The Empire is watching… and who watches the Empire? The Emperor himself. This week’s Star Wars #7 sends our Rebel heroes on a dangerous mission to find the leak.
This week brings us Star Wars #7 (DarkHorse.com profile), written by Brian Wood and art by the team of Ryan Kelly (pencils), Dan Parsons (inks), Gabe Eltaeb (colors) and Michael Heisler (lettering). With the immediate danger of the previous arc wrapped up last issue, we get a little bit of a breather and set the characters on new missions, and the Emperor’s arrival shakes things up a bit.
Also as a bonus, this issue ends with a four page exclusive preview of The Star Wars, the adaptation of Lucas’ original Star Wars screenplay by J. W. Rinzler and Mike Mayhew.
Spoilers ahead!
Summary: The Emperor arrives at Endor and is displeased to find Birra Seah, an appointed acting Moff in Vader’s place. Recognizing her failure, Seah attempts to commit suicide in her quarters, but Vader’s voice calls out to her in the Force, and gives her a new role under the Dark Lord’s protection. On Tatooine, Luke and Leia bid farewell to Owen and Beru at the homestead, and Luke suggests a new plan to discover the Imperial spy in their midst: infiltrate the Star Destroyer Devastator to see who Colonel Bircher is communicating with on the Rebel side. On Coruscant, Han and Chewie use Perla’s garbage hauler to smuggle the Falcon offplanet, but come under attack by Bossk and Boba Fett. Using Luke’s plan, Luke and Wedge pilot a transport to get picked up by the Devastator, while Prithi in a stealth X-Wing attached to the hull forms their escape plan. Bircher has another new arrival – “Lieutenant” Birra Seah has been transferred to his command. Back at the Rebel fleet, Leia is uneasy with the weight of her mission, and sets off on her own to find a new home for the Alliance, forcing Threepio to erase all records of her departure.
Review: I’m not sure if this officially starts a new story arc, (not sure when ‘In the Shadow of Yavin’ officially ended, since story arc names haven’t appeared in the past few issues, though the trade paperback of ‘Shadow’ goes through #6), but it definitely feels like a new start – Luke, Wedge and Prithi start a new mission, Leia goes off on her own new mission, and Birra Seah also gets a new role. Only Han and Chewie seem to be still in their existing mission: escaping from Coruscant and the bounty hunters. And if it wasn’t for Slave I and the Hound’s Tooth, there’d be no blasters at all in this issue. Instead of action, we get tension – the suspense builds as Han and Chewie rise out of Coruscant’s underworld past the Imperial defense systems, and builds again as Luke and Wedge head into the lion’s den. Plus the Emperor makes a grand appearance and that makes life very uncomfortable for Vader’s new protege.
Ryan Kelly, who has drawn many of Brian Wood’s other comics, like Local and one arc of Northlanders, has reunited with Wood for this story. There’s definitely a lot of focus on the characters, with a great sequence on Birra Seah in her quarters, going through a full range of emotions. While Leia looks good (and sometimes even resembles her mother Padme), Luke seems a little buffer and less boyish than his A New Hope self, but maybe it’s his stern disposition when visiting the graves of his adoptive parents. It’s not entirely clear whether they are actually burying the dead, or simply visiting the graves. Han and Chewie look good and Threepio looks great. Setting a key conversation between Luke and Leia in the dining room of the Lars moisture farm comes out well, as Luke seeks to make this visit into the start of new strength, and the panel of him explaining his plan is my favorite Luke shot in this issue. Overall, my favorite panels are probably Birra kneeling in her quarters – you get a sense of her loneliness, torment at failure and gratitude and humility at being spared by an unseen Vader, and the full page panel of the garbage barge with its box shape, getting zapped by Hound’s Tooth and Slave I.
The cover art by Rodolfo Migliari is a nice static shot of Darth Vader looking menacing, but perhaps makes for a better poster or painting that just a comics cover – maybe it’s a little too dark and still for a cover. The San Diego Comic Con exclusive cover, available at the Dark Horse store, is a black and white version of the cover.
Wood gives us a new start and throws us in using tension instead of just action. The scenes on Tatooine remind us how fresh Luke is to this whole new life, and make us remember that even though A New Hope ends with a great triumph, there was still a lot of personal loss for many of the characters. And it looks like Luke and Wedge are going to collide with Bircher – with Birra thrown into the mix, ready to carry out Vader’s will. Looking forward to seeing how this all will end up!