Droids #6 (12 Days of C-3PO and R2-D2 Covers)

Celebrating the last day of the twelve days of C-3PO and R2-D2 covers!

While the 6-part Marvel's Star Wars adaptation is perhaps the most printed U.S. comic around the world, there have been numerous retellings as well.  The most interesting issues of Marvel's Droids title are #6 - 8 which retell the story from the droids point of view.

The recount starts the same as the movie aboard the Tantive IV.  After the droids escape from the battle and crash on Tatooine, we see Darth Vader talk to Princess Leia aboard the Tantive IV like in the movie.  This is interesting because neither droid was witness to the conversation.  This occurs again when Leia is brought before Governor Tarkin on the Death Star.  It would be easy enough to dismiss this as Leia conveying her part of the story to the droids but we also witness conversations aboard the Death Star during the Rebel attack.  It is not possible for these conversations to be overheard by the droids.  No doubt, the writer could not find an easy way to tell the story strictly from the point of view of the droids, so these scenes were used.

As C-3PO and R2-D2 leave the escape pod, they both fall into an underground cavern occupied by mole creatures.  C-3PO communicates with the creatures and believes they are helping the droids out of the cave, but the creatures takes the droids to an giant acid lizard named Gotar instead.  Gotar swallows the pair, but spits them out, freeing them from the cavern.  The droids are captured by the Jawas and the movie is again followed until R2-D2 takes off from the Lars homestead looking for Kenobi.  In the desert, R2-D2 stumbles upon a Sand Person encampment and hides from them under a Bantha.  Discovered, R2-D2 uses a projection of a giant C-3PO to scare the Sand People away.  The story then picks up with Luke and C-3PO finding R2-D2 the next day and they are attacked by the Sand People.  Following the movie again, the issue ends with the droids being approached by Stormtroopers outside of the Cantina in Mos Eisley.

Droids #6a - Marvel Comics, United States (February 1987)

The cover centers on a portrait of C-3PO and R2-D2, giving them their due which was denied on the covers the Star Wars movie adaptation.  (Actually, C-3PO and R2-D2 are not in the cover art for any of the Star Wars movie adaptations from Marvel, although they do appear in the upper left hand corner character box starting with the first issue of The Empire Strikes Back adaptation.  Even worse, they are not show on any of the covers for The Phantom Menace or Revenge of the Sith adaptations either.  For two characters that are in every Star Wars movie to date, their lack of cover appearances is disconcerting.)  Surrounding the droids are Vader and Obi-Wan dueling to their left and Luke, Leia, Han Solo, and Chewbacca to their right.  Below their portrait is the Millennium Falcon.  All of this is against a blue starred background, making this cover perhaps the most detailed of all the Marvel Droids covers.