Episodic Nostalgia: Beast Wars II

 

Airdate: April 1, 1998 – January 27, 1999

 

Beast Wars II and its sequel, Beast Wars Neo, were anime series produced to fill time between the Japanese broadcasts of the first and second seasons of Beast Wars. They have no connection to the plot of Beast Wars; in fact, in Japanese continuity, they take place tens of thousands of years in the future, long after the ending of Beast Machines. However, at least one American continuity (namely the Beast Wars comics by IDW Publishing that ran from 2006 to 2016) posits the existence of a second Great War following the conclusion of the Great War between the Autobots and Decepticons. In this continuity, the Maximals and Predacons fought a war of their own sometime between the events of G1 and Beast Wars. The two Beast Wars anime take place during this war, making them distant prequels to Beast Wars in American continuity. When Optimus Primal's and Megatron's character bios in Dawn of Future's Past mention them being veterans of the Great War, they're referring to the more recent conflict.

Yes, Dawn of the Predacus does completely ignore this retcon, despite being published by IDW! It's the worst of both worlds: Primal and Megatron are still war veterans, which contradicts Beast Wars, but they're veterans of the Autobot-Decepticon Great War, which really contradicts Beast Wars. Why am I still talking about this schlock? Let's talk about Beast Wars II instead! Not all of it, though, because it's a filler show composed of mostly filler episodes.

Episode 1: The New Forces Arrive!

 

While on a routine space patrol, Maximal Commander Convoy vanishes after an explosion in an asteroid field. Without their leader, his squad becomes bereft and shiftless, and are quick to jump into action when they receive a distress call saying that Predacons under the command of Galvatron (not the G1 Galvatron, who’s dead as per Dawn of the Predacus; like Beast Wars Megatron, this guy renamed himself after one of his historical heroes; unlike Megatron, he absolutely cannot pull off that purple color scheme) are invading the planet Gaea to steal its Angolmois Energy. They arrive at the planet and their ship is immediately shot down. Radiation levels on Gaea force them to adopt beast modes. There is Tasmanian Kid, a Tasmanian devil; Scuba, a squid; Diver, a frog; Bighorn, a bison; and Apache, an offensive Native American stereotype. The Maximals are are quickly captured by Galvatron’s forces but saved by a mysterious white lion. Who could this lion be?

 

Episode 2: White Lion, Run!

 

It’s Convoy! By an astonishing coincidence, when his ship went down while investigating the asteroid field, he ended up here, on the same planet his crew would soon come to investigate for unrelated reasons. Kimba the white lion saved his life after the crash, so he adopted its form as his beast mode and is now known as Lio Convoy. Meanwhile, Galvatron discovers an ancient underground supercomputer and uses it to upgrade his alt mode to the most powerful weapon in this planet’s recorded history. He becomes so powerful that he goes into a coma for three episodes.

 

Episode 5: Galvatron Revived

Megastorm, the younger brother of Galvatron, fears his brother will come out of his coma and reclaim his title of Emperor of Destruction, so he decides to throw him down a pit and bury him alive. He’s unable to complete his plan, however, when the Anglomois Energy in the pit predictably rejuvenates Galvatron. He sets off to get revenge against the Maximals, who he thinks tried to kill him in his sleep. He proves more than a match for all of them put together with his powerful drill-tank vehicle mode and penis-dragon beast mode, but when the battle moves into a volcano, Megastorm snipes the rock his brother is standing on out from beneath his feet and Galvatron plunges into the lava below. I’m sure we’ve seen the last of him.

Episode 6: Mystery of the Ancient Ruins

Episode 7: The Insect Corps Arrive

Episode 8: Friend or Foe? The Insect Robos

Episode 9: The Strongest Tag Team?

Unnecessarily drawn-out introduction of the Insectrons, a six-member Transformers faction with insect alt modes who fled to the planet Gaea to escape the war between the Maximals and Predacons. The show inexplicably becomes all about them for the next half dozen episodes. Galvatron returns but immediately gets drunk and falls into a lake.

 

Episode 14: The Combined Giant, Tripledacus

 

A group of Maximal Combiners called the Jointrons, consisting of DJ, Motorarm, and Gimlet, crashes their ship on Gaea while en route to the planet Trius. Their ability to join together to form the giant robot Tripledacus (not to be confused with the evil Predacon ruler Tripredacus, although the two of them look identical) makes them some of the most powerful combatants in the conflict, but their habit of behaving like over-the-top Latino caricatures makes them unreliable and more of a nuisance to Lio Convoy's group than a benefit.

Episode 19: The Space Pirate Seacons!

 

Yet another Transformer subgroup, a roving gang of pirates called the Seacons, arrives on Gaea. This infamous band roams the spaceways looking for treasure to pillage, now they've come for the Anglomois Energy! If all the Anglomois Energy is removed from Gaea, the planet will die, so the Maximals must go all out to stop the Seacons, even though there's no danger of them stealing a planet's worth of energy in their tiny pirate ship. The Predacons have been harvesting that shit for months without so much as a greenhouse effect. The Seacons combine to form the giant robot God Neptune, but he gets distracted when the Maximals release all of their harvested Anglomois Energy simultaneously, causing their ship to explode. Great, now they're stranded here with you, you morons.

Episode 21: The Tentacular Scuba

 

After finding a four-leaf clover that he believes will bring him good fortune, Bighorn falls head-over-hooves for female Seacon Scylla, but she only has tentacles for fellow squid-bot Scuba, much to the chagrin of Artemis, a guardian robot living on the Moon who's crushing on both Scuba and Predacon jet Starscream (no relation to Decepticon jet Starscream). Starscream, however, is clearly gay.

Episode 22: Megastorm's Reckoning

 

The Seacons join forces with the Predacons or something. More importantly, though, this is probably the funniest episode of the show that doesn't involve the Jointrons.

 

Episode 25: The Final Battle

 

The Seacons have repaired their ship and are ready to leave Gaea because they're tired of losing to the Maximals all the time, but they don't have enough energy to reach orbit. Lio Convoy offers them the energy they need, but their leader, Halfshell, refuses charity, instead counter-proposing a one-on-one battle with Lio Convoy for the energy. Lio Convoy agrees, only to find himself fighting one-on-one against God Neptune. Despite being outmatched, Lio Convoy still manages to hold his own because he's the main character. The Predacons are secretly observing the match, however, and Megastorm becomes overanxious and opens fire on Lio Convoy, accidentally detonating a huge deposit of Anglomois Energy. The Seacons flee in the ensuing anarchy but steal the energy on their way out. They don't get far into space, however, before a black hole or wormhole or some bullshit appears in front of them and they disappear.

 

Episode 26: Enter Lio Junior

 

Galvatron has summoned the artificial planet Nemesis to harvest all the Anglomois Energy of Gaea. It's making its way through the outskirts of the solar system... very, very slowly. Moving much more quickly is a spaceship carrying Maximals Skywarp (no relation to Decepticon Skywarp) and Santo. They're on assignment from Maximal HQ and have detected a powerful new lifeform on Gaea birthed from Anglomois Energy. That would be Lio Junior, the son of Lio Convoy! But Lio Convoy declares that he has no son, leaving Lio Junior to wonder why his father doesn't want him.

 

Episode 27: Megastorm Reborn 

 

Galvatron is back in a coma again after getting a sword stabbed through his chest in the previous episode so Megastorm once again assumes leadership of the Predacons. Starscream is sick of his bullshit though so he tricks Megastorm into attempting to become more powerful by submerging himself in Anglomois Energy. Megastorm changes his mind but Starscream dumps him in anyway and leaves him for dead. Megastorm's last thought is that he only wanted to be stronger, which causes the Anglomois Energy to turn him into a dinosaur.

Episode 28: The New Weapon, Tako Tank

 

Scuba's cousin, Ikard, arrives on Gaea to deliver the Tako Tank, a mobile armored artillery unit that his family has sent him as a birthday present. Meanwhile, Megastorm, now calling himself Gigastorm after being reborn as a giant dinosaur, has become so heavy that he keeps falling into holes in the ground and getting stuck.

Episode 30: Gigastorm's Treachery

 

With Galvatron still in his coma, Gigastorm decides to chop him up with a chainsaw. Galvatron awakens and congratulates Gigastorm on his powerful new form, but when Gigastorm then tries again to kill him, Galvatron is none too pleased.

Episode 31: The End of Starscream

 

Gigastorm learns that Starscream and BB had betrayed him, their attempt on his life transforming him into a robotic dinosaur. He repays them in kind by knocking them into the Angolmois Energy with a bomb, transforming them into the much more stupid-looking Hellscream and Max-B, a robotic shark and wolf, respectively.

 

Episode 32: The Lio Convoy Assassination Plot

 

Now it's Durge and Thrust's turn to sell more toys get upgraded new forms and dumberer names: Dirgegun and Thrustor.

 

Episode 33: The Great Angolmois Freezing Tactic

 

The Maximals put their ship's AI into a mobile robot body. I don't know why. Also the planet Jupiter gets destroyed.

 

Episode 36: Emissary of the Fourth Planet

Episode 37: The Crisis of Planet Gaia

 

A robot probe awakens in the ruins of Mars and travels to Gaia on a mission to interface with the planet's master computer and stop the Angolmois Energy from being used for evil. The Maximals defend it from Predacon interference and help it accomplish its goal, little realizing that the way it plans to protect the Angolmois is by causing the Moon to crash into Gaia, destroying the planet and all of its energy, not to mention all the Transformers and other lifeforms still on it. Moon, the rabbit Transformer living on the Moon with Artemis, travels to Gaia to warn the Maximals, even though none of them can see him. But Lio Junior does so the plot can happen and he's able to get the warning to Lio Convoy in time. Working together with Galvatron, the Maximals are able to break through the master computer's defenses so their mobile robot AI can reprogram the probe and stop the disaster. Crisis averted, the truce is over and Galvatron turns on the Maximals once again, setting the stage for the final confrontation between dumb and dumber.

 

Episode 38: Fly Out! Planet Gaia  

Episode 39: Assemble, Thirty-Nine Warriors 

Episode 40: Revenge of the Space Pirates

Episode 41: Breaking Into Nemesis

Episode 42: Legend! The Green Warrior

Episode 43: Farewell! Lio Convoy

 

The final arc! Including a stupid anime clipshow episode that forces in plot-critical developments so you have to watch it. Who lives? Who dies? Who cares?

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.

 

Mid-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.

 

Next: Welcome to Dead World

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 be 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?

 

Next: The Battle Against Sise Fromm

Escape from Aaron

Droids: The White Witch

Author: Unknown

Illustrator: Unknown

Medium: Picture book

Publication date: 1986

Timeline placement: 15 BBY 

 

La Bruja Blanca is the first in a four-book series of Spanish children's storybooks consisting of a small booklet containing the story pages inset in a die-cut illustration. These books were published by Plaza Joven, an imprint of Spanish publishing company Plaza & Janés. Plaza Joven also released a Spanish storybook novelization of the Droids episode "The White Witch," titled simply Droids. So as far as the Droids cartoon storybook adaptations go, you have the Random House A Droid Adventure series (including a novelization of "The White Witch"), the Dragon Picture Books series (including a novelization of "The White Witch"), the Plaza Joven Droids book (a novelization of "The White Witch"), and now, finally, these original Plaza Joven Droids books (including The White Witch, which is not a novelization of "The White Witch").

 

One of these things is not like the others.

 

Like the Spanish MyComyc comics, the Plaza Joven stories don't fit perfectly into the continuity of the Droids cartoon. I'm not sure if Lucasfilm considers them properly licensed publications, or if they're even aware that they exist. La Bruja Blanca seems to fit best during the events of the first episode of the cartoon, between the final two scenes of Tig Fromm being defeated and the The Sand Sloth departing Ingo.

 

The story begins with R2-D2, C-3PO, and Thall Joben back in the speeder shop, along with Thall's speeder, the White Witch. Jord Dusat comes running in and announces that Kea Moll has been kidnapped, and our heroes set out in the White Witch to save her. 

 

It turns out that that dastardly Tig Fromm is holding Kea hostage to ransom her for the White Witch. Why he wants it, I don't know. He never shows any interest in it during the cartoon. Tig has Kea tied up in his space dune buggy and the White Witch chases them around until Tig crashes into a sand dune. The story ends with Kea rescued and Tig Fromm on his way to the space police.

 

This provides some weird, unintentional synergy with the end of The White Witch: A Droid Adventure, where Tig gets arrested despite that not happening in the actual episode. In any case he's out of jail by the next episode, so it doesn't matter anyway.

 

I give high marks to this one for being only 11 pages long and having barely any text except for comic-style speech bubbles. The illustrations are pretty good for a foreign-language, ambiguously legal tie-in to a cheap '80s cartoon. This book is the only one of the four that takes place during the Thall Joben arc, so I'm looking forward with blithe anticipation to the next one.

 

I ship them.

 

Droids

Developer: Binary Design, Ltd.

Medium: Video game

Release date: 1988

Timeline placement: 15 BBY

 

Released for the Commodore 64 in 1988, Droids (on-screen title) or Droids: The Adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO (box title) is a video game tie-in to the Droids sub-franchise with an "original" plot distinct from the stories told in the cartoon, comics, and picture books. I have no means of playing the game myself, but I wouldn't want to because it looks like a miserable experience. I was also unable to find a complete playthrough of it anywhere online, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway because the game's story is impossible to discern simply by playing the game. The premise is described solely on the inside flap of the game's packaging:

 

 

Despite the setting of this adventure clearly being written out as "Auren," both on the packaging and on-screen in the game, this game somehow became known in the fandom as Droids: Escape From Aaron, like the plot involved the droids trying to escape from some guy. This spelling even made its way into official sources; from The Droids Re-Animated on StarWars.com: "After their adventures with speeder pilots Thall Joben and Jord Dusat, and surviving a harrowing escape from the planet Aaron..." Aaron Auren isn't even a planet, it's a moon! Where was the Lucasfilm Story Group on that blunder?

 

Most timelines just ignore this game completely, but when it does appear in fan chronologies, I've seen it placed either between the second and third or the third and fourth episodes of the cartoon. To me it doesn't make much sense in either location, however. The very first sentence of the plot description mentions "the Fromm gang" escaping from prison on Ingo. During the four episodes of the Droids cartoon featuring the Fromms, though, there's never a point where they're arrested and would need to escape. 

 

However, taking the tie-in storybooks into account, we have two references to Tig Fromm being imprisoned following the events of "The White Witch." Since he's already free by "Escape Into Terror," the subsequent episode, maybe the Fromm jailbreak referred to in the backstory of this game is Tig Fromm's escape from the "space police" who arrested him on Ingo. Escape From Aaron could then take place during the same scene gap in "The White Witch" as La Bruja Blanca, before the gang leaves Ingo in Kea Moll's ship.

 

Consider this 40-year-old continuity snarl solved! 

 

Next: To Take the Trigon

Separation Anxiety

 

Droids (1986) #5: Separated!

Writer: George Carragone

Penciler: Mary Wilshire

Medium: Comic

Publication date: September 1986

Timeline placement: 15 BBY

 

Forget 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' vessel, 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 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 is 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.

 

Next: The White Witch

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 might 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 first four issues of 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 issue #5 sets the series firmly in the Imperial era, and George Lucas changed his mind about C-3PO's age 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.

 

Next: Separation Anxiety

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! 

 

Next: Somewhere in Time