After finishing their six-issue adaptation of A New Hope, Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin only stayed in the book for four more issues. These four issues were the first Star Wars material to be published that wasn't overseen by Lucas in some way. As a result, they feel a little less "Star Wars" than later EU material.
These four issues primarily focus on Han and Chewie -- there's a bit of setup of a story featuring Luke and Leia, but that wouldn't be fully explored until Archie Goodwin and Carmine Infantino (!) took over with issue #11. It's worth mentioning that generally Thomas has a pretty good handle on the voices of the characters; while the stories themselves feel a bit out of place in the context of the setting as we know it now, Han, Luke, and Leia each resemble their onscreen portrayals well enough that they doesn't feel completely disconnected.
#7 packs a lot into it, first following Han and Chewie as they leave from Yavin 4 with their reward (which they soon lose to rival smugglers/pirates), then telling a short story about anti-cyborg sentiments in the Galaxy, and eventually setting up the next three-issue story. There isn't too much to say about the first part beyond how it's interesting to see character designs that have more of a Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon/John Carter style next to Han. Obviously this style was a major influence on Lucas, and -- to repeat myself -- the visual feel of Star Wars wasn't quite fully defined, but it does feel a bit out of place to see a guy wearing a breastplate and having his muscular thighs exposed in a Star Wars comic. Star Wars is definitely science fantasy (the world's greatest science fantasy, as the comic's cover a claims), but in terms of style of attire I'd say the more mundane sci-fi side of things generally wins out for most characters besides Jedi.
The meat of the issue concerns a buglike alien priest attempting to bring a deceased cyborg to his final resting place while being accosted by those who don't want someone part man and part machine buried with "full" humans (Han and Chewie provide some muscle in exchange for some coin). This brief vignette is probably Thomas's most interesting contribution to the Star Wars universe (even if it wasn't revisited much) and is built on a similar basis as many other EU stories -- a single line from the movie. From the "we don't serve their kind here" remark in the Mos Eisley cantina, Thomas extracts a world of anti-droid and anti-cyborg prejudice. It's shallow, sure, and fairly routine science fiction, but it's a neat early instance of trying to crack the Star Wars setting open and figure out what life in the galaxy is like beyond what we see on the screen.
The remaining three issues are a three-part Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven riff where Han and Chewie assemble a ragtag group of miscreants to protect a village of farmers from a vicious swoop gang (in exchange for a reward, of course). It's solidly "okay," though it contains an EU character who has become the butt of jokes over the years, Jaxxon. Jaxxon is a green, man-sized, rabbit-like creature with a short fuse and supposedly was hated by Lucas so much that it led to Thomas and Chaykin leaving the book.
It's difficult to pin down what makes Jaxxon feel so egregious -- yes, he's a "kiddie" character, but Star Wars is at least as much for kids as it is for adults. My usual smartass quip about these kinds of things is that fans of Star Wars, much like fans of superheroes, don't like being reminded of this fact, but I'd be lying if I said I like Jaxxon or think he fits into Star Wars perfectly fine. It's a similar issue we'd see on a much larger scale with Jar Jar decades later, only that has the complicating factor of Jar Jar being a Lucas creation and is therefore ipso facto 100% Star Wars.
Chaykin's art is as good as it was in the first six issues, but it still didn't strike me as extremely "Chaykin-y." Granted, I'm mainly familiar with his more recent work, but had I not already known I probably would not have guessed he was the artist. At first I just chalked this up to Chaykin being younger, and perhaps not having yet honed in on his distinctive style. However upon finishing issue #10 I flipped the last page and was greeted with a pinup of the main cast that was so unmistakenly Chaykin it could be recognized from yards away. It goes to show how much his style is inherent in his inking -- while the various inkers who worked with him over the course of the series certainly weren't bad, but they definitely made his pages look like a Marvel Comic Book moreso than Howard Chaykin.
Next up: Splinter of the Mind's Eye, the first original (well, kind of) Star Wars novel.
