Earlier this year, Disney announced that its Lucasfilm Story Group would make sure every new story fits with the new Disney timeline. The opposite approach was taken with Dark Horse’s anthology series “Star Wars Tales” (1999-2005). It was an outlet for writers and artists to do whatever they wanted. Stories could fit with the established continuity of the time (now known as Legends) – and many of them did – but they didn’t have to.
While this “throw it at the wall and see what sticks” approach led to some imaginative yarns, it also led to a lot of poodoo. Indeed, the hit-to-miss ratio is lower with “Tales” than with the more planned-out titles. But there’s too much good stuff for this 24-issue series to be dismissed. As such, rather than review the series in chunks of issues, as I usually do in my “Star Wars” flashback posts, I will highlight only the best stories.
Below is my countdown of the top 25 dramatic stories in “Star Wars Tales” (I’ll be back soon with a list of my favorite comedic stories):
25. “Planet of the Dead” (Issue 17, written by Steve Niles) – In what reads like a truncated version of a lost Marvel “Star Wars” issue, Han and Chewie make an emergency landing on a planet of zombie ghosts. Pencils by Davide Fabbri are a welcome bonus.
24. “Trooper” (10, Garth Ennis) – In a classic example of “What’s that guy’s story?,” we learn the backstory of the stormtrooper who gets shot in the face by Princess Leia on the Tantive IV.
23. “Being Boba Fett” (18, Jason Hall) – Along with a typical tale of Fett hunting a bounty – and killing a man who steers him wrong – we see that Fett’s personality and values are a carbon copy of his dad’s. “The Way of the Warrior,” also from Issue 18, treads similar ground.
22. “The Other” (16, Hall) – Books in the New Jedi Order dealt with Leia’s feelings of guilt over setting her Jedi training aside to focus on politics and family. In this tale – which follows the same journaling format Hall used in Issue 11’s comedic “Princess Leia Diaries” — she lets herself off the hook as she writes that “(being a Jedi) could never compare to what I already have.”
21. “Revenants” (18, Haden Blackman) – This story is also set in the New Jedi Order era, and it’s comics’ answer to the “The Last One Standing: Boba Fett’s Tale” (from “Tales of the Bounty Hunters”). Han and Boba face off on a garbage planet similar to the one where Darth Maul’s top half is dumped in “The Clone Wars,” and in the end we see a whole platoon of Mandalorians and Slave I-style ships.
20. “Lucky Stars” (15, Brian Augustyn) – Enhanced by sexy art by Paco Medina, we meet a group of undercover rebels – led by Leia — who wear slinky dresses and use their feminine wiles to trick arrogant Imperial officials. This concept could’ve made a cool miniseries.
19. “Marked” (24, Rob Williams) – In an important coming-of-age tale for Darth Maul, Sidious tests his apprentice against another candidate for the job in a fight to the death.
18. “Routine” (2, Tony Isabella) – Han and Chewie are in fine form as their empty, perfectly innocent Corellian corvette keeps being boarded by the same Imperial inspections official. It leads to the great final-page punchline: “He was smuggling spaceships!”
17. “Tides of Terror” (14, Milton Freewater Jr.) – “Republic” dabbled with a romance between Kit Fisto and Aayla Secura, and here’s the story that kicks it off, as Kit saves Aayla with underwater mouth-to-mouth, which doubles as a kiss.
16. “Darth Vader: Extinction” (1-2, Ron Marz) – In a nice bit of continuity, we see that “Republic’s” Dark Woman is hunted down and killed post-Order 66 by Darth Vader (so if this 1999 story is considered canon, we already knew her ultimate fate as we read “Republic”). As a bonus, it features what is presumably the first meeting between rivals Vader and Mara Jade, who tracks down the Dark Woman’s location for the Emperor.
15. “Phantom Menaces” (17, Joe Casey) – Years before George Lucas actually did resurrect Darth Maul for “The Clone Wars,” Casey came up with a similar concept as Luke fights the vicious spirit of Maul, whose brain is being kept alive by a mad scientist. Maul resurrections were popular in Infinities stories: See also the top entry on this list, and the Maul-Kenobi rematch in “Visionaries.”
14. “Nomad” (21-24, Williams) – This engaging four-chapter story chronicles a Jedi who is obsessed with tracking down and killing a dark sider. The final-page twist is that he’s not a Force-user at all but just a guy who found a lightsaber and gained confidence from people assuming he was a Jedi.
13. “Outbid But Never Outgunned” (7, Beau Smith) – Boba Fett’s family tree was explored in the “Legacy of the Force” novels, but this is the only comic portrayal, as Fett’s mission crosses paths with that of his fellow hunter and old flame Sintas Vel.
12. “First Impressions” (15, Nathan Walker) – A teenage Leia starts to break free of her protective father and learn about the injustices of the Empire on her own. On her first trip to Coruscant, she meets the creepy Emperor and befriends an oppressed Caamasi, Eg’ros Akala, who perhaps will be the path to Leia’s future friendship with Elegos A’Kla.
11. “A Summer’s Dream” (5, Terry Moore) – A young Nubian, Ian, falls in love – and ultimately into the friend zone – with Padme in the summer before she rises to political prominence. One oddity to the tale is that Padme is referred to only as “Amidala” – her regal name, not her actual name.
10. “Sandstorm” (15, Hall) – Teenage Luke has a “dust fever” dream as he gets lost in the desert and is helped by a younger boy named Annie. The yarn does double duty by bringing the two trilogies together and telling a rare pre-“Episode IV” Luke tale.
9. “Lady Luck” (3, Rich Handley) – We learn that Lando acquires Cloud City – winning it in a game of sabacc, naturally – with a monetary assist from Lobot and other citizens who want the current crooked administrator deposed. As a bonus, we catch up with Drebble, Lando’s portly rival from the post-“Episode V” Marvel issues.
8. “Heart of Darkness” (16, Paul Lee) – Seven hundred years before the Battle of Yavin, we meet young Jedi Yoda – who is referred to as by his first name, Minch, as inspired by rough drafts of “The Empire Strikes Back.” It’s not canonical, but it makes sense. A fight with a dark sider leads to Dagobah, where Yoda offs him in the famous tree cave, forever infusing it with dark-side power.
7. “Deal with a Demon” (3, John Ostrander) – All of Vilmarh Grahrk’s amusing traits are on display in the debut of the self-centered Devaronian who would go on to become the second-best character in “Republic” (behind Quinlan Vos).
6. “Bad Business” (8, Ostrander) – And “Bad Business” is more entertaining yet as our lovable-yet-immoral anti-hero deals with the equally shady Watto and then takes on a woman who turns into a feline beast on his spaceship. As Villie puts it: “Hoboy!”
5. “Into the Great Unknown” (19, Blackman) – In a story that’ll have you repeatedly saying “wow” on the first read, Han and Chewie jump through a hyperspace quirk to our own solar system during Earth’s Wild West age. The Falcon crashes in what is presumably northern California, as it reminds Han of Endor (tee-hee). Han is killed by Indians and Chewie becomes the Sasquatch legend who is pursued a century later by Indiana Jones (and Short Round, for that matter). (Although this story is obviously non-canonical, it’s interesting to note that Lucasfilm briefly toyed with the idea of incorporating our galaxy into “Star Wars” lore, but “Alien Exodus” didn’t make it past the proposal stage.)
4. “Mara Jade: A Night on the Town” (1, Timothy Zahn) – Mara Jade tracks down a corrupt Imperial governor and crosses paths with General Madine in a vintage Zahn undercover operation that could be a lost chapter from the comic series “Mara Jade: By the Emperor’s Hand.”
3. “Yaddle’s Tale: The One Below” (5, Dean Motter) – Here we get the complete backstory of Yaddle, who spent 200 years as a captive in an underground cave yet emerged more attuned to the light side of the Force than ever. She is voted to the Jedi Council, although Yoda still doesn’t trust her, demonstrating that he wasn’t singling out Anakin with his doubtful nature. We should’ve gotten a series of tales like this for the entire “Episode I” Jedi Council.
2. “Thank the Maker” (6, Ryder Windham) – Assisted by art from Killian Plunkett, Windham masterfully weaves Darth Vader’s reflections on his younger days – as inspired by the bin of C-3PO parts – into the plot of “The Empire Strikes Back.” We can imagine these scenes (such as Vader ordering his underling to give the droid parts to Chewbacca) occurring just off-screen, and this tale was especially cool when it came out in 2000 in the wake of the “Episode I” revelation that Anakin built 3PO.
1. “Resurrection” (9, Marz) – While all the tales in the first eight issues are shorter than a standard 24-page comic, almost the entire 64 pages of Issue 9 is devoted to the Vader-Maul showdown that fans had dreamed of. For those who want “Resurrection” to be canon rather than Infinities, an argument can be made that it fits. Supposedly, dark side adepts use magic to manifest Darth Maul, and Vader gets caught in their trap. But it would be within the character (and arguably, the powers) of the Emperor to set up a test between his two apprentices. (Interestingly, Maul was still alive the last time we saw him in the “Clone Wars” comic series “Son of Dathomir,” so a real Maul-Vader showdown could happen in a future story.)