Thursday, May 3, 2018

STAR WARS TAG & BINK WERE HERE #1 [2018] spoiler synopsis

This Legends Star Wars story details the adventures of Tag and Bink, two rebels who end up intertwined with the canon events of the Star Wars movies.  These stories originate back to the Dark Horse comic days, which is extremely evident when they show the Dark Horse logo in lights in the shadow of the Death Star.  It has a lot of humor, but it's a little campy.

Star Wars:  Tag & Bink Are Dead #1 - "Episode IV.1:  Tag and Bink are Dead"
The opening crawl is very meta talking about Episode II being months away, so it appears this was released sometime in late 2001, early 2002.  Tag and Bink are Rebel officers on the Tantive IV.  They dress as stormtroopers and end up on the Death Star.  Their adventures coincide with the main adventure in a clever way.  They appear to be the two gunners with Darth Vader at the final battle and somehow survive.

Star Wars:  Tag & Bink Are Dead #2 - "Episode IV.:  Tag and Bink Live"
Again, we get another meta opening crawl and a meta moment where the writer draws himself in to explain a plot twist.  It it revealed that Tag & Bink weren't the gunners after all;  they took a different route and actually steal the shuttle Tydirium.  They end up back on Yavin after everyone is gone, run into Boba Fett, and then head to Cloud City before our heroes get there.  Chaos erupts on Cloud City like in the movie, and they escape.  They give the shuttle to Mon Montha and then Boba Fett's ship shows up and it ends.

Next we get the Star Wars:  Tag & Bink Were Here TPB (2006) cover art which collected these stories back in 2006 by Dark Horse.  Now that Star Wars is owned by Disney, it's just them republishing it under the Marvel banner.

Star Wars:  Tag & Bink II #1 - "Episode VI.1:  The Return of Tag and Bink -- Special Edition"
The opening crawl mentions that the writers were given an opportunity to write a third part of their adventure in Star Wars Tales #12, but due to deadlines, had to submit what they had and they weren't pleased with it, so this story is an attempt to fix their "grievous" wrong.

The story is intertwined, you guessed it, with Return of the Jedi.  It start before the events of Jedi with Tag & Bink partnering with Lando to get information from Boba Fett on the location of Han.  Tag ends up dressed as Boba and Bink as the guy who shoots Luke in the hand on Jabba's sail barge.  Boba Fett's ex-girlfriend Kannen saves them.  She puts them in contact with Manny Both-hanz.  Then they end up on the Death Star disguised as the Emperor's Royal Guards.  They end up blowing up with the Death Star and end up Force Ghosts

Star Wars:  Tag & Bink II #2 - "Tag and Bink Episode I:  "Revenge of the Clone Menace
We get the prequel backstory of Tag and Bink being told to Anakin by Palpatine during the Darth Plagueis the Wise story where they were identified as Jedi and end up being trained by Yoda and intertwining with the events of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.  They survive the purge as they were friends with Anakin, and end up going to Tatooine in the end, where they eventually join the Rebellion and well, you know the rest now.

Star Wars Tales #12 - "The Revenge of Tag & Bink"
Starts off very similar to the special edition, except they never make it on the sail barge.  They end up in the Sarlacc Pit, tied to a long stick that ends up getting caught.  Later on, others end up falling in as well as Boba Fett, they grab his jet pack and somehow save themselves and Boba.  The issue ends there.