Lando Calrissian: How I Helped Build a Scoundrel's Backstory

by Rich Handley

I used to write a lot for Lucasfilm's various Star Wars licensees, from feature articles and interviews to columns and some fiction. (I still write blogs for starwars.com from time to time, but that's about it these days.) This included wok for Star Wars Insider, Topps' Star Wars Galaxy Collector, Star Wars Gamer, Star Wars Fact Files, Dungeon/Polyhedron and more. Among the fiction were two tales about Lando Calrissian, one a comic book for Dark Horse Comics (co-written with Darko Macan), the other a short story picking up where the comic left off.

I thought I'd share the pages of the comic in this blog, for those interested. The story was called "Lady Luck," from Star Wars Tales #3, and it chronicled how Lando Calrissian (my favorite of the film characters) won Cloud City. Some time back, Brian Cronin, over at Comic Book Resources, offered a fun write-up about it here. (My great thanks to both Darko and editor Pete Janes, for allowing me to be a part what turned out to be a great gig.)

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Trailers of the Planet of the Apes!

Matthew Sunrich Presents... Detective Comics #412

Detective Comics #412

By Matthew Sunrich

In my recent post about Detective Comics #408, I discussed how the Gothic elements found in Batman's earliest Golden-Age stories had resurfaced at the beginning of the Bronze Age. This idea is again exemplified in the chilling pages of Detective Comics #412, where two knights, one medieval and one modern, do battle in "Legacy of Hate."

Bruce receives a telegram from Lord Elwood Wayne, a distant relative who is on his deathbed. He requests Bruce's presence at Waynemoor Castle in Northern England so that he can bequeath his inheritance, along with those of his other remaining relatives, in person rather than by way of a will. Bruce meets up with these other relatives on a rainy station platform: Wilhemina Wayne, from South Africa, Rev. Emelyn Wayne, a missionary in Asia, and Jeremy Wayne, from Australia.

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GUEST BLOG: DVD Review: The Visitation - Special Edition

DVD Review:
The Visitation—Special Edition

By Greg Bakun

Doctor Who: The Visitation Special Edition 2-DVD Set
(Main Feature: 95 min)

Released by BBC Home Entertainment on May 14, 2013.
SRP $34.98 (DVD)

Subtitles: English SDH 4:3 Mono (Main Feature)

On a Friday night, twenty-eight years ago a 10 year old boy was sitting in his room when his mother called him out to the kitchen. It was late on an August night; perhaps 10:30pm. She called him into the kitchen because there was a series on TV she had never seen before. It was a strange mix of historical and sci-fi and she knew her son might be interested in seeing it. The series this young boy started to watch was Doctor Who and the story he found himself watching was The Visitation.

Obviously this story is about me. When my mom called me out to the kitchen, walking into the room I had no idea my life would change forever. For most fans, I am sure The Visitation may not be the story that they would use to introduce prospective new fans to the series but maybe they should. I think for me I was taken in by the visuals. All the costumes were strange and colorful. I fell in love with the Police Box that looked so rickety yet held so many secrets. I enjoyed the idea of younger people getting in trouble and needing rescue; I thought I could identify with it. I thought Peter Davison as the fifth Doctor was amazing and still is a favorite to this day. Then there was the Terileptil.

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Matthew Sunrich Presents... Sword & Sorcery in the 1980s Arcade

Sword of Sorcery in the 1980s Arcade

By Matthew Sunrich

When Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson introduced the original version of Dungeons & Dragons as an optional expansion for their tabletop miniatures game Chainmail in 1974, they never could have dreamed that it would not only become immensely popular the world over (so popular, in fact, that Chainmail was soon abandoned altogether) but would also influence the world of gaming like nothing else before or since.

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Follow Pat Carbajal on Facebook

Brilliant artist Pat Carbajal, who produces the wonderful covers and interior illustrations for our titles at Hasslein Books, is now on Facebook. I've been trying to convince him to join us for some time, as he's got a lot of fans there, and he finally caved. You can follow his work and marvel at his creations here. You'll be very glad you did.

Learn more.

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Mona Lursa

GUEST BLOG: Cubing—Avatar: The Last Airbender

I don't watch a lot of TV. Oh, I used to, when I was a younger man (i.e., in high school and college), but then I stopped. See, six years ago, I underwent spinal fusion surgery, and it kept me more or less bedridden for a few months. And in that time, when even lifting a book cost some effort, about the only thing I really did was watch a lot of TV. So by the time I was recovered, I got really restless whenever I tried watching anything.

(This is all leading somewhere, I promise.)

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Matthew Sunrich Presents: Sword of Sorcery #3

Sword of Sorcery #3

By Matthew Sunrich

"I'm considered an expert at silencing braggarts who 
mock my compactness." –The Gray Mouser

Sword & sorcery and pirates have had a long association ("The Pool of the Black One," one of Robert E. Howard's original Conan stories, comes to mind). After all, the swashbuckling action, carousing, treasure-hunting, and roguish behavior endemic to corsair tales are also the trappings of sword & sorcery. Because of their similarities, the two genres mix extremely well, and, as we have seen again and again, the briny deep (with its own species of monsters, brigands, and inclement weather) can prove just as perilous as dry land, if not more so.

It's no surprise, then, that Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser would mix up with some pirates sooner or later.

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Doctor Who Retro Review: Serial 010—The Dalek Invasion of Earth

Doctor Who Retro Review, Serial 010:
"The Dalek Invasion of Earth"
Starring: William Hartnell

By T. Scott Edwards

The Dalek Invasion of Earth is an epic adventure which sees our time travellers return to their home planet a few hundred years too late, to discover that the Daleks have conquered the planet and through slave labour and mind control are forcing the remaining survivors to mine for something from the planet's core. Terry Nation returns to his creations, the Daleks, with aplomb – after the hit-and-miss The Keys of Marinus, his writing is back on form. Whilst he'll never be as gifted at writing realistic three-dimensional characters as Lucarotti and Spooner, he does admirably when dealing with a grand-scale of characters, achieving a sense of national crisis as opposed to just a collection of characters dealing with their own issues. What is so magnificent about this serial is that we meet characters from every walk of life, and from a variety of different regions and in a number of varied locations, all dealing with the implications of the domination of their home planet. Some step up to rebel, whilst others work with their oppressive overlords and betray their own kind for some fresh fruit. Others use cunning to exploit their own people, for their own superficial gain.

The serial opens with the suicide of one of the Daleks' mind-controlled Robomen, as he struggles with his neck brace before collapsing into the poisonous depths of the river Thames. In the background throughout, there is a sign warning not to "Dump Bodies into the River". The grim realism of this sets it apart from Nation's other scripts – where he usually creates alien worlds and alien residents, here the focus is very British, and it is all the more shocking for it. The sign is something of a bug-bear of mine; the TARDIS crew spend at least ten minutes of this first episode wandering around under the bridge and yet fail to see the sign which is right behind them until much later. This is, of course, typical Nation – the realism is there, to some degree, but there is always something about it not ringing true. Peripheral vision is a hindrance to Doctor Who frequently, with characters not noticing things or not being spotted despite being in the most obvious hiding places – indeed, in the Pertwee years, it is a constant fallback as a plot device – but here it feels ridiculous. That they are looking around for clues, standing right in front of the sign, yet utterly missing it, irks me.

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Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Lost" Episodes

by Rich Handley

As Star Trek Into Darkness warps into U.S. theaters today, here's a look back at a "lost" episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, titled The Star Trek Logs: An MTV Big Picture Special Edition. The special aired on MTV in November 1991, during TNG's fifth season, as a tie-in to both Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and the two-part episode "Unification."

The Star Trek Logs featured the lovely Marina Sirtis as her TNG character, Counselor Deanna Troi, on the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Troi, having developed an interest in learning about Kirk's crew following her recent encounter with Spock in "Unification," is shown studying clips from The Original Series and its films, as though viewing recordings stored in the ship's computer.

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Taking the Super Out of the Heroes

by Rich Handley

An article I wrote for Bleeding Cool Magazine #4 is in stores today. I completely forgot that was even coming out this week. Be sure to ask your local comic shop to set aside a copy for you! It's destined to be worth a gajillion dollars some day.

BLU-RAY REVIEW: Star Trek: The Next Generation Season Three Remastered

BLU-RAY REVIEW:

Star Trek: The Next Generation
Season Three Remastered

By Rich Handley

When Star Trek: The Next Generation hit the airwaves in 1987, I was hooked. "Encounter at Farpoint," despite some cheesy dialog, weak acting and typical Trek clichés (not to mention a blatant ripoff of the Decker/Ilia relationship from The Motion Picture), was a solid story featuring some great new characters and impressive production values. And so I kept tuning in, happily devouring each week's new episode, and grateful to finally, after more than a decade, have new Star Trek on television, 13 years after the animated series' cancelation.

By the end of that first season, I knew something special had arrived, but felt that it hadn't yet lived up to its potential. Despite some gems, such as "The Big Goodbye," "11001001," "Heart of Glory" and "Conspiracy," the season was also putting out embarrassing clunkers like "Code of Honor," "Justice," "Angel One," "When the Bough Breaks" and "Skin of Evil." Still, I'd had one hell of a ride, and looked forward to what the following year would bring.

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Doctor Who Retro Review: Serial 009—Planet of Giants

Doctor Who Retro Review

Serial 009: "Planet of Giants"

Starring: William Hartnell

By T. Scott Edwards

Planet of Giants is a remarkable serial, for a vast number of reasons. It is the first serial of the second season, and as such shows how, due to the success of the first season, the series began to forge its way forward in a new direction. It is ambitious and bold, with extraordinary scripts, fantastic performances and truly exceptional set design. The crew are now kitted out in some rather dapper new costumes, and the whole thing feels fresher. At only 3 episodes long, the pace is sharp and direct, with very little padding – although it had originally been intended to be 4 episodes, but at the request of Verity Lambert and Sydney Newman, the serial was shortened to 3, editing together parts 3 and 4 into a faster paced climax to the story.

The serial opens with the crew, dressed in their finest, waiting for materialisation. When it comes, however, it is interrupted by braying klaxons and flashing warnings, and the doors terrifyingly open of their own accord during the materialisation. As had already been stated in The Edge of Destruction, for this to happen can mean huge catastrophe, and the TARDIS crew quickly try to work out exactly what has gone wrong. The scenes with the crew working together are fantastic – at first, Hartnell comes across exactly how he started the first season, grumpy and crotchety, before suddenly realising what he is doing, and apologising to Barbara and Ian – "I always forget niceties under pressure". It is a touching reminder of exactly how much his character has progressed and grown to appreciate these interlopers within the TARDIS.

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