Every installment of Abandoned Love we will be examining comic book stories, plots and ideas that were abandoned by a later writer without retconnng away the previous story. Click here for an archive of all the previous editions of Abandoned Love. Feel free to e-mail me at bcronin@comicbookresources.com if you have any suggestions for future editions of this feature.
Today, based on a suggestion by reader Ed B., we look at the short-lived comic book career of Jaxxon, essentially Bugs Bunny in the Star Wars universe, a character that George Lucas disliked enough that he had them remove him from the comic...
Jaxxon appeared in the first new storyline in the Marvel Star Wars series after Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin finished adapting the first Star Wars film. Since writer Roy Thomas was told that he should not really use Luke and Leia too much, he decided to focus the next storyline on Han Solo and Chewbacca. Thomas decided to do a Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven riff using Han and Chewy.
Thomas was clearly having some fun with these new characters, including a wacky old Jedi Knight with a punderful name...
And, of course, a riff on Bugs Bunny with Jaxxon, a tall green rabbit-looking alien. Here's his introduction...
Thomas' run on Star Wars ended with issue #10, and while there were a number of different reasons why Thomas left the title (including slight irritation over the fact that the comic creators were not making very much from the massive financial success of the Marvel adaptation of Star Wars), one reason was that Lucas had some issues with the story (although it had been pre-approved before Thomas started on it) and that he particularly disliked Jaxxon. So Thomas left the book and returned to Conan (as Thomas amusingly noted, Robert Howard was not around to complain about the stories). Archie Goodwin took over the book.
So how did Archie Goodwin write Jaxxon out of the book? Go to the next page to find out!
So Goodwin knew that Jaxxon was no longer allowed in the book, so he wrote him off in a hilarious way, by having him captured by, in effect, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd!
Awesome. Note that Jaxxon DID escape and then left for future adventures that we never got to see.
Thanks for the suggestion, Ed! If anyone else has a future suggestion for a dropped comic book story, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com (or my old e-mail address, bcronin@comicbookresources.com - it all goes to the same place).