Star Wars 27: Starcrash

Starcrash is the twenty-seventh issue in the Star Wars: Republic series of comics. It was published on February 28, 2001 by Dark Horse Comics.

Publisher's summary
This issue, meet Jedi Yoshi Raph-Elan. On his way to a meeting of Jedi, Yoshi is attacked by an unknown enemy. Stranded without even a lightsaber, he must find out what this new threat wants. Along the way, he meets the beautiful princess Lourdes, and learns a lesson about trusting ancient prophecies. And it's all brought to you by Doug Petrie (Buffy: Ring of Fire and writer for the Buffy TVS TV series), Randy Green (Witchblade), and Andy Owens (Buffy and Angel).

Plot summary
In transit, newly Knighted Jedi Yoshi Raph-Elan finds himself attacked by unknown assailants. One of the ships hits him, disabling his craft, and forcing him to crash-land on a nearby planet. After finding his ship worthless, and his lightsaber smashed, Yoshi heads off for a nearby village. Upon his arrival, Yoshi finds a small child about to be shot by a battle-droid. After saving the child and dispatching the droid, he heads off in search of the droid's master. His search takes him to a large castle. In an attempt to infiltrate the castle, Yoshi is discovered by Princess Lourdes, who is intended to marry the droids' master, Lord Gar-Oth. The princess brings Yoshi with her to a reception of Lord Gar-Oth, in hopes he can help against the conqueror. But when Gar-Oth declares his intentions to marry Lourdes right then and there, Yoshi lies, saying he is her husband. Gar-Oth attacks him, but upon realizing he is a Jedi, he unveils his giant Goliath droid, which he orders to attack the Jedi. After the princess kills Gor-Ath, Yoshi is able to use the giant droid's own circuitry to repair his lightsaber, which he uses to destroy the droid. Later, a republic ship is sent to rescue the young Jedi, but not before Lourdes kisses Yoshi telling him to return to her.

Collections

 * Omnibus: Menace Revealed

Behind the scenes
The storyline, the setting, and the characters seem to have a lot in common with the Legend of Zelda series. The designs seem to echo the ones presented in the popular videogame series, including showing a shot of a villager who is dressed almost exactly like Link.

During the comic, the speech of a number of aliens was depicted as Greek letters jumbled together.

The events of this comic as they relate to Princess Lourdes are retold in The Official Star Wars Fact File 128, along with some new background information.

The Essential Atlas, released in 2009 provided further detail on two species depicted in this comic, the Yahk-Tosh, and a previously unnamed species now identified as the Jilruans.