I’ve been reading through the Marvel Comics series Star Wars recently, after hearing about them on Grognardia (although I actually got a few of them when they first came out in the 70s and 80s).

They’re strangely enjoyable, even though the artwork can be a bit amateurish (and the dialogue is often very stilted).

This post is about issue 53. The story begins with Princess Leia crash-landing on a new planet. Characters do this a few times in the series. It’s a good way to have new stories that don’t have to interact with the main setting. I seem to remember the original Battlestar Galactica did the same thing.

Then she discovers these guys:

The plot (which goes over two issues) doesn’t have very much to do with John Carter, but for some reason I enjoyed this pastiche, whereas I really didn’t like the Magnificent Seven story earlier in the series. Perhaps the Don Quixote character and the talking green rabbit were a bit too much. I do think it’s appropriate that Princess Leia ends up in the planetary romance and Han Solo ends up in the Western.