When Did You Learn That Darth Vader Was Luke's Father?

"When Did You Learn That Darth Vader Was Luke's Father?" is the question over at Smeghead's Saved From the Paper Drive blog today.

He has an amazing answer: less than a year after STAR WARS was released -- in 1978. In the first issue of the STARLOG sister publication titled FUTURE.

It didn't even make the cover.




It's all here.

I bought that issue back in the day and have no memory of the revelation.

Now, let's see, when did I know about it? 

Moments before seeing the damn movie, through no fault of my own.

Time Magazine, back when Time Magazine mattered, published a big article about EMPIRE maybe a week before the film came out. I avoided that article like the plague because I hate spoilers. 

I believe the "Luke, I am your father" plot point was revealed in there. (I'm not breaking my concentration to go and Google it, so feel free to do so if you wish.)

Anyway, so there I am, young Mike Lynch, in 1980, in line at Southgate Mall Triplex Movie Theatre in Maple Hts., OH, paying my $3 and these two guys behind me are talking excitedly about EMPIRE. And then they talk about the amazing revelation, the biggest deal in the whole movie, about Darth Vader being Luke's dad. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that incredible?

I could have killed them.