Tuesday, November 05, 2024

I suggest reading this, then logging off for the day?

This wasn't my favorite issue--the book was hitting solid at the time--but there's a moment this issue that stuck with me and might be important today. From 1982, Star Wars #58, "Sundown!" Plot and script by David Michelinie, plot and pencils by Walter Simonson, inks by Tom Palmer.
While Chewbacca, Luke, and Lando head for their adventure on Bazaar, Princess Leia was readying a dangerous plan to hide the Rebel fleet from Imperial patrols, by hiding it in that system's sun! It's a rather Star Trek plan if you ask me, and hey, it uses "Kerts-Bhrg field generators" for the shields--Kurtzberg, after Jack Kirby!
While dramatic, the insertion goes without a hitch, and most of the Rebel personnel make their way to the specialized shuttle to head back to base, leaving a smaller maintenance crew behind. Threepio scolds Artoo to hurry, or if they miss the shuttle, they would be stuck there for a weeklong shift, but Artoo dawdles, checking something, and finding a fault in an absorption circuit, that was about to explode! Oh, and the shuttle just left, and burning circuitry created noxious fumes, knocking out the maintenance crew!
Threepio gets communications out to Leia on the shuttle, which just barely made it through: the force-field protecting the fleet was fluctuating, and TIE Fighters had just entered the system...c'mon, those aren't long-range ships! That's from the first movie! But, Artoo has a plan, and it's a doozy: run a cable from one of the Rebel ships, out to the force-field generators, to keep it going. He and Threepio have to make a spacewalk, with Threepio wearing a jetpack, and Artoo wrapped in a reflective blanket with an eyehole poked in it. (Threepio's gold coating apparently protected him from the heat!) This hits a snag pretty quickly, when the temperature's hot enough to melt the jetpack, and their momentum was going to carry them out of the force field, into the sun!
After the TIE Fighters leave the system, Leia's shuttle had managed to get their heat shields back up for another trip into the sun, but by computer calculations, the fleet would've already been destroyed, thirty seconds ago. (That also feels more Trek than Wars.) For maybe five seconds, it seems like this was going to break Leia: while they wouldn't have lost a lot of people, without those ships, the Rebel Alliance would have largely been whatever they had in their pockets at the time. Well, if that's where we have to start, that's what we'll do...but of course, things weren't as bleak as all that: Artoo had used his fire extinguisher as an emergency propellent, which got them to make the connection in time. But, that scene still sticks with me: even at the absolute worst-case scenario, you still can't quit. Keep fighting until you can't.
Also this issue, along with the start of the fun Bazaar plot, we also see smoking hot Rebel pilot/possible love interest for Luke, Shira Brie, a couple times; and she makes a strangely "oh no! Anyway..." tinged remark at the news of the possible destruction of the fleet. It'll make sense later!

No comments: