The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1717: Droids #1, April 1986

I very much enjoyed the Droids cartoon when it was on TV. I even had a couple of the action figures based on the series. Though more comedic than the original films, the series sated a need for Star Wars in my young soul. Bear in mind that this is post-Jedi, so we really thought that there was no more of the story coming. Droids served as a prequel to A New Hope, and a better one than the prequels we eventually got. With the exception of Rogue One, a true prequel to A New Hope.

Today's comic highlights something about Artoo and 3P0 that has always interested me: they seem to find new people to serve simply by serendipity. I think there might be something to be said about this serendipitous nature throughout the films and ancillary media, and it really reinforces the fan theory that the films are being told by Artoo at some point in the future. Despite being mechanical beings, the two often function quite magically in the series. Artoo always manages to find the right fix just in the nick of time, and 3P0 gets into situations that often lead to unintended, but important, outcomes.

And before I let this one go, I do have to mention the uncomfortable bit about the droids looking for a "Master" to serve. I find the idea more and more uncomfortable as the world slides inexorably rightward.

"The X-Ones were defense robots, programmed to automatically fight against any hostile act!"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 880: Droids #6, February 1987

One of my favourite Star Wars comics is called Tag and Bink are Dead, written by Kevin Rubio, and styled after Tom Stoppard's play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. It follows the adventures of two rebel soldiers who pop in and out of the backgrounds of many of the famous scenes in the original Star Wars trilogy. It's very clever, and trades on the ubiquity of knowledge of the events of Star Wars to increase its humour.

I'd kind of hoped that today's comic would be similar in execution, and it is to a certain extent. What keeps this comic from achieving the same level of metatext and commentary as Tag and Bink, though, is that this comic is explicitly linked to a children's cartoon. Droids was relatively successful when it came out, as was it's companion show Ewoks. But they were both definitely designed for younger audiences, and the comics versions are too. Instead of humorous entrances and exits into familiar action, which does happen a little bit, we instead get pretty much a retelling of the first half of Episode 4, interspersed with strange little side adventures (like with a weird race of mole creatures that live under the desert on Tatooine and worship an "acid lizard." Had the comic not been linked to the cartoon, I imagine we might have seen amusing commentary on the actions we've come to know and love, and different perspectives on how the events progress. What is C-3P0's take on the Rebellion, and the frankly haphazard way that Luke, Han, Chewie, and Leia go about their business of overthrowing a dictatorship? Would he even want that to happen?

Were the retelling a bit more self-aware, I'd likely track it down. But it's not, so we get a little taste of what the Droids comic and cartoon were like, how Star Wars (episode 4, that is) might have played out as a children's cartoon, and of Marvel's second (?) attempt to adapt this story. The first one, I think, was more successful.

To be continued.