Category: Opinion

Pick and Choose: Not Always Liking Canon

Posted on May 20, 2015by The Holocron

DEOssusLibraryWhat do we accept as canon, how do we perceive canon, why does it matter? It matters because there are things we aren’t willing to give up. Those don’t have to be large elements; it may be something small, concepts, ideas, whatever it is that really makes Star Wars what it is. Our relationship as fans with the Star Wars canon has varied over the years, and now that we definitely know what is and isn’t canon, that doesn’t necessarily make it easier for us to feel at peace with it. It feels like we’re living in a blended universe nowadays, where there is a possibility of many things becoming canon even if little is set in stone.

One of the best terms I’ve heard lately is “shadow canon.” There are plenty of ideas in Star Wars that haven’t been formally canonized, plenty of events not mentioned, but the references to them are plain. Clearly, there are some things that may have survived the great Legends announcement mostly intact, but may never be mentioned as such. Simply put, there are enough good ideas from Legends that it’s worth it to allow some things to make their way into canon, even if a bit indirectly. It brings a sense of unity and allows for the selection of the best elements of older canon. You can’t do a complete reboot without maintaining some of the original features of the story, and the small things being brought into new canon help Star Wars feel less empty.

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Meet the Marvels: Charles Soule

Posted on May 18, 2015by Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

shehulkcoverIn David Schwarz’s series Meet the Marvels, he’s been spotlighting the previous work of Marvel’s current slate of Star Wars writers, including Star Wars‘s Jason Aaron, Darth Vader‘s Kieron Gillen, and most recently, Princess Leia‘s Mark Waid (since he hadn’t written comics previously, Greg Weisman was skipped—but if you’d like to read more about his work pre-Kanan and Star Wars Rebels, Ben Wahrman has you covered). That brings us up to Charles Soule, who was announced around Celebration Anaheim as writing a Lando miniseries to follow Waid’s Leia. Though he’s certainly made a name for himself in recent years with prominent work like The Death of Wolverine, Soule’s bibliography isn’t quite as extensive as a Gillen or an Aaron, so David was gracious enough to hand this one off to me—so that I might extol the virtues of Soule’s awesome relaunch of She-Hulk last year.

She-Hulk is an interesting character; on the one hand, she’s the absolute embodiment of the ancient comics trope of taking a popular male hero and sloppily stapling on a uterus rather than creating a totally original female character (and not only was she unoriginal, but She-Hulk was also a staple of the sleazy “Swimsuit Special” era of comics). On the other hand, Jennifer Walters (as it says on her birth certificate) has proven remarkably adept at representing all sorts of progressive, empowering messages. She’s funny: even at their tackiest, She-Hulk comics have always had a wry just-this-side-of-Deadpool element of metahumor to them that gives the character a certain snarky agency lost to more “serious” characters. She’s also pretty much always in control of her abilities: She-Hulk is Jennifer Walters, there’s no Jekyll/Hyde melodrama in her life whatsoever, and Soule’s series in particular depicted her in Hulk form literally all the time. She’s not stunted by or ashamed of her powers, they’re simply who she is—which puts her miles ahead of Bruce Banner. And lastly, did I mention she’s a goddamn lawyer? Read More

Death Is The Drug

Posted on May 15, 2015by Obiwomble's Outlook

Chewbacca_SernpidalWith apologies to Roxy Music’s “Love Is The Drug”:

Death is the drug I’m thinking of
Oh oh can’t you see
Death is the drug for me

Death as a story device is one that goes all the way back, it’s always been used in tales – but has it always been expected ahead of a tale? Over the last fifteen years there has been a shift from death as story device and surprise to anticipating character deaths before a story is released and even requiring stories to have character deaths. Is this always beneficial and is it always warranted?

In terms of how to approach a story, bringing the death aspect to the fore tends to be to that story’s detriment, as the death eclipses all else. Vector Prime is not the book that started the Vong invasion, it’s the book that killed Chewie! After that Del Rey were, in a way, locked into killing someone else, which they did two years later in Star by Star with Anakin Solo. An unwitting consequence of these acts was the creation of a ‘who will they kill next’ line of thought. The answer to that turned out to be another Solo kid, more Jedi, another Chief of State, several of Luke’s old girlfriends and I’ve likely missed a few. Read More

How to Be Wrong

Posted on May 13, 2015by Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

Among Alexander Gaultier’s many criticisms of Lords of the Sith, one that we didn’t really get into in our discussion piece was Paul Kemp’s portrayal of Moff Mors. Alexander is among a group of readers who feel that Mors’ role as the first LGBT character in Star Wars canon was mishandled—and while the exact nature and extent of that mishandling appears to vary a lot from person to person, it’s certainly fair to say she’s been controversial.

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He’s actually quite charming.

The general flavor of the controversy is that a character who was destined to represent an important and oft-ignored demographic is first introduced to us as slovenly, lazy, and repulsively overweight —and that this presentation was at a minimum damaging to her overall character, and at worst a vile, body-shaming lesbian stereotype. While I can at least agree that Kemp’s descriptions of overweight characters can be somewhat more colorful than necessary (“overstuffed sausages” being a good example), I have to concede that it would be disingenuous of me to pretend that it bothered me at all when I was reading the book. It didn’t. I’m used enough to Kemp’s writing that moments like that (and both Mors and Orn Free Taa were victims of it) barely even registered as I breezed through what was for me a largely enjoyable reading experience.

Once I had finished reading, I read Alexander’s review and began to familiarize myself with some of those other early reactions, and after giving it some thought…it still didn’t bother me. To my mind, Mors’ initial introduction is entirely mitigated by Belkor, the subordinate character through whom we first meet her, and by her ultimate narrative arc—which I wouldn’t go so far as to call a redemption, but is at least a getting-her-shit-together. Handing the LGBT mantle to such a flawed character was certainly a very ballsy move on Kemp’s part, but for me at least, it paid off.

But that’s just me—and it’s not what I’m here to talk about. Read More

From A to B? Really?

Posted on May 8, 2015by Obiwomble's Outlook

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In 2006, Dark Horse Comics began Star Wars: Legacy. This series took the bold step of moving a century ahead of the then-current stories, considering the likely long-term consequences of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. In this new world, the Sith had returned in a new form, revived by a fallen Jedi from the prequel era. Wait, should not said Jedi be dead? Ah, no, he was on Korriban in a time dilation bubble! Despite this, the creative team’s backstory for their book only went back a decade, leaving a gap of about eighty years.

What then followed was one of the biggest tragedies of fandom. Once Legacy’s future was posited, it became all that anyone could see even with that time gap! Added to this was a misplaced notion of generational guilt, that Luke, Han and Leia were rendered failures by the galaxy’s inability to follow their example long after they died. The idea that each generation has their own challenges, regardless of their predecessors, was buried in the outrage.

With the release in December of The Force Awakens, it is quite likely that the same attitude will recur, but on a far bigger scale. Should it? No. Why? Because be it eight decades or merely three, there is nothing that says events have to go merely from A to B. This is particularly so when the episodic nature of the SW films and the two trilogies is acknowledged. What is tragic about the outlook is it narrows down possibilities. It reduces stories to chronological pawns and damns the franchise to move forward in time at the cost of everything else. The Legends EU was practically killed, in large part, by this. Does anyone want to see that happen again, but bigger? I don’t. Read More