Category: Star Wars
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All of a sudden, Thrawn is about Thrawn again. The issue covers a few years, sometimes emphasizing some of Thrawn’s achievements, sometimes just hopping ahead. It’s just really nice to have Thrawn and sidekick Vanto back. They’re so fun together. There’s also the analytical stuff, which is what makes Thrawn engaging. Not the action or…
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Thrawn really isn’t important this issue of Thrawn. Instead, it tracks the adventures of a young woman from the Outer Sim who ends up on the Imperial homeworld and discovers corruption and manipulation in politics. But she sees an opportunity for advancement, and calls on Thrawn to help her. For a while, it’s a decent…
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One of the amusing franchise realties for Star Wars is Imperial officers aren’t bright. The movies established early on only Darth Vader had any brains. Darth Vader, then the Emperor. Otherwise, the Imperials were twits. So Thrawn, which has a genius alien ascending the ranks of the racist Imperial Navy, has a somewhat peculiar problem.…
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Even through Thrawn gets a fair number of close-ups in Thrawn #1, I finished the issue feeling like he didn’t. Thrawn is a Star Wars comic–one of the new official ones so all those old official ones from Dark Horse starring Thrawn are out of continuity. Though, since they’re all based on Timothy Zahn novels,…
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You know, I almost like Princess Leia. Oh, the Terry Dodson and Rachel Dodson art is lame cheesecake–though they draw Chewbacca well enough–and Mark Waid’s script isn’t lame cheesecake. Waid’s doing this whole “young Princess Leia” comes into her own thing, really playing into the original Star Wars idea of her being young. Waid’s dialogue…
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There’re a lot of politics in the first issue of Star Wars. Some of it is just Jason Aaron trying to make the Star Wars universe makes sense for thinking reader, which is always been a problem. Star Wars is not deep. And Aaron’s script for Star Wars turns out not to be very deep…
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If the letters pages didn’t swear Rinzler was sticking to the original rough draft, I don’t think I’d believe it. Because this issue–adapted from a script written in the early seventies–has the standard modern action movie third act thing going on. When they attack the Death Star (it’s called something else, I think), Annikin and…
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This issue isn't bad. It's got some of Mayhew's best art on the series–though not his giant Wookie battle, but the moments before those scenes–and Rinzler keeps the action going. But the comparisons to the original films, particularly Return of the Jedi, reveal just how much texture Rinzler has sacrificed to fit this comic into…
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After some unimaginative issues, The Star Wars definitely feels a lot more on track this time around. Even with some way too static art from Mayhew. He has lots of problems with Princess Leia react shots. She looks completely nonplussed by the chaos around here; it's not a one time thing, it's every time she's…
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It’s an all action issue, which is good since Mayhew’s faces are way too static. Everyone is either grimacing or smiling. Maybe he was in a rush. Or maybe doing all the action took up too much time. The action’s all rather familiar. It’s a mix of sequences from the first Star Wars movie, the…
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Mayhew has some fantastic panels this issue. Unfortunately, Rinzler has the single goofiest moment in the history of George Lucas goofy moments to try to pull off and he can’t do it. Mayhew even makes it worse somehow. He goes with this grand panel and then follows it up with a little normal one, like…
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And once more, The Star Wars is interesting again. Rinzler introduces a lot this issue–the original Lucas treatment must have been a disaster, as even the issue is plotted like a movie serial where a new major character is introduced every four minutes. Except in this comic, the major character relates to the Star Wars…
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I wonder why George Lucas went ahead and decided not to have a main–heroic–character who tries to force himself on every female character he encounters. If you’ve wanted to see Annikin Starkiller punch out Princess Leia, here’s the comic for you. That summary is a bit of a low blow but Annikin really is the…
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I went into The Star Wars expecting nothing. It’s Dark Horse’s adaptation of George Lucas’s original Star Wars script, with the sillier character names and less character twists, but it’s also pretty engaging stuff. Some of it’s a curiosity, seeing how things changed, but it works out to be perfectly acceptable sci-fi. It feels less…
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During the first scene, with Luke Skywalker whining, I thought Brian Wood had figured a good way to do Star Wars. It’s a concept book–the comic is just a sequel to the original movie and avoiding the things fans have seen or read since. In other words, it’s the original Marvel Star Wars comic. It’s…
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The series ends with some undeniable problems–the Romeo and Juliet aspect is idiotic–but Richardson and Stradley manage to reign in their big conspiracy storyline. They don’t resolve some of their threads, which is both a good and bad decision. It’s good because there’s not enough room for the resolution, but bad because they sort of…
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It’s a romance now? Seriously? Wow. After a solid first half, Richardson and Stradley are running off the rails. They set up a convoluted set of schemes and subterfuges and are now rapidly resolving them. And what solves them all? Sworn enemies kissing. But the issue has a bunch of great Gulacy sci-fi action so…
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I’m not sure it’s possible this issue could have a softer cliffhanger. Soft as it may be, it does signal a change in Council of Blood… it’s finally a sequel to Crimson Empire. Until this issue, Richardson and Stradley have been avoiding what they promised at the finish of the first series. While the previous…
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Interesting. The series is now half done and Richardson and Stradley haven’t shown much of their hand yet, as far as future events go. Instead, they’re still raveling the narrative. The reader gets to be a little ahead of the characters, but since there’s still no protagonist, it doesn’t hurt the comic. This issue spends…
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Once again, there’s the item you can tell Gulacy just went gloriously overboard with. This time, it’s one of the squid faced aliens–but as a Hutt dancing girl. Emberlin inks are especially good; there are some great alien worlds panels in the first few pages. Richardson and Stradley are slowly developing the overall story. The…
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Once again, Mike Richardson and Randy Stradley are deliberate in their setup. Council of Blood has some fight scenes–well, some violent acts without real bloodshed (just the threat of it)–and some space stuff, but it’s all about the politics. Just from this issue, it’s clear the dialogue’s better than the first series, at least for…
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Why couldn’t they have just done it as a Western? It would have been perfect. The final issue of Crimson Empire has the best and worst from the series. The woman–her name is Sinn, which is stupid so I probably forced myself to ignore it–declares to the “holy stars” she’ll hunt down the main guy…
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This issue, if I’m adding right, takes place over a couple hours. Maybe the reason Star Wars comics aren’t taken seriously is because in those two hours, not only is a space battle determined, but there’s also time for the woman and her sidekick to fly to an entirely different solar system to save the…
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This issue concentrates on the Rebels, specifically the woman. I can’t remember her name though. Stradley and Richardson repeat all the other names so much, she and her lizard-man sidekick are sort of nameless. I’m sure they say it a few times throughout… just didn’t make any impression. There’s a lot of excellent Gulacy composition…
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From the second panel, it’s clear something off with the art. Either Gulacy hurried through faces and let Russell finish or Russell got eager and got rid of all Gulacy’s rounded lines. The former would just be unfortunate… the latter would just piss me off. This issue doesn’t feel like Gulacy until about halfway, which…
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For some of this issue, the Gulacy sci-fi art makes one forget it’s a Star Wars comic and imagine it’s just a Gulacy (with Doug Moench) comic. Then Richardson and Stradley have some awful dialogue from the big villain and the illusion comes crashing down. It’s like the comic can get away with bad dialogue…
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Crimson Empire answers the burning question… what’s with the guys in red from Return of the Jedi. The ones who had fabric capes on the action figures. Of course, it’s mostly just backdrop for the story of a fugitive. It probably could fit a Civil War story too. A stranger comes to town, kicks butt,…
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Two hours of glorious, unrelenting sci-fi adventure as desert planet orphan Mark Hamill discovers he’s really a space wizard and teams up with interstellar smuggler Harrison Ford and old man space wizard Alec Guinness to save princess Carrie Fisher from the evil Darth Vader (David Prowse, voiced by James Earl Jones). Revolutionary special effects, an…
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