arrives, having been hired to capture Julpa, and chases the pirates away. They're introduced as such an insignificant threat, it's hard to believe they're the primary villains of this arc.

 

More exciting is the appearance of IG-88, making his chronologically earliest appearance in the EU outside of his era-spanning short story "Therefore I Am: The Tale of IG-88." As with Boba Fett's appearance in the previous episode, this helps us narrow down the date for that story. IG-88, as you know, is a rogue assassin droid-turned-bounty hunter designed and constructed by the Imperial scientists at Holowan Laboratories. Immediately after his consciousness came online, IG-88 murdered his creators and escaped, later appearing as a background extra in The Empire Strikes Back and as the scariest video game boss ever in Shadows of the Empire. Despite "Therefore I Am" receiving a full entry in Pablo Hidalgo's The Essential Reader's Companion, a Star Wars guidebook written to definitively place every Expanded Universe story in exact chronological sequence, it didn't do that, so we still have no idea when the Holowan massacre takes place. Thanks to this episode of Droids, though, we know it must have been before 15 BBY. Who cares!

 

Jessica was wounded in the battle so our heroes drop her off at a local Tammuz-an hospital, where she gets kidnapped off-screen. Threepio just explains this later in expository dialogue. Meanwhile, Zatec-Cha, the treacherous grand vizier who deposed Mon Julpa and erased his memories, sends his henchman Vinga to spy on the Best Friends Gang. Jann and the droids chase after him, leaving Mon Julpa behind to be immediately captured by IG-88.

 

IG-88 brings Mon Julpa before Zatec-Cha and hands over the all-important royal scepter, the magical artifact whose presentation to the Keeper of the Temple at the first sun of the equinox is the sole determinant of the Tammuz-an throne. Zatec-Cha has Jessica locked in an energy cage and taunts her with his dastardly plan to make her watch him feed Mon Julpa to a monster. Some classic Star Wars stuff.

 

Having nothing better to do, Jann and the droids infiltrate the palace to rescue their friends. They trigger a cartoon booby trap that breaks the laws of physics and end up accidentally wandering through a backdoor into the monster pit, where Mon Julpa is trying to evade the claws of the dreaded durkii.

 

Get real.

Above the pit, Zatec-Cha and Vinga watch the show with Jessica, who is rendered helpless by two guards holding her by the Standard Female Grab Area. "I would like to stay and watch, but I am well aware of the outcome!" Zatec-Cha cackles. Why does anyone even bother having a grand vizier anymore? Has there ever been one who wasn't evil?

 

Anyway the bad guys leave for the coronation, dragging Jessica along with them because they need a chick for the after-party. It looks like our heroes are doomed to digestion, but Artoo extends his arc welder appendage and starts zapping the blue scales on the monster's tail, causing them to fall off. It turns out that they aren't scales, but kleex! Aka space ticks. His itch alleviated, the durkii immediately becomes docile. Artoo wants to keep him as a pet, but Threepio says absolutely not.

 

The gang races to the palace hangar, where Zatec-Cha is trying to force Jessica into a skiff. Realizing he can get all the bitches he wants when he's king, he lets her go and books it for the temple, scepter in hand. A short episode of Wacky Races ensues, culminating with everyone arriving at the temple, where Jessica knocks the scepter from Zatec-Cha's hands and it is caught by who the vizier believes to be his henchman, Vinga. But "Vinga" tosses the scepter to Mon Julpa, who presents it to the Keeper of the Temple and reclaims his throne. Vinga disrobes, revealing himself to be C-3PO standing on R2-D2's dome, while the real Vinga runs around in his underwear with a vase stuck on his head.

 

The episode is basically over at this point but what the hell is this? When did the droids have time to steal Vinga's clothes, and why would they bother? More importantly, why couldn't Zatec-Cha tell that this eight-foot-tall imposter wearing a bag over its head wasn't his minion? This ruse didn't even have any effect on Threepio returning the scepter to Julpa so it was completely pointless anyway.

 

As Zatec-Cha is taken away to prison, he swears vengeance, promising that his spies will finish Mon Julpa for good. Later, at the coronation party, a couple of guys get caught by the palace guards. As a kid I always thought that these were the spies Zatec-Cha was talking about, but actually they were just randos stealing silverware or something. Zatec-Cha's threats are never realized and he vanishes from the Star Wars saga forever. 

 

No great loss.