Han and Chewie pursued by Boba Fett! Luke and Wedge get willingly captured by a Star Destroyer?! Leia finds a derelict with a stranger aboard. Things get dicey for our heroes in this week’s Star Wars comic!
The focus shifts in this month’s issue of Star Wars, written by Brian Wood and drawn by Ryan Kelly. For Star Wars #8 (DarkHorse.com profile), more of the spotlight goes to Han Solo and Chewbacca trying to escape Coruscant, and Luke Skywalker and Wedge Antilles trying to infiltrate the Star Destroyer Devastator than Princess Leia’s ongoing mission of finding a new home for the Rebel Alliance. And we get plenty of action as our heroes run into complications. Spoilers ahead!
Summary: Over Coruscant, Han Solo and Perla pilot her garbage hauler, which is smuggling out the Millennium Falcon, but with Boba Fett and Bossk firing at them, it’s time to spring Chewie loose with the Falcon’s guns. Han does some fancy flying and dumps the garbage to put some ground between the garbage scow and Slave I, but ends up having to crash Perla’s ride, while the Falcon dives back into Imperial Center to evades the Hound’s Tooth. With Prithi parked stealthily outside in her X-Wing, Luke and Wedge manage to get arrested by Col. Birch’s Devastator — and Luke smuggles his lightsaber into the detention area. Starting their jailbreak, they release other prisoners while heading toward their main target – the ship’s core to slice some spyware aboard. Leia has zipped off on her own, looking for a new home for the Rebels, but ends up in the debris field of Alderaan, to leave a personal message, where she discovers she’s not the only one looking for remembrance: an old Clone Wars-era Venator Star Destroyer claiming to be a friend invites her aboard. Back on Coruscant, Han and Perla escape the wreckage, only to find that Slave I is waiting for them.
Review: Plenty of action here – we got space battles with Slave I and Perla’s flying garbage crate, and ground battles, with lightsabers and firefights aboard a Star Destroyer. And still Wood manages to touch base with all his characters, giving a page to Vader secretly talking to Birra Seah, who is now spying for him aboard the Devastator, and also tracking Prithi and Birch. But the focus here goes to Han’s escapades and Luke’s plan to infiltrate the Empire’s flagship. We see a good balance between Wedge, the more experienced pilot, and Luke, more experienced at running around inside Imperial detention centers, and a reference to Luke having succeeded at a mind trick (to avoid having the parts of his lightsaber discovered). There’s also a funny bit referencing A New Hope with Wedge wanting to chime in over the intercom when a stormtrooper (now deceased) is needed to check in, and Luke recognizes the trouble of impersonating stormtroopers.
For claiming not to have lots of connections to the existing EU, Wood has introduced quite a few nods to earlier stories. In this issue, we get a glimpse of Bossk’s core tenets, with references to the Trandoshan’s belief in the goddess known as The Scorekeeper (from The Tales of the Bounty Hunters anthology).
The art (pencilled by Ryan Kelly, inks by Dan Parsons, colors by Gabe Eltaeb, lettering by Michael Heisler) fits the issue well – Kelly does a good job with both the characters and the ships. I especially liked seeing the Falcon rise out of the garbage hauler’s hold, though it seemed odd for Chewie to fire the anti-personnel gun rather than the quad cannons. The guys (Han, Luke, Wedge) tend to have more cartoony feels to their faces, while the ladies (Leia, Perla, Birra) seem a bit softer and more realistic – Leia gets some nice moods as she reflects in the graveyard of Alderaan then deals with an unexpected arrival. I also enjoyed the great shot of Perla and Han as they stumble out of the wreckage of the garbage ship at the end.
David Michael Beck handles the cover, and gives a great sense of Star Wars action with Luke and Wedge caught in a firefight with a TIE panel behind them.
A good fun issue, and we’ll see what trouble everyone has gotten themselves into next month! Wood does a great job with pacing out several different storylines simultaneously.