Star Wars: Chewbacca

Second of two gifts I bought for the Kiddo at Boocup, Kerry Place, Jingan, Shanghai, China.

Title: Star Wars: Chewbacca
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Date: January  2016
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Phil Noto
Letterer: VC's Joe Caramagna
Editor: Jordan D. White, Heather Antos
Cover: Phil Noto

Classic spaghetti-Western stranger-comes-to-town story with Chewbacca crash-landing on a planet (between the events of A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back) and meeting up with a girl who has just escaped imprisonment in a gangster's mining operation.

Writing Chewbacca is an interesting challenge, as his dialogue is restricted to wookie growls and roars, which leaves much of the storytelling in the hands of Zarro the escaped mine-worker. Fortunately, Zarro is a lot of fun, a nice mix of youthful idealism and brash snark.

The villains are less interesting, particularly Jaum, the rather generic gangster boss, who never really feels like he has a chance against the good guys.

There is a bit of backstory and character development for Chewie, but the focus is mostly placed squarely on Zarro, with Chewie as the strong and (not always) silent type.

A couple of other characters who come in later in the story felt a bit underused: Sevox, a blind tinkerer who sees through the eyes of a protocol droid, and the Imperial star destroyer captain Commander Kai both felt like they had a ton of unrealized potential, and it would be great to see either or both of them get more of a spotlight in another series.

Phil Noto's artwork is lovely. He does a great job with Chewbacca's expressions and body language, and I love the look of Zarro. His supporting characters all have excellent and distinctive designs as well.

Rating: 7.5/10

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story #6

Another summer purchase by the Kiddo.

Title: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Issue: 6
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Date: November 2017
Writer: Jody Houser
Artist: Emilio Laiso
Colorist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: VC's Clayton Cowles
Editor: Heather Antos
Cover: Phil Noto

We somehow missed getting #5. Here are links to reviews of the rest of this series: Issue #1, Issue #2, Issue #3, Issue #4.

Rogue One concludes at a frantic pace with a desperate running battle to get the Death Star plans off of the planet Scarif and into the hands of the Rebel Alliance. The pacing of the comic captures the frenetic feel of the action in the film while managing to downplay a couple of the plot contrivances that weaken the story.

As with some other Star Wars comics I've read, the medium does not do a very good job with space battles, especially when small panels become necessary to cover all of the plot and dialogue. Lack of page space also hurts some of the ending scenes.

Rogue One has a few really big moments at the very end, and this issue could really have used 3-5 more pages to give them the treatment that they really deserved. Instead, much of the finish (I felt like one scene worked and two failed badly) does not live up to what we saw on the big screen.

Rogue One is a good story that packs its strongest emotional punch in the scenes covered in this issue, and it's an important moment in the overall Star Wars saga. This comic delivers on some of that emotion, but could have done better.

Rating: 5.5/10

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story #4

Kiddo was buying all Star Wars all the time this past summer!

Title: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Issue: 4
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Date: September 2017
Writer: Jody Houser
Artist: Emilio Laiso
Colorist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: VC's Clayton Cowles
Editor: Heather Antos
Cover: Phil Noto

The fourth issue of Marvel's adaptation of Rogue One covers some of the film's most iconic lines, including "Rebellions are built on hope!", and the naming of the Rogue One callsign.

Mon Mothma gets a nice scene in this issue, which is cool since she is a character who seems to get overlooked quite a bit. This issue also features Vader, plus a lot of setup for the action that will comprise the last two issues.

The pacing was good, and the art was solid, especially on Jyn's expressions and emotions.

Rating: 6/10

Star Wars: The Last Jedi #3

The Kiddo picked this one out over the summer. I don't recall which store we got it at.

Title: Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Issue: 3
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Date: August 2018
Writer: Gary Whitta
Artist: Michael Walsh
Colorist: Mike Spicer
Letterer: VC's Travis Lanham
Cover: Phil Noto
Editor: Mark Paniccia, Tom Groneman

I love Phil Noto's cover featuring Finn, Rose, and DJ.

This chapter of the film adaptation is focused primarily on Rey's interactions with Kylo Ren, and Finn and Rose's mission to Cantonica. This includes my some of my favorite Rose scenes.

As with the first issue (reviewed here), the adaptation looks good and gets the visuals right on the important moments. It helps that the scenes in this issue are very character-focused.

Rating: 6/10

Poe Dameron #1

I stopped in at Newbury Comics in Manchester NH during our wanderings on our summer US visit, and got the first two issues of this series for the Kiddo, who continues to be a big Star Wars fan.

Title: Poe Dameron
Issue: 1
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Date: June 2016
Writer: Charles Soule
Artist: Phil Noto
Letterer: VC's Clayton Cowles
Editor: Heather Antos, Jordan D. White

In this Star Wars: The Force Awakens preview, Poe Dameron is searching for clues to Luke Skywalker's whereabouts, along with BB-8 and a new "Black Squadron" team of Resistance pilots.

After flying through a maze of caves, Poe finds himself in a tense standoff with a group that stands guard over a mysterious egg.

I liked the handling of the negotiations between Poe and the cave-dwellers. Neither side really wants to fight, but it's still a tense situation.

The new characters in Poe's squadron only get brief introductions, but it's enough to make them interesting. The hints of a possible traitor among them are a little heavyhanded, but I did like the snippets of history that added to the backstory for The Force Awakens.

This was a good start to a nice original story that fits in well with the new film.

Rating: 7.5/10