The Serpent Masters Turns 45: When Star Wars Newspaper Comics Got Wild

On July 27, 1981, Star Wars sent Luke Skywalker to a planet ruled by warriors riding enormous flying serpents.

This was not a toy commercial, a forgotten Saturday morning cartoon, or a story invented by a child after placing Luke Skywalker beside the nearest rubber snake.

It was The Serpent Masters, a newspaper comic-strip adventure written by Archie Goodwin and illustrated by Al Williamson. The story began 45 years ago today and continued until November 1981.

Decades before Star Wars stories arrived through streaming services, games, and coordinated publishing events, new pieces of the galaxy could appear beside the sports results and supermarket coupons.

And apparently, sometimes they contained airborne reptiles.

Luke Skywalker Meets the Serpent Riders

The story follows Luke after his escape from the Imperial shipyards at Fondor alongside Tanith Shire.

Tanith leads him toward her homeworld, Ophideraan, only for the pair to crash and fall into the hands of the Serpent Masters. These scavengers have enslaved the local population and learned to control the planet’s native flying serpents using ultrasonic signals.

Luke and Tanith are forced into an underground mine, while R2-D2 and C-3PO face the distinctly undignified prospect of being dismantled for spare parts.

Fortunately, controlling creatures through electronic signals is exactly the sort of problem one wants to place in front of R2-D2.

The droid learns to reproduce the necessary signal, allowing Luke to ride one of the serpents and challenge the group’s leader, Supreme Master Tyrann.

There are lightsabers, enslaved miners, salvaged Imperial equipment, giant flying creatures, and a villain whose career ends after an exceptionally poor decision involving gravity.

Early Expanded Universe storytelling rarely wasted anyone’s time.

Star Wars Once Arrived With the Morning Paper

The syndicated Star Wars newspaper strip ran from 1979 to 1984, offering readers new adventures during the long gaps between the original films.

Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson became one of its defining creative teams, expanding the period between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. Their stories helped build the galaxy at a time when very little existed beyond the movies, Marvel comics, novels, toys, and the increasingly strange imaginations of licensed writers.

The newspaper format demanded constant momentum. Each small collection of panels needed a joke, revelation, danger, or cliffhanger capable of convincing readers to return the following day.

That helps explain why The Serpent Masters moves with the confidence of a story that has absolutely no time to defend the presence of flying snakes.

They are here. Luke is riding one. Please keep up.

You Can Still Read The Serpent Masters Today

The original strips were later colourised and reprinted by Dark Horse in Classic Star Wars. The Serpent Masters appeared across issues four through six and was subsequently included in larger newspaper-strip collections.

Readers interested in exploring this largely forgotten corner of Star Wars history can find it collected in Star Wars Legends: The Newspaper Strips Omnibus on Amazon.

The omnibus collects classic newspaper material by creators including Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson, preserving stories that were originally designed to be read a few panels at a time and then discarded with yesterday’s paper. The official collection description specifically includes Luke’s capture by the Serpent Masters among its featured adventures.

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A Galaxy That Had Not Learned Its Own Rules Yet

What makes The Serpent Masters fascinating is not merely the presence of giant flying serpents.

It came from a period when Star Wars had not yet developed a rigid template for what a side story was supposed to look like.

Creators could invent planets, civilizations, technologies, villains, and creatures without worrying about several decades of continuity. Some ideas became lasting parts of the Expanded Universe. Others enjoyed one glorious adventure before disappearing into collections and reference books.

Modern Star Wars releases immediately produce timeline debates, lore videos, character breakdowns, and arguments about canon.

In 1981, Luke Skywalker could simply climb onto a flying serpent, overthrow a mining dictatorship, and be finished before readers had worked their way through breakfast.

For anyone curious about that wonderfully untamed era, the collected newspaper strips are still available on Amazon.

Star Wars has rarely been stranger.

It may never have been freer.