I'm very critical of the Star Wars universe as whole because it has a lot of inconsistencies throughout it's lore. While the Prequel trilogy (and about 2/3rds of the stories that take place during that era) is definitely the most egregious offender, there are some that are just outright so bizarre that it's amusing to think of how they actually fit within the parameters of the universe. I have a special appreciation for these sort of stories because they don't insist you change your view of the Star Wars universe, but rather try to not take it so seriously. That being said, here's what I thought of STAR WARS OMNIBUS: DROIDS AND EWOKS.
These two very short series were created in the mid-80s to coincide with the release of two Saturday morning cartoons of the same name and keep the Star Wars money flowing well after RETURN OF THE JEDI by inspiring kids to go "buy me that R2-D2 toy now". Like the cartoons themselves, these comics are quite enjoyable if you stop going "THIS ISN'T FOR ADULTS" and accept it for what it is. I should also not, I am critical of THE CLONE WARS TV series for bringing back Darth Maul because a) it made no sense and b) it served no purpose other than to draw viewers to a mediocre TV series. The DROIDS and EWOKS shows/comics had a better, more coherent purpose and actually had more than 2 seconds of effort put into it.
DROIDS follow the adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO before they ended up escaping certain doom at the beginning of STAR WARS. It is most definitely the weaker of these two series for a few reasons. You can't really build interesting stories around two robots, one of whom speaks in robot noises that forms no discernible language (anything R2 is saying is interpreted by 3PO's reaction), that don't really use weapons or anything. All the stories in this series (with the exception of the last 3, which I'll talk about separately) use C-3PO and R2-D2 with very little functions beyond what you saw in the movies (no special, unused powers here) and, for an 8 issue series, repeats itself in terms of plot points a lot. It should also be noted that 3PO treats R2 like a nagging wife that he can't live without, which is a huge failure in the writing department as the writer seemed to literally watch the Original Trilogy and just have 3PO constantly repeat things he said in those movies here without writing out much original stuff.
It's not terrible by any means though (with the exception of the last three issues) because there it's just fun, it reminds you of those old cartoons that hypnotized you to eat sugary cereals. The artwork is fantastic by the way, I love how they went against the basic look for R2-D2 (he's red and yellow for some reason....I need to know why this is...) and the flashy, vibrant colors they used for space instead just dark void with white spots constantly. There is a fun story that crosses over with the EWOKS series too, but for some reason this volume separates them in order to keep the two series as a whole so you have go to another part of the book.
So the last three issues of DROIDS are form a storyarc called "Star Wars According to the Droids" (be warned that I'm going to spoil STAR WARS big time in talking about this which if you haven't seen by now and are reading the DROIDS comics, you need to stop everything and watch it for Christ sake). The title is a huge misnomer though because there are key scenes from STAR WARS included that in fact the droids were not and are not present for (like when Alderaan is blown up or when the crew rescues Leia. It gets weirder (read: worse) because they go the other route and insert them into scenes they were never in to achieve the main purpose of this pointless story: to re-tell the story of STAR WARS in comic book form in 1986, almost 10 years after the movie was in theaters (keep in mind it had already been done in Marvel's STAR WARS series). The scenes where it's clearly not from the movie are really really bad. Like the droids falling into a underground cave on Tantooine and encountering a sort of dragon, hiding out in a store that sells stuff for Droids, or them having to maneuver between Vader and Kenobi as they are dueling on the Death Star (no really...they literally have to shuffle between them as Obi-Wan is about to die...if you read this comic for any reason, let it be because of this incredibly odd scene). It's all very uninspired and, I can't think of a better word here, lame and it's definitely the low point of this book.
EWOKS series was much more popular both on television and in the comics than DROIDS and you can see why when you read the comics. The 14 issues of it's run are included here and they tell various stories about the Ewoks before their homeworld was ravaged by civil war. There are three primary children Ewoks (Wicket, Teebo, and Princess Kneesaa) who get into all sort of adventures involving (with the exception of two comics that feature spaceships) mostly fantasy type characters and creatures. Really, if you ignore the fact that they are called Ewoks and have an encounter with the galaxies most famous homosexual droids and the occasional space pirate/alien, it could be a series about anthropomorphic bears that wear clothes and live in a mildly Dungeons and Dragons style setting. All of that aside, it's a really fun comic that actually seems to have some effort put into writing it and the artwork is lovely, very reminiscent of mid to late 80s cartoons. I'm quite surprised it didn't last longer actually.
All of this is capped off with a very short coloring-book comic (colorized here) featuring the Ewoks that Golden Books put out that is just a comic book version of the scene where Han and Luke are carried into the Ewok village to be cooked before 3PO saves them.
I really, really like this collection and it's great that Dark Horse reprinted these comics to save them from obscurity. If you get a chance, read this collection and feel like a kid again for 500 pages.