Legacy Collection Comic Packs

[Jesse James]

Personally I felt the Vong were a ST Alien rip-off...  They had that "super alien menace" thing going on like the Dominion in DS9, and I just didn't dig it.  I like the way they look, but that too can be linked to a species from Voyager...

Regardless, the figure looks very sweet, and I'll gladly pick up a couple of the comic set he's in as I want a couple of Kyle to do customs with.

[Jeff]

Personally I felt the Vong were a ST Alien rip-off...  They had that "super alien menace" thing going on like the Dominion in DS9, and I just didn't dig it.  I like the way they look, but that too can be linked to a species from Voyager...

I agree with you JJ, when I read the first book or two of NJO, they just came off as a cheap Borg/Jem'Hadar type rip-off thing.  Sort of turned me off the whole series really with how they wanted to assimilate all these planets and "vongify" everything.  "Luke Skywalker, we are the Vong.  Prepare yourself for assimilation".   

[GrandMoffNick]

I loved them and the series. I hope they return some day. GO VONG!!!!!!!!!

[Jesse James]

Yeah, and there was this species in Voyager in particular too, that would harvest the flesh and body parts of other species...  And they had a Breen-ish thing going on too.  It was annoying, but I like the figure anyway. 

They really did rip off the modern ST series though, to get these aliens, and that bugged me a lot.  I wasn't an NJO fan at all though anyway, as I didn't like the idea of killing main characters to drive sales/plot along.  That cheapened the writing to me and stuff.   

[GrandMoffNick]

I think that every once in a while a main character has to die or you lose there ever being any suspense to the plot with those characters.

[Jesse James]

That's been the excuse of the writers that did it, but my gripe was more with them delving into characters they didn't create (IE: Chewbacca), which they did so just as a cheap way to sell books.  That, to me, cheapened the series.  They were free to roam with their own creations as they will, and they did, but I felt the killing of any of the OT characters was lameness to an extreme.

I still believe they offed their own characters, again, as a less than talented way to grip readers with a, "Oh who's gonna die next year!?", type of thing.  I really felt they just didn't rely on their own writing skills as much as other EU has...  I always go back to the Zahn Trilogy as the pinnacle of good EU writing.  I don't know that much has ever come close to comparing to that.  Not that it isn't without flaw.

[GrandMoffNick]

Nothing has compared to the Thrawn trilogy, but it was so good, I think comparing other books to that series isn't the exact same, but is like having expected the prequels movies to be as good as the OT stuff.

It's too hard to argue this on the comp, (this is going to be a lot of fragmented sentences) but I think OT characters do have to die sometimes. It isn't like the writers of the NJO stuff just chose to kill Chewie on their own. To put it mildly I don't enjoy Star Trek so saying NJO stole species doesn't mean much to me because I don't know what you're talking about.

Anyway I'm glad the NJO existed and was 19 books long.

[Jesse James]

I liked ASPECTS of NJO, but I hated teh Vong and offing of Chewbacca... 

I liked how the Jedi were handled, a lot of the combat/battles, etc.  I was disappointed with the writers though, on those two issues.  That was about all of the NJO that I found lacking.

I liked it mostly for the rebirth of the Jedi Order and how it was different than the PT Jedi Order and things...  That stuff was good to me.

Without knowing the Borg and stuff, it's tough to show how the Vong are clear rip-offs of them too...  You'd have to see it for sure.  Once you did though, it makes sense.  Especially the level of popularity the Borg had and things.

[Nicklab]

Regarding the NJO and Chewbacca's death, I've heard it addressed a different way.  That being that in all of the adventures of our Rebel friends through the Saga and into the post ROTJ EU, they always managed to wriggle out of whatever conflict and everyone wound getting through it all making for happy endings.  Chewbacca's death was set up as a game changer.  To let the readers know that the stakes had been raised and that not everyone would be coming home.  This has been the case in the saga, with a sizable number of well established characters being killed:  Qui-Gon Jinn, Darth Maul, Jango Fett, Count Dooku, Mace Windu, Padme, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, Palpatine and Anakin/Vader.  So why shouldn't the books have stakes along those lines?  Especially since the content of the books is subject to the approval of Lucasfilm.

[Matt_Fury]

Yeah, and there was this species in Voyager in particular too, that would harvest the flesh and body parts of other species...  And they had a Breen-ish thing going on too.  It was annoying, but I like the figure anyway. 

They really did rip off the modern ST series though, to get these aliens, and that bugged me a lot.  I wasn't an NJO fan at all though anyway, as I didn't like the idea of killing main characters to drive sales/plot along.  That cheapened the writing to me and stuff.   

Not to nit-pick, but ST ripped that bad guy idea from Babylon 5.

[GrandMoffNick]

Yeah I was going to mention that there is about nothing in anything anymore that wasn't taken from another source.

This is some really fascinating talk about Comic Pack TOYS we are having. 

[Jesse James]

Not to nit-pick, but ST ripped that bad guy idea from Babylon 5.

To be fair though, the "trait" of harvesting parts was what was lifted, not the whole characters, as far as the NJO villains...

The ultimate villain lift of the Vong is the Borg, ultimately, which I don't think really lifted from anything unless you count "Zombies" maybe.  They had a zombie-ish thing going on, sorta.

But the Borg and Vong are really very similar.

That said, I do think Nicklab makes a good argument, but I'd argue that that still is simply a tactic to grab an audience rather than actual good quality writing from the authors themselves.  Again, holding Zahn as the benchmark.  LFL approved also doesn't mean a whole lot as Lucas seems to approve anything for $$$, and he seems to turn a blind eye to the EU a lot.  Clone Wars he seems to take a personal interest in, but a lot of the rest of it gets a rubber stamp it appears, and moves along.

I'm not knocking NJO totally, more or less just the Vong are my target...  And the CHEWIE death thing.  They offed a lot of important characters THEY created, and I was fine with that.  I just found offing Chewbacca to be a lame attention grabber was all.  They offed Solo Kids and stuff, and that I felt was more appropriate.  Chewie, in EU, is hardly a main character anymore.  They never utilized him much really because of his inability to speak.  Even Zahn kind of pushed him aside and focused more on Leia when they were on Kashyyyk, and invented a talking Wookiee even!

Killing him was, to me, just a sign that the authors didn't know how to use him as a character properly, and an attention grabbing tactic to get people to read their novels which, I believe at the time, weren't as popular as they were hoping they were going to be.

I still dig how the Jedi Order was resurrected though, and the Solo's and the kids, and the Rebellion growing into the New Republic, and yada yada yada.

To keep it on topic...

Anyone else NEVER find the last wave of comic packs at all?  I never saw Wedge/Borsk Fey Lya anywhere, though I did manage to see one Deena/Luke, and one Hett/Mundi pack.  Only one of each, but never that 3rd set.  I was curious if this was a nationwide thing, or if you guys saw them in abundance like Wave 6, and 7, while the Pittsburgh area again seemed to be this anomylous black hole of SW ****.

[CorranHorn]

To keep it on topic...

Anyone else NEVER find the last wave of comic packs at all?  I never saw Wedge/Borsk Fey Lya anywhere, though I did manage to see one Deena/Luke, and one Hett/Mundi pack.  Only one of each, but never that 3rd set.  I was curious if this was a nationwide thing, or if you guys saw them in abundance like Wave 6, and 7, while the Pittsburgh area again seemed to be this anomylous black hole of SW ****.

I only saw the Wedge/Borsk comic wave once and I'm glad I picked up my Wedge set when I did. Also only saw the DE Luke wave twice, never to be seen again. Most stores in my area are still swamped with either the first wave from last July or the SOTE wave from early in the year.

[Darth_Anton]

Not to nit-pick, but ST ripped that bad guy idea from Babylon 5.

If only you know how right you are.

[Jesse James]

New loose image of Darth Krayt available...  check it out on the front page.

I'm not into Legacy, so I'm never familiar with the characters.  I liked the Imperial Knights though, and he comes with the female featured in the Knight 2-pack's comic, which is neat.  He's freakish looking, and not a figure high on my list, but I'll take him.