Star Wars Insider serves up short stories in Issues 62-88 (2003-06)
‘Star Wars’ flashback (Short story reviews): Here’s a rundown of Star Wars Insider’s initial foray into short fiction in Issues 62-88.
Joke wears a little thin in ‘Machete Kills,’ but it’s still worth seeing (Movie review)
While it’s not as thematically rich as the brilliant immigration parody “Machete” — my No. 1 movie of 2010 — “Machete Kills” still delivers a lot of laughs and is worth seeing if you’re a fan of the franchise. This sequel is a nice mix of old and new gags. It’s cool to see Machete, even in his advanced […]
‘Star Wars’ flashback: ‘Mara Jade: By the Emperor’s Hand’ (1998-99) (Comic book review)
“Mara Jade: By the Emperor’s Hand” (1998-99) marked Timothy Zahn’s first foray into comics, but he apparently got good guidance from friend and collaborator Michael A. Stackpole. In this six-issue series, Zahn wrote the overall story, Stackpole wrote the scripts for issues 1-3, and Zahn wrote the scripts for 4-6. It reads very much like a […]
‘Star Wars’ flashback: Ranking the 11 short stories from ‘Tales from the New Republic’ (1999) (Book review)
Thematically, “Tales from the New Republic” (1999) isn’t all that different from “Tales from the Empire” — both collections chronicle the little guy, either amid the galactic war or amid everyday life in the galaxy far, far away. It’s also about the little guy in “Star Wars” publishing. West End Games’ Star Wars Adventure Journal was canceled in 1997, but a […]
‘Star Wars’ flashback: Ranking the 10 short stories from ‘Tales from the Empire’ (1997) (Book review)
Just by paging through “The Essential Reader’s Companion,” it’s obvious that short stories make up a significant chunk of “Star Wars” fiction. Yet while the novels are easy to find, and 95 percent of the comics are collected in omnibus volumes, the short stories often have to be hunted down in magazine back issues or old web […]
‘Star Wars’ flashback: ‘The Bounty Hunter Wars Book 3: Hard Merchandise’ (1999) (Book review)
Readers just getting into the “Star Wars” EU might be concerned about novels that have plot holes brought about by conflicting events in the prequels and “The Clone Wars.” Remarkably, K.W. Jeter’s “Bounty Hunter Wars” trilogy — which concludes with “Hard Merchandise,” which actually came out a bit after the release of “Episode I” in 1999 — holds together quite well […]
‘Star Wars’ flashback: ‘The Bounty Hunter Wars Book 2: Slave Ship’ (1998) (Book review)
In the ’90s, in almost every lengthy interview in advance of “Episode I,” George Lucas and prequel movie producer Rick McCallum warned that these new movies would not be swashbuckling adventures like the original trilogy. They would be largely political thrillers. It was the most common Lucasian apologia outside of the warning that the films […]
First episode impressions: ‘Super Fun Night’ (TV review)
While it doesn’t serve up groundbreaking (no fat joke intended) humor, “Super Fun Night” (8:30 p.m. Central Wednesdays on ABC) does have a sweet, somewhat understated vibe that makes it good enough to keep on my schedule for a little while.
‘Star Wars’ flashback: ‘The Bounty Hunter Wars Book 1: The Mandalorian Armor’ (1998) (Book review)
No doubt the “Bounty Hunter Wars” trilogy drew a lot of readers simply because of its subject matter: Finally, a chance to learn more about Boba Fett and the other bounty hunters! However, the response to the first book, “The Mandalorian Armor” (1998) — to judge by Amazon reviews — is decidedly mixed, largely because K.W. Jeter has a […]
‘Star Wars’ flashback: ‘Classic Star Wars’ Issues 15-20 (Goodwin/Williamson newspaper strips, 1983-84) (Comic book reviews)
Because he didn’t know that “The Empire Strikes Back” was going to start with the Rebels on their new base on Hoth, Archie Goodwin didn’t get to bring his Marvel comics stories all the way from the end of “A New Hope” to the beginning of “Empire.” In the newspaper strips a few years later, he was able to […]