Star Wars: Han Solo

This was a Christmas present I bought for the Kiddo at Boocup, Kerry Place, Jingan, Shanghai, China.

Title: Star Wars: Han Solo
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Date: January  2017
Writer: Marjorie Liu
Penciler: Mark Brooks
Inker: Mark Brooks, Dexter Vines
Colorist: Sonia Oback, Matt Milla
Letterer: VC's Joe Caramagna
Editor: Jordan D. White, Heather Antos

This exceeded all expectations, in spite of the story being a tiny bit contrived.

Trade paperback collection of a limited series. Taking place between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, this has Han recruited by Leia to infiltrate a high-stakes spacecraft race while smuggling several rebel spies, at least one of whom may be a traitor.

What made this great were the original characters introduced for this series, something that can often be a weak spot in these adaptations. In this case the supporting cast was excellent, especially the mysterious space-racing veteran Loo Re Anno, who absolutely steals the show. Several other rival racers are fun characters, and there's also some good interactions with the various rebel spies and operatives that Han encounters.

There's good consistent character development for Han, as well. Nothing shocking, but a lot of little insights in his internal monologue that runs through much of the story.

Chewie and Leia get good moments as well, and the artwork is excellent, with some clever page layouts especially in some of the racing sequences.

This is a fun adventure perfectly suited to Han's character.

Rating: 8.5/10

True Believers: Daredevil: Practice To Deceive #1

I'll be doing a recap of 2017 soon. In the meantime, here is my first comic review of 2018! This is one of the comics I bought at the Shanghai Comic Con in October.

Title: True Believers: Daredevil: Practice To Deceive
Issue: 1
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Date: September 2016
Writer: Charles Soule
Artist: Matteo Buffagni
Colorist: Matt Milla
Letterer: VC's Clayton Cowles
Cover: Bill Sienkiewicz
Editor: Charles Beacham, Sana Amanat

Bringing back the classic Daredevil & Elektra vibe... No matter how many hoops need to be jumped through to do it.

So the backstory here is that Matt Murdock somehow managed to do some sort of mass memory wipe that conveniently rebooted his continuity so that he's back to having a secret identity. Apparently he wasn't all that good at keeping secrets the previous time around. So we've got the classic Matt Murdock, struggling attorney (prosecuting attorney this time!) by day, and Daredevil, masked vigilante by night.

Elektra shows up, oblivious as everyone else that Matt and Daredevil are the same dude (really, if she can't figure this out in the first three seconds of hand-to-hand combat with him, she should turn in her assassin card... or should I say... HAND it over). She asks Murdock to arrange a meeting with Daredevil, who shows up expecting to talk, and Elektra commences with the beatdown.

Oh, and Daredevil has a sidekick! His name is Blindspot. No, really. He basically appears to have all of the annoying qualities of Jason Todd, with none of the good qualities of Tim Drake or Dick Grayson.

He lasts all of a couple of panels with Elektra while Daredevil just kinda cringes.

Finally, Elektra reveals a big dramatic plot development to end it all, none of which required all of the fighting. Apprarently she was just annoyed and had decided she needed to waste some time hurting Daredevil before getting to the point.

And I'm not really sure what the point of all of this was. But I will add half a point for the always-awesome cover work by Bill Sienkiewicz.

Rating: 3.5/10

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #14

Another item from the unread comics stack. I seem to recall that I found this on the freebies table at ReaderCon last summer, but I could be mistaken on that.

Title: Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man
Issue: 14
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Date: January, 2007
Writer: Peter David
Penciller: Scot Eaton
Inker: John Dell
Colorist: Matt Milla
Letterer: VC's Cory Petit
Editor: Axel Alonso, Michael O'Connor

This is in the midst of the Unmasked storyline, and the lead-up to Marvel
s original Civil War. Spider-Man's true identity as Peter Parker has become public knowledge, and Peter is dealing with the fallout from that.

This issue specifically focuses on his efforts to safeguard Midtown High School, now that his connections to the school have become known. Peter enlists the help of the Beast, and gains what effectively amounts to a major new power (in one of those annoying bits of plot that will undoubtedly be forgotten in a few months either with or without some token writeoff to reset things).

While that is going on, a classic Spider-Man villain returns to action, setting up a future confrontation. And Peter Parker also experiences some further repercussions in the form of the publication of a tell-all book by an ex-girlfriend.

This was loaded with excellent visuals, and it had a classic Spider-Man vibe to it. It made good use of a lot of moving parts and kept the story rolling smoothly. I wasn't a fan of some of the the out-of-sequence aspects of the storytelling. They weren't terrible; they just didn't feel entirely justified.

Considering I hadn't read much by Marvel from this time period, this felt reasonably comfortable, even with it being a jump into the middle of a major crossover storyline. But it was still something of a transitional issue, with bigger plot developments saved for forthcoming issues.

Rating: 5.5/10