Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: Star Wars (Vol. 2), Issue #4 – “Book I: Skywalker Strikes (Part 4)”! In the previous installment, the Rebels get away! Luke barely gets away and becomes depressed about his inability to become a real Jedi like his pops and that Obi-Wan guy.

These comics are pretty short and not very dense. Makes for some easy reading and quick recaps! It’s because Star Wars is for small children! Let’s keep this going.

Star Wars (Vol. 2), Issue #4 [June, 2015]
Written by: Jason Aaron
“Book I: Skywalker Strikes (Part 4)”

“The illustrious Jabba bids you welcome to the humble sands of Tatooine.”

If there’s one thing I know about Tatooine, it’s the sands themselves. Humble? You bet! Darth Vader and his cronies have arrived to negotiate with the fat sluggy slug. Jabba the Hutt is impressed with Darth Vader’s commanding presence and would be more than thrilled to partner up with Vader and his lucrative fuzzy dice production company. He just needs to understand the Emperor’s terms: under no circumstances shall there be ketchup on any of the Empire’s hot dogs.

“He may have whatever he needs to build his Star Destroyers and feed his stormtroopers and kill his Rebels,” Jabba squelches in his native tongue of Hutt Latin. “All I ask in return, from my friend, is that he pay me well.”

“You will be paid whatever we decide we pay you,” Vader responds, maintaining his UPPER HAND. Of course, Jabba the Hutt isn’t going to be lowering his own hand anytime soon. And he DOES have hands. I checked! Jabba threatens that the Empire’s shipments might get intercepted by pirates and space slugs if he gets shafted on payment. I, for one, want to see a cargo ship get swarmed by space slugs, but I won’t get to. I already know this.

Vader doesn’t back down and tells this pile of poop that the shipments will be delivered on time or else he’ll get a taste of the Empire’s galactic fist! *punches a pillow*

Then it’s settled! “I do not know about you, my dear Lord of the Sith, but Jabba the Hutt prefers to seal all his business ventures… by watching something die.”

Han & Chewie, part of ABC’s TGIF Friday night lineup.

Han Solo and Chewbacca are working on getting the Millennium Falcon back up to snuff. C-3PO is not in 50 pieces anymore. Things have reverted back to status quo. Let’s all grab a Slurpee to celebrate.

“We’re not doing enough,” says Princess Leia, taking the wind out of my sails. My Slurpee is going in the garbage, then. “Since the battle of Yavin and the destruction of the Death Star, the Rebel Alliance has staged more than a dozen different attacks on almost as many worlds,” assures Admiral Squidface Ackbar. This, plus bombings on Kuat (?) and Imdaar (?). Plus that one weapons factory on Cymoon 1, ever heard of it? “I’m not sure what more we could possibly be doing.”

Here’s Leia’s idea: hurt the Empire even harder! Duh.

Can’t do that when you’re on the run, Your Highness. The Admiral and that one Mothma lady suggest finding a new base of operations first before we give the Empire anymore spontaneous wedgies. Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker is in the batting cage practicing and increasing his lightsaber prowess. He gets shot by floating orb lasers and falls to the floor pathetically.

Leia shows up to task him with a mission. A mission that only he will be able to carry out! The Death Star thing and then the weapons factory thing, that stuff was great! Good, good stuff! Why, Leia’s never seen such masculinity and ruggedness! Luke will be a Jedi in no time!

Oh yeah? Then what’s with all these certificates from Jedi College and Jedi merit badges with your name on them?

Leia tells Luke he’s special. He’s a special boy. Luke doesn’t want to hear it. He can’t even tie his own space shoes, let alone stand up to the greatest former Jedi ever known. “Darth Vader swatted me away like an insect.”

This is the part where Leia frowns with her puppy dog eyes while Luke yells “JUST LET ME GO” like a whiny little insect worthy of nothing more than getting swatted. So he walks away.

In Mos Eisley, which I believe is some kind of shitty Tatooine urban environment, a few alien-types are talking to a vaguely alien bounty hunter-type about finding man. Not just any man, because men are a dime a dozen. A very specific man. And there’s a reward? Why, say no more! The alien-types will take it! Not the job, of course, but they’ll just take the reward.

Well, the vaguely alien bounty hunter-type ain’t taking too kindly to some ruffians who think they’re about to put the old hoodwink swindle on him, so he presses a button under his desk and shoots them all through the knees with a blast of gunfire. Now we’re in business; this guy is serious as a heart attack. “I’m looking for the biggest one of them all. A smuggler. By the name of Solo.”

After some more threats and nipple-twisting, the Rodians (as they are named) give up the goods! He’s not on Tatooine, he flew the coop. Does that help?

I guess it does! This bounty hunter guy moves on with barely any new information.

Not without payment in the form of kisses.

What else is going on? Darth Vader takes Jabba the Hutt on that “watching something die” offer. They’re flying a ship a few dozen feet above the ground shooting at woolly mammoths? Banthas. And here I am merely passing the time reading comic books like an idiot. Vader and Jabba go back and forth with their own brands of intimidating conversational eccentricities. Vader is like “we’re not friends just because you’re doing more than anyone else to help the Empire” and Jabba is like “yes we are”. Jabba provided some bounty hunters. The best in the business! You’re welcome.

Jabba the Hutt knows of Luke Skywalker, since he is now notorious around the Core Planets and the Outer Rim and the Inner Rim and the Middle Rim and the Upper Rim and the Lower Rim and Milton, Delaware as the wee little baby who blew up the Death Star. “And if it’s true that old Ben Kenobi was involved,” Jabba squelches, “perhaps [he’s] a boy who fancies himself a Jedi as well.”

This piques Vader’s interest considering old Ben Kenobi left him for dead near some lava that one time. Jabba’s got many, many stories about old Ben Kenobi! That guy is like a bad rash, man. “It’s still hard to believe that this boy of yours, this mighty warrior who destroyed the undestroyable Death Star, could have possibly come from these same empty dunes.

Not even Jimmy Smits? Oh wait, he’s from Brooklyn.

Han and Leia have accepted the fact that Luke is a whimpering little pissant and are letting him do his thing, sort of. Leia says it’s a bad idea to leave. Han says it’s cuckoo fucking bananas. “Kid, the entire Empire is out there searching the galaxy for the pilot who blew up the Death Star. What do you think’ll happen if they catch you?”

Luke is pretty confident that no one knows who he is, apparently, for some unfounded reason. He’s going back to Tatooine with R2-D2 to do some real soul-searching (jerking off).

Speaking of Tatooine, the roughed-up Rodians have been approached by yet another bounty hunter-type. “I’m looking for someone,” he says, much to the exasperation of the Rodians who don’t need more blasts right through the kneecaps. “Like we told the other bounty hunter, we don’t know where Solo’s run off to.”

It’s not Han Solo he’s after, oh no no no. Benjamin Franklin Kenobi. Dead as a doornail Kenobi. Why is this guy looking for him? Hard to say. Perhaps he wants to fornicate with the corpse?

At any rate, it’s Boba Fett.

Final Thoughts

Jabba the Slutt. That’s my only final thought.