I'm a Star Wars collector. When I myself think of this term, the people who come to mind are Sansweet-esque megacollectors who spend hundreds of dollars on Master Replica items and thousands of dollars on rare action figures. I'm not one of those kinds of collectors.

What I really enjoy collecting are the obscure comics, games, and other stories Star Wars has produced over the years. Because the current Expanded Universe includes nearly every story ever published, it's fun to see how these older stories relate to the newer ones. A lot of these stories, such as the Glove of Darth Vader, are disputed by serious EU fans whenever they are brought up, so I'm going to explore the ins and outs of my personal "Top Eight" obscure tales in order to inform other fans and defend their rightful place among the more modern sources.

First up: one of my favorite items, and a recent acquisition, Ewoks #10: The Demons of Endor. Now, the two Star Wars cartoons from the 80s, Droids and Ewoks are themselves pretty obscure (although most fans know about them), as they've never been released on VHS or DVD in their entirety, and it's been well over a decade since they've been seen on American TV. But even more obscure then the shows themselves are the comic books they produced.

This issue is actually the second in a crossover with the Droids series. (Unfortunately, I've been unable to track down Droids #4, with the first part.) But what's even better is that this story includes one of the few (if not the only) example of traditional sci-fi time travel in the Star Wars canon. For some of you, this may be your worst nightmare.

The Plot

This story starts out like a fairly standard Droids misadventure; Artoo and Threepio are assigned to escort baby Prince Plooz from the planet Sooma to his homeworld of Alzar. Unfortunately, General Sludd of Alzar has other plans. He sends ships to destroy the droids' ship en route, so that King Gokus of Alzar (ok, we're done with the weird names now) will declare war with Sooma, after which Sludd will pick up the pieces and rule both worlds. (Unfortunately, I missed all of this.)

It's at this point that time travel comes in. Somehow, the attack creates a time warp that sends the droids back to the future! Or, rather, just to the future. Because they haven't been there yet. But they will. In fact, they're already there. Does your brain hurt yet?

On the other side of the time warp is the moon of Endor, where the Ewoks are preparing for a historic peace treaty with the Duloks. Of course, the Duloks are planning to stab the Ewoks in the back. (Dulok treachery was part of the plot of every episode of the Ewoks cartoon.) And of course, the droids help Wicket and Kneesaa (another cartoon regular) to save the Ewok leaders before returning to their own time to foil Sludd's plot.

Continuity Concerns

Now, there are two problems some might have with accepting this story into their perception of the EU. The first is the idea that the Droids and Ewoks have met before Return of the Jedi, which appears to be their first meeting. I think that this isn't an issue now that the prequels are out; we now know the droids met many characters in their early years before encountering them for the "first time". (And while Threepio's memory wipe explains much of this, Owen, Obi-Wan, and Yoda never had a mind-wipe.)

But why time travel, some might ask? After all, the Droids have already met the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi! They exist in the same time period! Well, first of all, most of the Droids comics take place before the Droids cartoon, which in turn takes place fifteen years before A New Hope. The Ewok stories chronicle the early adventures of Wicket, who is still pretty young in Return of the Jedi. These stories take place around one year after A New Hope.

So there were only so many ways a story involving the two sets of characters could work. The only other solutions would have been to either move the timeframe of the Droids comics forward (they eventually did this with issues 6-8, which take place during ANH, but at this point the Rebel Alliance becomes concerned with the Droids, and they definitely can't know about Endor and the Ewoks) or to have a flashback issue featuring the Droids on Endor almost a generation earlier (which would have been my bet, but this would have prevented interaction between the main characters of both series.)

So time travel is pretty much a given. It's not something I'd like to see any more of, but things like Force-time warping in the Living Force RPG and flow-walking in the novels are walking the line. (Strictly speaking, flow-walking belongs in a different category, but that's another issue entirely.)

Personally, I think Artoo and Threepio can be allowed one single excursion into this area, provided it stays in the "so fantastic and unlikely that no one would ever believe it" category. Time travel can be fun, but too much of it can hurt a franchise. Also, having the droids travel only travel to the future of an isolated world and then immediately return to their own time reduces the number of temporal headaches normally associated with the phenomena.

What's to Like

Time Travel? Ewoks? I can practically hear the groans of the die-hard fans now. But don't be too quick to dismiss this story, as it actually has a lot to offer. Yes, this was something the TV writers wisely stayed away from. Yes, it was probably an attempt to get the Droids fans to cough up allowance money for an Ewok comic book, and to lure the widdle Ewok fans over to the Droids series. (Although it was the superior series, Droids suffered from a lack of interest and was cancelled first.)

What's great about this comic is that the writers weren't content with hacking out a nonsensical crossover. They actually put some effort into tying this event to Return of the Jedi, including elements such as:

Threepio's knowledge of Ewokese

Didn't you ever wonder why Threepio can speak the Ewok language? This book doesn't actually explain why, but Threepio does identify it as an "obscure dialect of the Inner Zuma region". This comic makes a point of re-establishing the fact that the "cartoon" Ewoks really are speaking the language used in the films, answering an unfair complaint sometimes directed at the show. (Inside the Worlds of the Star Wars Trilogy explains that the language spoken by Ewoks was actually brought into the wider galaxy by Yuzzum.)

Continuity minded fans will note that the "Endor and the Moddell Sector" article in Star Wars Gamer #9 actually makes use of this incredibly obscure line, mapping out both the Inner and Outer Zuma regions. Sweet.

The Ewok Treatment of Threepio

Remember the Ewok's reaction to Threepio in ROTJ? Well, they're not so hot on the Droids this time around. No, wait, it's that they weren't so hot on the Droids the first time around. Whatever. In fact, they're mistaken for demons. (Thus the title. It's important to note that their only other major encounter with droids was with the sinister Sepratist foot soldiers in Clone Wars Adventures.)

It isn't until Threepio prevents the assassination of the Ewok leaders (ironically, the Duloks also believe that he is a demon, and they simply run away) that the god idea is set in motion. Apparently, in the other issue, the shaman Logray (remember, the one with the skull on his head?) made a prophecy about a visitor from space. Before the incident with the Duloks, the Ewoks believed the arrival Prince Plooz to be the prophecy fulfilled. Afterwards, they start to think that Threepio is the prophecy come true.

(Artoo gets no love. Even though he saves Wicket and Kneesaa and Threepio at the beginning of the comic, he's tied up with the rest of the Endor landing party in ROTJ.)

This is only half the explanation, however, as other EU sources states that by ROTJ, the Ewoks had come to associate Threepio with the ancient legend of the Golden One god. The comic does explain why Logray didn't believe Threepio's threats of magic, however: in one scene, Logray easily neutralizes Threepio with his own magic staff. The association of Threepio with Logray's prophecy also explains why Logray is treating Threepio like a god if he doesn't believe he can use magic; if he didn't, he would be invalidating his own prophecy.

The Cover

Seeing the cartoon Wicket with most of the Marvel superheroes on the same cover is pretty awesome. There's a Marvel Team-Up we'll never see.

Prince Plooz

Plooz is absolutely one of the cutest little critters to come out of the Expanded Universe, and in spite of his silliness, it's impossible not to like the little guy. He's just such a cute little baby. No wonder Alzar and Sooma were going to go to war over him. By the way, Gamer also made use of these two planets, placing them in the Gordian Reach, the same region that includes Yavin IV. (Apparently, the Droids made quite a trip in space as well as time.) Sadly, the same issue established that both planets were victims of the Stenax Massacre. We can only hope that Plooz survived...

Next: Roll the dice and play...the Death Star Video Boardgame!