Marvel #17 - The Crucible

Keeping going with the one-shot story format, Marvel brought out this story of Luke's pre-Star Wars adventures in the very next issue where we see him living an average teenager's life on Tatooine; bulls-eyeing womp-rats (not in his T-16, but from his landspeeder this time) and generally mooching about and complaining about how Biggs gets to go to the academy while he has to stay put and help out his uncle.

The artist's depictions of Owen and Beru are pretty far from what we see of them in the movie, particularly Beru who actually looks like quite the cougar here...


Luke heads off to Beggar's Canyon for Biggs' farewell do and they race their Skyhoppers. After the race a landspeeder crashes the party (literally) and a wounded militia scout is dragged from the wreckage, babbling about Tusken Raiders on the warpath with newly acquired weapons after one of their sacred wells was poisoned. This seems to draw some sort of parallel between the Tusken Raiders and Native Americans of the Old West, which I've never really considered before.

The Sandpeople arrive and there is a firefight. Luke and Biggs try to make for one of the Skyhoppers to get help, but are attacked and Biggs takes a hit in the shoulder with a garderffi stick with its tip dipped in sand bat venom. With the poison working fast, Luke pilots the Skyhopper through the deadly 'Diablo Cut' and narrowly avoids being blasted by more Sandpeople. He lands back at his uncle's farm safely where Biggs presumably gets the medical treatment he needs, leaving Luke to gaze at the twin suns and daydream once more. We are then treated to a great one page panel montage of future events...

This Micronaut cruiser here which can split into 7 different vehicles looks thoroughly awesome.