Hello there,
It's time for me to discuss the twenty-sixth issue of the first Star Wars comic book series. The cover depicted a damaged R2-D2 with Luke Skywalker standing behind it. There's also a downed TIE fighter and a pilot pointing his pistol at the two Rebels in the background. The tale was titled "Doom Mission!" The issue had a publication date of August 1979.
The story started in Yavin's orbit, as the new ship Luke and Princess Leia had just purchased from Jorman Thoad (last issue) was limping along with a damaged engine, faulty communicator, and failing shields, all while being attacked by TIEs. Artoo tried to take care of the internal damage with C-3PO, but things seemed grim until a squadron of X-Wing fighters arrived to take out the Imperial vessels.
Luke soon landed his ship, and he and Leia explained their plight to General Dodonna. Leia's macrobinoculars had recorded footage of a House of Taage mining explorer in the area. It showed how it sent TIE fighters out into a strange cosmic storm, which explained how the fighters were able to launch regular attacks on the Alliance base. It was still unknown just what was in the storm that allowed the TIEs to emerge unscathed.
That was something that Skywalker was willing to investigate. He and Artoo took a Y-Wing to one of the nearby moons where a TIE had crashed. Unfortunately, Artoo was damaged when he was trying to obtain information from the downed ship's controls by the blast from the fighter pilot's pistol. Luke took out the enemy after grabbing the signal device they'd been after, and rushed his beloved astrodroid back to the base.
While waiting for Artoo to be repaired, Luke and Leia thought about their next moves. Dodonna joined the heroes, having something to share. He showed the duo a TIE fighter that they'd captured some time before. The signal device that Luke had obtained would allow them to penetrate the storm as an undercover agent. As Luke flew off in the pirated craft in his attempt to unravel the mystery, Leia wished her companion luck as Threepio hoped his counterpart could be fixed.
Luke soon made his way inside the cosmic storm. He learned that it was being generated by a large turbine. He quickly attacked the Imperial craft, just as Baron Taage was renewing his lightsaber practice inside of it. Luke's attack run was successful. Now all he had to do was to escape.
Using the Force, Skywalker discovered a way out amidst the swirling winds and aftermath of the turbine's destruction. His ship emerged a little worse for wear, but Luke's mission was successful nonetheless. He was unaware that Taage escaped the turbine just in time and had followed the stolen TIE out of the storm. The baron swore vengeance on the young Rebel, just like he did on Darth Vader, the man who'd damaged his eyes in an earlier confrontation and forced him to wear the visor that was now his trademark.
This was a rather brief storyline, but I guess it was okay. It seemed to me that Artoo was rather unnecessarily put in harm's way just to obtain the Imperial signal device. Fortunately, he would recover soon enough. This wasn't the only time in this series that Rebels used a stolen TIE fighter to infiltrate the Empire. There's a much better storyline that uses this tactic later on, after the Empire Strikes Back adaptation.
That's all I have for today. Tomorrow, I'll cover the twenty-seventh issue of Marvel's first Star Wars title. Luke and Threepio go offworld to find parts for Artoo's repairs, and run into the first bounty hunter featured in this series. Until then, have a great week and don't forget to be kind to one another.
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