What if Ozzel hadn't come out of lightspeed too close to the system?

Last week at the library I found a copy of Star Wars Infinities: The Empire Strikes Back, and I couldn't resist, even though I've generally found Star Wars comics (and the Expanded Universe stuff, in general) to be a very mixed bag. And yes, Infinities: TESB was a mixed bag, but it was an interesting one.

The idea of the Star Wars Infinities comics is a kind of Star Wars alternate history: a small detail is changed in the plot of the movies, and then the resulting story is told from that point on. Apparently their version of A New Hope has Luke's torpedoes failing to destroy the Death Star, and in The Empire Strikes Back, the point of diversion comes much earlier: Han's attempt to rescue Luke on the frozen wastelands of Hoth fails. Luke dies, the Empire pretty much crushes the Rebellion, and so forth.

I don't want to say too much about the plot here, since the delight of such a story rests in a new set of surprises. Much of what happens in the film is reflected in the Infinities version – Yoda, Lando Calrissian, and Boba Fett still appear – but in very different ways. The story's ending, though, is very much of the "start with a bang, end with a whimper" variety, and it relies on a particular character exhibiting a kind of vulnerability we'd never expect that character to have.

I was also a bit nonplused by the comic's adherence not just to the main threads of The Empire Strikes Back, but also to The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. The comic shows Boba Fett and Darth Vader without their helmets, drawn in such a way as to clearly reflect their origins as revealed in the prequels. I found this rather jarring. The original film obviously could not include all of that, and for that kind of material to show up here felt really out of place to me.

Still, the hour I spent reading Star Wars Infinities: TESB was a pretty entertaining hour, so if you're of a mind to see how it might have turned out differently, give it a try.