What If ... Star Wars

For some odd reason, I've been thinking a lot about possibilities and roads not taken, specifically with respect to Star Wars. Now I'm not going to sit here and say that George Lucas did it wrong. It's his universe and he was allowed to do what he wanted. No, I'm just fascinated by what might have been.

The main thing I've been thinking of is the ending to Marvel Star Wars Annual #1, in which we are told that the original owner of Luke's Lightsaber came to the planet they are visiting with Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader. The inference is that it was Luke's father along with his fellow student that was there. There have been attempts at retcons that said this was another Jedi that Vader/Skywalker switched his lightsaber with in some ceremony, since the comic came out before "The Empire Strikes Back."


What if, though, Empire never happened? What if we took this story as it was? We had already seem Obi-Wan as a warrior in Star Wars #24 (see image to the right). This fits in much better with the "guardians of peace and justice" that we thought Jedi were supposed to be. No desert robed priest, but a man of action that was dressed for it. In fact, if you look at this image and change the white to black, it's really close to Luke's costume in "The Return of the Jedi."

So, what would be different? Well, first off, there wouldn't be a "certain point of view." Vader would have killed Skywalker and Ben would have been telling the truth. Yes, this would have made Vader a less personal villain, but if he was Anakin Skywalker's best friend, wouldn't that have made the betrayal even more painful? Luke could have still tried to turn Vader back from the Dark Side, in order to try and redeem his father's friend. Or he could have tried to take revenge, and gone down the dark path himself.

I know that there were the Star Wars Infinities books, but they focused on a minor change and what repercussions that would have. What I'm talking about is scrapping Empire and everything after it and asking what would have happened if all we had were "Star Wars", the movie novelization, "Splinter of the Mind's Eye", and the Marvel comics up to that point?

Oh, I have no intention of writing anything story-wise on this, it's just something that has been rolling around in my brain and I thought I'd share it as an exercise in imagination. If you have any thoughts on this, please let me know. I'd love to hear them.