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Marvel Star Wars (1977-1986) #54-67
Star Wars: A Long Time Ago... Vol. 4: Screams in the Void
Dark Horse Comics is proud to present "Classic Star Wars: A Long Time Ago... featuring classic "Star Wars stories not seen in over twenty years Originally printed by Marvel Comics, these stories have been recolored and are sure to please "Star Wars fans both new and old.
376 pages, Paperback
First published February 5, 2003
56 people want to read
About the author
Chris Claremont
3,277 books892 followersChris Claremont is a writer of American comic books, best known for his 16-year (1975-1991) stint on Uncanny X-Men, during which the series became one of the comic book industry's most successful properties.
Claremont has written many stories for other publishers including the Star Trek Debt of Honor graphic novel, his creator-owned Sovereign Seven for DC Comics and Aliens vs Predator for Dark Horse Comics. He also wrote a few issues of the series WildC.A.T.s (volume 1, issues #10-13) at Image Comics, which introduced his creator-owned character, Huntsman.
Outside of comics, Claremont co-wrote the Chronicles of the Shadow War trilogy, Shadow Moon (1995), Shadow Dawn (1996), and Shadow Star (1999), with George Lucas. This trilogy continues the story of Elora Danan from the movie Willow. In the 1980s, he also wrote a science fiction trilogy about female starship pilot Nicole Shea, consisting of First Flight (1987), Grounded! (1991), and Sundowner (1994). Claremont was also a contributor to the Wild Cards anthology series.
Claremont has written many stories for other publishers including the Star Trek Debt of Honor graphic novel, his creator-owned Sovereign Seven for DC Comics and Aliens vs Predator for Dark Horse Comics. He also wrote a few issues of the series WildC.A.T.s (volume 1, issues #10-13) at Image Comics, which introduced his creator-owned character, Huntsman.
Outside of comics, Claremont co-wrote the Chronicles of the Shadow War trilogy, Shadow Moon (1995), Shadow Dawn (1996), and Shadow Star (1999), with George Lucas. This trilogy continues the story of Elora Danan from the movie Willow. In the 1980s, he also wrote a science fiction trilogy about female starship pilot Nicole Shea, consisting of First Flight (1987), Grounded! (1991), and Sundowner (1994). Claremont was also a contributor to the Wild Cards anthology series.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 10, 2021
Star Wars Legends Project #284
Background: Screams in the Void, released in January 2003, collects issues #54-67 and Annual #2 of the original Marvel run of Star Wars comics (originally published from December 1981 to January 1983).Aside from the opening issue, written by Chris Claremont to conclude the arc he began in the previous volume, every issue was written by the new regular writer, David Michelinie. He wrote 9 of the issues in collaboration with Walt Simonson (who also drew 10 of the issues), with additional writing by Louise Jones on two of those issues. Michael Fleisher co-wrote one issue. In addition to the issues drawn by Simonson, two were drawn by Carmine Infantino, two by Tom Palmer, and one each by Joe Brozowski and Ron Frenz. These are the last few of Infantino's issues, but he was a regular artist throughout the first half of the run. This is most of Michelinie's run on the series, and pretty much all of Simonson's. Jones (an editor at Marvel who then married Simonson) only wrote these few issues plus the one-off River of Chaos. Claremont has a smattering of additional Star Wars credits. Palmer only drew a few other issues, but worked on many others in various capacities, and Frenz also drew over a dozen more issues. These are the only credits for Fleisher and Brozowski.
Screams in the Void picks up right where Resurrection of Evil left off, three years after the Battle of Yavin, during the months after the Battle of Hoth. The main characters are Luke, Leia, Chewie, Lando, Threepio, Artoo, and Shira Brie, with occasional appearances by Darth Vader and even a quick pop-in from Lobot!
Summary: The hunt for Han Solo is on hold while the Rebels conduct an even more urgent hunt for a new home base, search desperately for a way to infiltrate a massive Imperial armada escorting something that could prove devastating in the ongoing war effort, and dealing with spies in their midst and a potentially massive intelligence breach from a totally unexpected direction. Meanwhile, Lando finds time to return to Bespin to find out what has become of Cloud City in his absence, and Luke continues to find his way into his own strange adventures on even stranger planets.
Review: Maybe I'm just getting used to the general goofiness and the stilted, dated writing of this era of Marvel Star Wars, but this to me was the most consistently enjoyable volume to-date. I could still find plenty to complain about, but a lot of those issues feel peripheral. The storytelling at the center is, if not always rock-solid, then at least reasonably entertaining. It keeps the pages turning.
I don't think I'll ever cease to be baffled by the choice to ally the Rebels with a race of cuddly, telepathic bunnies with names like "Plif" who seem to speak like an American's twee version of a typical Brit . . . but in general, the storylines connected to that whole business worked. And speaking of just completely bizarre accents, someone decided that the Bespin Ugnaughts should all have a thick Scottish brogue (?!) and presumably the same someone missed the memo that Bespin is a gas giant and doesn't have a solid planetary surface beneath the clouds. But other than that, I mostly enjoyed Lando's return to Cloud City. I also wish they'd tacked the first issue onto the end of the last volume, not only because it felt weird to cut off that previous volume mid-arc, but also because I really hated that arc and it started this volume off with a bad taste in my mouth that thankfully soon faded.
Obviously the star of the volume is Shira Brie, who will have some ongoing significance later in the Legends universe as well. She's a compelling character who commands immediate attention from the moment she first appears, and . . . I don't want to say too much more about her, because half the fun is following the twists and turns of her unfolding arc, which also leads to easily the best Luke arc of this entire run. Luke also has a couple of additional one-off adventures, one of which is a really absurd mission on a planet with fishy reptiles who have gone full Knights of the Round Table, jousting tournaments and all. The other, though, is a really nice, understated story in which Luke helps a moisture farmer whose operation has been targeted by mysterious water bandits that no one ever sees (and it doesn't take place on Tatooine).
The volume concludes with a double-length issue featuring a lengthy flashback story starring Han Solo, a character fans had been clamoring to see on the page since his last flashback appearance over a year earlier. I get the impression that the Marvel writers were as anxious for his return in the third movie as the readers. He leaves a gaping hole that they can't quite fill with anyone else. This flashback story follows the same basic pattern as the usual Luke adventures, but it feels different because of Han's . . . unique style. It didn't end up being nearly as interesting as I'd expected it to be from the initial premise, and probably not enough to justify the added length, but it was fine. For the most part, that's the worst this volume gets: Fine. And that's a big improvement over the previous one. I just hope there isn't a forthcoming nosedive in quality when Michelinie's run concludes.
B
Background: Screams in the Void, released in January 2003, collects issues #54-67 and Annual #2 of the original Marvel run of Star Wars comics (originally published from December 1981 to January 1983).Aside from the opening issue, written by Chris Claremont to conclude the arc he began in the previous volume, every issue was written by the new regular writer, David Michelinie. He wrote 9 of the issues in collaboration with Walt Simonson (who also drew 10 of the issues), with additional writing by Louise Jones on two of those issues. Michael Fleisher co-wrote one issue. In addition to the issues drawn by Simonson, two were drawn by Carmine Infantino, two by Tom Palmer, and one each by Joe Brozowski and Ron Frenz. These are the last few of Infantino's issues, but he was a regular artist throughout the first half of the run. This is most of Michelinie's run on the series, and pretty much all of Simonson's. Jones (an editor at Marvel who then married Simonson) only wrote these few issues plus the one-off River of Chaos. Claremont has a smattering of additional Star Wars credits. Palmer only drew a few other issues, but worked on many others in various capacities, and Frenz also drew over a dozen more issues. These are the only credits for Fleisher and Brozowski.
Screams in the Void picks up right where Resurrection of Evil left off, three years after the Battle of Yavin, during the months after the Battle of Hoth. The main characters are Luke, Leia, Chewie, Lando, Threepio, Artoo, and Shira Brie, with occasional appearances by Darth Vader and even a quick pop-in from Lobot!
Summary: The hunt for Han Solo is on hold while the Rebels conduct an even more urgent hunt for a new home base, search desperately for a way to infiltrate a massive Imperial armada escorting something that could prove devastating in the ongoing war effort, and dealing with spies in their midst and a potentially massive intelligence breach from a totally unexpected direction. Meanwhile, Lando finds time to return to Bespin to find out what has become of Cloud City in his absence, and Luke continues to find his way into his own strange adventures on even stranger planets.
Review: Maybe I'm just getting used to the general goofiness and the stilted, dated writing of this era of Marvel Star Wars, but this to me was the most consistently enjoyable volume to-date. I could still find plenty to complain about, but a lot of those issues feel peripheral. The storytelling at the center is, if not always rock-solid, then at least reasonably entertaining. It keeps the pages turning.
I don't think I'll ever cease to be baffled by the choice to ally the Rebels with a race of cuddly, telepathic bunnies with names like "Plif" who seem to speak like an American's twee version of a typical Brit . . . but in general, the storylines connected to that whole business worked. And speaking of just completely bizarre accents, someone decided that the Bespin Ugnaughts should all have a thick Scottish brogue (?!) and presumably the same someone missed the memo that Bespin is a gas giant and doesn't have a solid planetary surface beneath the clouds. But other than that, I mostly enjoyed Lando's return to Cloud City. I also wish they'd tacked the first issue onto the end of the last volume, not only because it felt weird to cut off that previous volume mid-arc, but also because I really hated that arc and it started this volume off with a bad taste in my mouth that thankfully soon faded.
Obviously the star of the volume is Shira Brie, who will have some ongoing significance later in the Legends universe as well. She's a compelling character who commands immediate attention from the moment she first appears, and . . . I don't want to say too much more about her, because half the fun is following the twists and turns of her unfolding arc, which also leads to easily the best Luke arc of this entire run. Luke also has a couple of additional one-off adventures, one of which is a really absurd mission on a planet with fishy reptiles who have gone full Knights of the Round Table, jousting tournaments and all. The other, though, is a really nice, understated story in which Luke helps a moisture farmer whose operation has been targeted by mysterious water bandits that no one ever sees (and it doesn't take place on Tatooine).
The volume concludes with a double-length issue featuring a lengthy flashback story starring Han Solo, a character fans had been clamoring to see on the page since his last flashback appearance over a year earlier. I get the impression that the Marvel writers were as anxious for his return in the third movie as the readers. He leaves a gaping hole that they can't quite fill with anyone else. This flashback story follows the same basic pattern as the usual Luke adventures, but it feels different because of Han's . . . unique style. It didn't end up being nearly as interesting as I'd expected it to be from the initial premise, and probably not enough to justify the added length, but it was fine. For the most part, that's the worst this volume gets: Fine. And that's a big improvement over the previous one. I just hope there isn't a forthcoming nosedive in quality when Michelinie's run concludes.
B
June 6, 2016
The Marvel "Star Wars" series hit its high point during the time period covered in this volume and the next, between "Empire" and "Return". David Micheline was writing for SW at this time and his story arcs were great, far surpassing much of what has come since. The main arc involves Luke accidentally killing a popular Rebel pilot who had the hots for him, in a botched raid on an Imperial fleet position. Since he was trying to use the Force to distinguish friend from foe, there are all kinds of awesome repercussions that we usually don't get to see. Everyone turns against Luke, he's stripped of rank and basically kicked out of the Rebellion. He starts doubting the efficacy of the Force and we see him struggling with his amateurish powers and how Yoda and Ben lied to him about Darth. It's awesome, and its resolution is really engaging, far superior to the paint-by-numbers approach to SW storylines these days.
Lando shines a lot here. One of the best few-issue story arcs involves him going back to Cloud City out of guilt. And Lobot is there! Lobot rules. And there's Ugnaughts and Bespin. Leia gets some more depth. She misses Han, but gets the occasional hunk on the side, while being creepily jealous of Luke and the aforementioned pilot cutey.
The SW Annual included here is kind of lame, it's the only real low point.
Lando shines a lot here. One of the best few-issue story arcs involves him going back to Cloud City out of guilt. And Lobot is there! Lobot rules. And there's Ugnaughts and Bespin. Leia gets some more depth. She misses Han, but gets the occasional hunk on the side, while being creepily jealous of Luke and the aforementioned pilot cutey.
The SW Annual included here is kind of lame, it's the only real low point.
May 9, 2018
This was an enjoyable volume with somewhat longer and deeper storylines. The volume is hurt a little by the absence of Han Solo (these took place after Empire when he was frozen in Carbonite and his whereabouts unknown) but manages to make use of the fact at least since the search for Han is a part of many storylines. It's interesting to see how they weave the stories around the facts that were known at the time (for example, we still see some strange hints of romance between Luke and Leia since it wasn't known they were brother and sister yet. Thankfully, they never went full blown romance or that would have been very awkward.)
This Marvel Star Wars series continues to surprise me as its usually frowned upon as not up to usual Star Wars standards, but to me its good.
This Marvel Star Wars series continues to surprise me as its usually frowned upon as not up to usual Star Wars standards, but to me its good.
September 2, 2018
One of the best Star Wars stories. Period. Introduces much of the later stuff for the Long Time Ago comics such as the Hoojibs, Shira Brie, and various events that help shape the two volumes that take place after Return of the Jedi. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll be amazed.
May the Force be with you!
May the Force be with you!
January 4, 2026
As with many compilations there are both good and bad stories here. This book takes place after the Empire Strikes Back and before Return of the Jedi. I like their new base, as ridiculous as it is in some ways. I'm sure many readers hate it, for the same reasons people hated the ewoks.
November 10, 2011
it was great for someone who was not alive in the 1900s
June 4, 2012
These comics are a nice trip down memory lane. Not essential reading by any means, but a fun reminder of my youth. (pronounced "yout")
August 30, 2012
Worth reading for Star Wars fans.
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July 5, 2010SW alta v.4
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews