Star Wars (2015) #1-4

Star Wars #1-4

Originally released in 2015

Written by Jason Aaron

Art by John Cassaday

 

Picking up shortly after the end of Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope, the Rebels seek to destroy an Imperial weapons factory, only for things to (naturally) get out of hand very quickly.  From early on, it seemed pretty clear that Jason Aaron had the character's voices down, and the pacing of the panels definitely brings some shots from the movies to mind, particularly at the start of the story.

The fact that it takes place between episodes 4 and 5 is an interesting touch, as it allows the writers to fill in gaps in the story, but it also runs into a similar problem to what Solo: A Star Wars Story had, where the fact that it's a prequel/midquel results in a lot of tension being lost.  After all, we know that no matter what happens, Luke, Leia, Han, Chewbacca, C-3PO, R2-D2, and Darth Vader are all going to survive and not even be badly injured because they appear in later movies.  Still, we get some nice development for Luke where he realizes that just because he has a lightsaber, he's nowhere near ready to be a Jedi, which helps to establish his growth by the time of the Empire Strikes Back, where he can use the Force more actively.

Jason Aaron takes advantage of this being relatively early in the movies' timeframe to include some dramatic irony - Vader wants to interrogate Luke to find out who the pilot that blew up the Death Star is, while Luke wants to kill Vader because he thinks Vader killed Anakin Skywalker, with neither of them realizing who they're speaking to.  He also takes advantage of the presence of Darth Vader in general - the first two issues end with Darth Vader dramatically striding towards the camera, because the simple act of him showing up makes for such a good cliffhanger.

While Luke gets some good development and Han gets some good lines, Leia doesn't get much to do by comparison; she has a few small moments to show off her character, such as telling Chewbacca that killing Vader takes priority over their safety or wanting to dive back into another mission after getting back from this one, but that's about it.  I'm guessing that will change with future issues.

Once the Rebels have escaped, Vader visits Tatooine to get supplies from Jabba the Hutt in order to make up for the loss of the Empire's factory, leading to some nice moments between the two where Vader's no-nonsense manner contrasts hilariously with Jabba's mix of crudeness and overly polite dialogue. (such as Jabba loudly asking how the bounty hunters that he sent have been working out, while Vader tries to maintain plausible deniability, with him hiring bounty hunters to find Luke seemingly being something that he did under the table rather than having approval from the Emperor)

This series hasn't tried to reinvent the wheel so far, focusing on very familiar characters from the movies rather than introducing anything new, but it's a good start, and it's a very entertaining series.  Marvel Unlimited also has the former Expanded Universe material on there, from what I can tell, so that might be something that I could look up if I ever want to see what that's like - my familiarity with Star Wars mainly comes from the movies, and I didn't get too deep into the EU stories.  Still, Star Wars is a franchise that I greatly enjoy (even hearing the opening crawl music puts a smile on my face), and I'm glad that content from it is on Marvel Unlimited.