Review of "Star Wars Tales: Volume 3," various authors

Review of

Star Wars Tales: Volume 3, various authors ISBN 9781569718360

Four out of five stars

 This collection of 22 short stories cover a wide spectrum of the Star Wars universe with some of them being spoofs. The most unusual is the Fantastic Four rip-off where they attack Darth Vader yelling the battle cry, “It’s rebellin’ time!” Furthermore, the large hairy creature is called Grimgrim and the female is called God Richarrz. They do not last long against the master of the dark side.

 My favorite was the battle between Darth Vader and Darth Maul for the exalted position at the emperor’s side. While this requires some temporal creative license, it is not too far out of bounds. Second on my list of best is the story that has Bobba Fett and Darth Vader squaring off in the cantina over Han Solo.

 There is a story featuring a young Han Solo and another with a young Princess Leia. Han was a scamp even then while Leia was also a bit on the wild side, even playing practical jokes on Governor Tarkin. As one would expect in a collection of stories by different writers and artists, there is a significant difference in the appearances of the main characters from story to story. I found two of them to be mediocre, passed through quickly on my path to a better one.