1 Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, released in 1978, is often thought to be the first “expanded universe” Star Wars story (a story that built upon the stories from the films rather than a comic book adaptation of the movie). However, it was actually beaten to the punch by a story that appeared in the same year Star Wars came out, 1977, in the pages of—of all places—Pizzazz!
Pizzazz was a weird mishmash of a magazine that Marvel produced for a few years that mixed comic-related content with games and articles about entertainment and sports. It also had, for the first eighteen issues, original Star Wars stories—including the very first expanded universe Stars Wars comic!
2 Writing for Star Wars in the 1980s was weird, because writers were constrained by the plots of the movies being released. To wit, you couldn’t have plots with Luke and Darth Vader, and without Vader, let’s be honest, things get a little boring. One plot that was available was “the search for Han Solo.” So long as they did not actually find Han after the events of The Empire Strikes Back, comics were free to spend issues looking for him. In issue #46, Lando Calrissian got his first solo issue, written by J. M. DeMatteis, where he goes on the hunt for Han. During their search, Lando and Chewbacca meet an old Rebel warrior named Cody Sunn-Childe, who decided not to get involved in the intergalactic war. Lando really rides him, telling him pacifism is for chumps. He gets Cody to rise in anger, but then Cody realizes that his pacifistic views have no real strength if they are not challenged. Well, they are very challenged when the Imperials show up and Cody refuses to fight. He is killed, but DeMatteis’s idea was to say, “Hey, there’s nobility in choosing to die for a cause or a belief.” The folks at Lucasfilm felt otherwise, though, and had Marvel change the ending of the comic so that Lando specifically points out that what Cody did was wrong! DeMatteis was angry enough that he took his name off of the issue.
3 As you know, Star Wars is very popular all across the globe, so it’s only natural that the comic book adaptations would also be popular. However, sometimes when things get translated, the meaning gets lost, as it did in a particular Danish translation of Star Wars #77. In that issue, “Chanteuse to the Stars” (called such because Leia, while hiding from the Imperials, has to impersonate a lounge singer), we get an issue where Leia, Luke, and Plif (a new character created for the Marvel Star Wars comic) are on the planet of the Zeltrons, humanoid aliens who sometimes give off pheromones that make them appear even more attractive than they already are. While there, Luke and Plif (who is pretending to be an alien ambassador, with Luke as his assistant) are accompanied by some Zeltrons. In one panel, a Zeltron asks, “Gee, are you little fellows any fun?” In the Danish translation, though, that line is translated as, “Can I please take you to bed with me?” I’ve heard some Danish folk suggest that the connotation from the translation is like “I want to take you to bed like a little teddy bear,” but either way, it is a weird translation.
4 In 2000, Randy Stradley was writing Jedi Council: Acts of War, in which he introduced a new Jedi Master named Soon Baytes. Stradley said he came up with the name because the comic editor for Lucasfilm, Sue Rostini, would always correct character names so that when a Jedi Master was addressed, “Master” preceded the Jedi’s last name. For instance, if Stradley wrote “Yoda,” she would correct it to “Master Yoda.” Stradley figured that when she did that to Soon Baytes, the joke would become clear to her and Stradley would then come up with a “real” name. Only she did not get back to him, so the character made it into comic book history. Get it? Master. Bates? Anyone? Gotta love high school humor.