Riders In The Void
Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia were on a mission an odd ‘’u’’ shaped star ship to transport medical supplies for the Rebellion when an Imperial Star Destroyer attacked their craft. In an attempt to escape they made the jump to hyperspace but there was some damage to the craft as it began to shake violently as they traveled through hyperspace and Luke decided to drop back to sublight travel. Once they did, they realized that had traveled beyond their home galaxy and into the starless void. Their craft is quickly swallowed up literally by a mysterious organic ship,that resembles a pile of melted plastic grapes,taking into the ships cargo holds opening,that closes like squide, which proceeds to play some deadly games with them.Luke fights a golden robot,with a light saber,similar to a Jedi. Once the ship realizes that Luke and Leia are actually real individuals and not part of its own programming it tries to forcibly expel them the same way,it took in their ship. However, the ship’s sole occupant-masked fighter pilot,seated within a command chair reconsiders its actions and decides to take them back to their home galaxy where the ship is attacked by the same Imperial Star Destroyer which had attacked the Rebels earlier.
Ship was at one time two separate beings, a pilot and a mecho-organic vessel, who participated in a war in an unknown galaxy. The ship and her crew were the only survivors of the last battle of the war,with strange mushroom ships of similar type and returned home only to find that their enemy, as a final gesture, had unleashed a deadly plague bomb on the crew's home planet, killing the entire population. Only one crew member survived the plague and returned to the ship fleeing the galaxy to the starless void, beyond the reach of the plague. Over time the pilot and ship fused to become a single being which existed in solitude, playing games with itself for amusement through the years.The ship quickly destroyed the cruiser with anti-matter pods and returns to its home in the void after allowing Luke and Leia to leave its hold.
Although a bit breif,this issue is very memmorable.Michael Golden creates some unique images for this early Marvel comic,generally not seen before or since.Too bad,this is only a one shot issue,handled by the artist.The story containned enough background material for a series of it's own.Good thing the Star Wars franchise desided to re-use the idea of sentient ships in the Yuzon Vong stories.