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Star Wars Omnibus #23
Star Wars Omnibus: Droids and Ewoks
Based on the two children's television cartoon series of the same names, Ewoks and Droids explore further adventures in the lives of the Ewoks on Endor and the droids R2-D2 and C-3PO. The Ewoks face dangers from their homeworld--lizard warriors, underwater kingdoms, and magic spells--and from the outside galaxy--pirates, invaders, and more! The droids encounter more than one new master, war droids, megaweapons, time travel, and even... Ewoks!
This omnibus collects all the issues of the Ewoks and Star Wars: Droids comics series, released in the 1980s by Marvel's imprint Star Comics, as well as Golden Books' Star Wars: An Ewok Adventure coloring-book comic.
This omnibus collects all the issues of the Ewoks and Star Wars: Droids comics series, released in the 1980s by Marvel's imprint Star Comics, as well as Golden Books' Star Wars: An Ewok Adventure coloring-book comic.
526 pages, Paperback
First published June 6, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
July 20, 2017
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.
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.
March 25, 2025
The Droids and Ewoks comics from Star Comics (Marvel) are fun and sometimes really weird. But that's why I like them :)
April 18, 2014
The Length of time it took me to read this book tells you how engaged I was. The book was still a pretty good book but is more of a child like story line, but being a star wars fan this was a must have for nostalgic purposes. I may not read this book all the way through again but I can see myself reading independent stories that made me chuckle out loud.
March 29, 2021
If you go into this collection knowing the comics were written for kids (and if you look at the stars of the comics, how could you not know that?), then I think you'll be fine. The stories are still simplistic, serving more as vehicles for the morals, but these were written in the '80s. That's what kids' stories were back then, as far as I can remember.
The artwork is OK. The artists seem to be better at drawing the aliens than the humans, so the Ewoks series has the stronger art, though I feel like the word balloons were frequently pointing toward the wrong characters. The Droids series features the occasional humans (including the main cast from A New Hope), and all of them look off. There's a close up of Luke from the trash compactor scene, and he looks more like Will Arnott than Mark Hamill.
I have a lot of these Omnibus collections in ebook form, and this is one of two I ordered in paperback, since they weren't available as ebooks. After reading it, I think I see why this one never made it to electronic format.
The artwork is OK. The artists seem to be better at drawing the aliens than the humans, so the Ewoks series has the stronger art, though I feel like the word balloons were frequently pointing toward the wrong characters. The Droids series features the occasional humans (including the main cast from A New Hope), and all of them look off. There's a close up of Luke from the trash compactor scene, and he looks more like Will Arnott than Mark Hamill.
I have a lot of these Omnibus collections in ebook form, and this is one of two I ordered in paperback, since they weren't available as ebooks. After reading it, I think I see why this one never made it to electronic format.
January 11, 2026
This one was a bit of a drag to get through, but I forced myself to get over with quickly. It's way more geared towards young 'uns, and not in an enjoyable way. I wasn't a fan of any of the art styles really. Usually, each of these Omnibus collections has one or two comics that I don't particularly enjoy, whether it be the art or the story, but I found this was the case for this entire collection. I really disliked the villains, they were all that campy 80s kind, but not in a way that I found to be very fun or intriguing, just kinda bland. Although honestly, I disliked The Tofs and the Nagais from #21 too... I guess I'm just not a big fan of the villains of these Dark Horse eras. Just not quite my cup of tea! Onwards to the next collection.
April 22, 2025
I've never watched either of these shows, but I suspect they were typical of the era - and so are these comics. The Ewok stories are pretty cute. There are more of those than the Droids stories, which is a bit of a shame, though I wonder if they were running out of ideas because they foisted a retelling of A New Hope on their readers. The crossover doesn't make sense, but ahh... who cares? This is over 500 pages of amusing tales aimed at children.
November 5, 2016
The quality of these stories was much better than I expected. It brought back pleasant memories of the shows from my childhood. The crossover issue made no sense considering the events from Return of the Jedi, but whatever. I'm glad I rediscovered this.
October 11, 2023
A bit of Star Wars fun for kids. Nor more. No less. If you don't enjoy the animation series then I would recommend skipping this.
December 10, 2014
If I think of this as for children only, I can give it closer to a 3. Otherwise, it's a 1.5.
Overall, the art isn't good. It's too rounded and while the colours of the backgrounds are good, the characters aren't. R2 is more white and pinkish than blue; the Ewoks aren't shades of tan and brown but also pink; the aliens are stereotypically green.
The stories show some crazy adventures that R2 and 3PO could maybe have gotten into and that the Ewoks are used to defending their home. 3PO taking charge at times seemed a bit OOC, but he does do so a few times in the OT and is also snarky. AND we see just how awesome R2 was even before his special additions in the prequels.
In the dialogue, there are too many Earth words and phrases ("oh my gosh" being one of them) for when the comics were developed (1980s).
Droids
1 & 2 - R2 and 3PO go to Dodz and end up with a child Master named Jost. The find an ancient robot series to save Jost's father and R2 comes to the rescue only to go haywire. The two droids go to a droid repair facility where 3PO saves the day.
3- The droids are on Majoor with Master Zell and save his son from a pirate.
4 - They're on Sooma and end up in a time warp that lands them on Endor. That, to me is quite dumb, as 3PO and R2 obviously don't remember that event. The story is resolved in Ewoks #10.
5 - Even though they're separated, the two droids can save a planet.
6-8 - This is ANH according to the droids with some additional adventures. I had some more issues with this "trilogy." Instead of calling it the Lars Homestead, it's called the Skywalker Homestead. Later, the droids escape the Death Star by going through the Obi-Wan/Darth Vader fight. That was one of the stupidest things I have seen. I think even children would be irate with that.
Ewoks
These are the stories of Wicket, Teebo, Princess Kneesaa and the tribal adults including Logray and Paploo.
1- Wicket and Teebo save Kneesaa from a poisonous thorn by traveling into an ogre's land across a rainbow bridge.
2 - It's Kneesaa's birthday party and space pirates try to take over. This was a great show of how girls can be strong leaders. I just think it's very confusing that the space pirates and Ewoks can understand each other.
4 - This was a good story of compassion.
5 - Aliens take foonars (which are like elephants) and plan to destroy the forests of Endor.
6 - Wicket disobeys Logray and steals the medicine man's staff...leading him to be kidnapped by an ice demon.
7 - Teebo steals a feather from a Loonee bird and goes a bit loony himself.
8 - A witch hopes to bring the Kreegon beast back to life. It was nice to see Kneesaa working with her father, Chief Chirpa.
9 - Wicket and Teebo are pulled to an underwater cavern and help their new friends keep their food source. This is another one where I don't understand how the Ewoks and (in this case) the sea creatures understand each other.
10 - How 3PO and the Ewoks understand each other is explained, which is good. 3PO saving the day explains the behaviour of the Ewoks in ROTJ
11 & 12 - the 'children' have to face magic to save themselves and the village in two different stories.
13 - Wicket heads to the Black Cavern to retrieve a new sun crystal in order to prove his warrior bravery. He also proves his compassion for others.
14 - Logray is the leader for a day when Chirpa and Logray go to the spirit tree (I'm just confused as to why the youngsters would be put in the drawing). Things go wrong and slavers try to control the Ewoks, causing Teebo to save them.
Overall, the art isn't good. It's too rounded and while the colours of the backgrounds are good, the characters aren't. R2 is more white and pinkish than blue; the Ewoks aren't shades of tan and brown but also pink; the aliens are stereotypically green.
The stories show some crazy adventures that R2 and 3PO could maybe have gotten into and that the Ewoks are used to defending their home. 3PO taking charge at times seemed a bit OOC, but he does do so a few times in the OT and is also snarky. AND we see just how awesome R2 was even before his special additions in the prequels.
In the dialogue, there are too many Earth words and phrases ("oh my gosh" being one of them) for when the comics were developed (1980s).
Droids
1 & 2 - R2 and 3PO go to Dodz and end up with a child Master named Jost. The find an ancient robot series to save Jost's father and R2 comes to the rescue only to go haywire. The two droids go to a droid repair facility where 3PO saves the day.
3- The droids are on Majoor with Master Zell and save his son from a pirate.
4 - They're on Sooma and end up in a time warp that lands them on Endor. That, to me is quite dumb, as 3PO and R2 obviously don't remember that event. The story is resolved in Ewoks #10.
5 - Even though they're separated, the two droids can save a planet.
6-8 - This is ANH according to the droids with some additional adventures. I had some more issues with this "trilogy." Instead of calling it the Lars Homestead, it's called the Skywalker Homestead. Later, the droids escape the Death Star by going through the Obi-Wan/Darth Vader fight. That was one of the stupidest things I have seen. I think even children would be irate with that.
Ewoks
These are the stories of Wicket, Teebo, Princess Kneesaa and the tribal adults including Logray and Paploo.
1- Wicket and Teebo save Kneesaa from a poisonous thorn by traveling into an ogre's land across a rainbow bridge.
2 - It's Kneesaa's birthday party and space pirates try to take over. This was a great show of how girls can be strong leaders. I just think it's very confusing that the space pirates and Ewoks can understand each other.
4 - This was a good story of compassion.
5 - Aliens take foonars (which are like elephants) and plan to destroy the forests of Endor.
6 - Wicket disobeys Logray and steals the medicine man's staff...leading him to be kidnapped by an ice demon.
7 - Teebo steals a feather from a Loonee bird and goes a bit loony himself.
8 - A witch hopes to bring the Kreegon beast back to life. It was nice to see Kneesaa working with her father, Chief Chirpa.
9 - Wicket and Teebo are pulled to an underwater cavern and help their new friends keep their food source. This is another one where I don't understand how the Ewoks and (in this case) the sea creatures understand each other.
10 - How 3PO and the Ewoks understand each other is explained, which is good. 3PO saving the day explains the behaviour of the Ewoks in ROTJ
11 & 12 - the 'children' have to face magic to save themselves and the village in two different stories.
13 - Wicket heads to the Black Cavern to retrieve a new sun crystal in order to prove his warrior bravery. He also proves his compassion for others.
14 - Logray is the leader for a day when Chirpa and Logray go to the spirit tree (I'm just confused as to why the youngsters would be put in the drawing). Things go wrong and slavers try to control the Ewoks, causing Teebo to save them.
September 20, 2016
Reprints Droids #1-8 and Ewoks #1-14 (May 1985-July 1987). R2-D2 and C-3PO find themselves travelling the universe. In an effort to find new masters, R2-D2 and C-3PO find themselves battling gunrunners, political coups, and other robots. Meanwhile, on the forest moon of Endor, Wicket, Teebo, and Kneesaa have adventures in the forest and find that survival can be difficult in the dark world.
Written by Dave Manak with additional writing by George Carragone, Star Wars Omnibus: Droids and Ewoks reprints the Marvel comic series which originally ran under the Star Comics imprint. Droids ran from April 1986-June 1987 and Ewoks ran May 1985-July 1987, and both series were based on the Saturday morning Star Wars spinoff cartoons which aired from September 7, 1985-December 1986. The collection was also rereleased by Marvel when Marvel regained the rights to Star Wars.
When Star Wars: Return of the Jedi was released, Star Wars was at its peak of popularity. Fans devoured the series, but also knew that the series was ending…leading to a drop off in merchandise. With demand still high, the Droids and Ewoks cartoons premiered and started a “new” Star Wars universe. Both series fizzled (Ewoks lasted longer), but Marvel got the right to publish the tie-in comics (they were still publishing the stand-alone Star Wars comic). Here, Dark Horse who took over Star Wars after Marvel published the series.
I remember eagerly awaiting Saturday morning to watch Droids and Ewoks when they were premiering. In the pre-internet world, you generally knew little about new cartoons except their title and when they were on. Droids was frustrating with R2-D2 and C-3PO working with non-canon heroes. Here, the series smartly crosses over with Ewoks for an issue and also retells Star Wars from the droids’ perspective…but it still doesn’t work as a title.
The Ewoks’ cartoon worked better than Droids and ran longer as a result. The Ewoks were mostly popular with kids which led Ewoks to seems even more childish and more like a cartoon book than Droids. Both series feel like they are half-baked and not really committed to being anything but a moneymaking grab.
I will say the Dark Horse Omnibus collections are great. The quality of the books and their hefty (but high grade) paper definitely sets them above many DC and Marvel books. Ewoks and Droids however are pretty painful to read at times. The series were aimed at children and they read as children’s comics. If you grew up reading the two series, you might enjoy the nostalgia factor of Star Wars Omnibus: Droids and Ewoks…but if you did not, you probably can find a better Star Wars fix elsewhere.
Written by Dave Manak with additional writing by George Carragone, Star Wars Omnibus: Droids and Ewoks reprints the Marvel comic series which originally ran under the Star Comics imprint. Droids ran from April 1986-June 1987 and Ewoks ran May 1985-July 1987, and both series were based on the Saturday morning Star Wars spinoff cartoons which aired from September 7, 1985-December 1986. The collection was also rereleased by Marvel when Marvel regained the rights to Star Wars.
When Star Wars: Return of the Jedi was released, Star Wars was at its peak of popularity. Fans devoured the series, but also knew that the series was ending…leading to a drop off in merchandise. With demand still high, the Droids and Ewoks cartoons premiered and started a “new” Star Wars universe. Both series fizzled (Ewoks lasted longer), but Marvel got the right to publish the tie-in comics (they were still publishing the stand-alone Star Wars comic). Here, Dark Horse who took over Star Wars after Marvel published the series.
I remember eagerly awaiting Saturday morning to watch Droids and Ewoks when they were premiering. In the pre-internet world, you generally knew little about new cartoons except their title and when they were on. Droids was frustrating with R2-D2 and C-3PO working with non-canon heroes. Here, the series smartly crosses over with Ewoks for an issue and also retells Star Wars from the droids’ perspective…but it still doesn’t work as a title.
The Ewoks’ cartoon worked better than Droids and ran longer as a result. The Ewoks were mostly popular with kids which led Ewoks to seems even more childish and more like a cartoon book than Droids. Both series feel like they are half-baked and not really committed to being anything but a moneymaking grab.
I will say the Dark Horse Omnibus collections are great. The quality of the books and their hefty (but high grade) paper definitely sets them above many DC and Marvel books. Ewoks and Droids however are pretty painful to read at times. The series were aimed at children and they read as children’s comics. If you grew up reading the two series, you might enjoy the nostalgia factor of Star Wars Omnibus: Droids and Ewoks…but if you did not, you probably can find a better Star Wars fix elsewhere.
October 11, 2022
Definitely my least favourite in the collection. These comics are based on the 80's cartoons which without the benefit of nostalgia were terrible. They were so goofy and ridiculous and departed way too far from canon. Stories were simple, predictable and stupid. And the art and character design was terrible. How hard is it to make R2D2 blue and white? Why make him yellow and red? The droids stories were better than the ewoks ones but neither were that good.
gave-up-on
June 1, 2013I read the first third of this omnibus which follows the droids on silly adventures. Definitely meant for children. The Ewok section was unbearable and I decided not to waste the hours it would take to read it.
July 13, 2014
There was a period of my childhood when I would rush home from school to catch episodes of the Droids and Ewoks cartoons. They really are quite formulaic cartoons as are these comics but I enjoyed reading them from a nostalgia perspective.
September 21, 2014
Quite possibly the worst thing I've ever read. From Ewoks 7 could be the worst coloring job I've ever seen. Wicket and Teebo actually switch colors for the issue.
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