The Empire is on the hunt for the Rebellion and Han, Luke, and Leia are sent on separate missions to throw them off the trail. Minor spoilers for Star Wars # 68 follow.
Coming off the back of Kieron Gillen ’s run on Marvel Star Wars, a new creative team really needed to make an impression. Not because Gillen’s run was incredible or anything, but it really felt like the series needed to get back on track. In comes Greg Pak and Phil Noto with a relatively simply back-to-basics story that really sends a message to readers. The message being, you don’t need to have galaxy-wide stakes to make a good Star Wars story. This issue starts off more feeling like an episode of The Clone Wars than all of the films, except for Solo, and that’s the best compliment it can get.
While Jason Aaron and Kieron Gillen ’s run on Marvel Star Wars both had their arcs which were fantastic, the problem they fell into were these grandiose stories that didn’t feel right for the canon. They were often really solid, enjoyable stories, but often felt out of place. In comes a new creative team though and the grandiose goes out the window. This issue focuses on several smaller missions that the core team is going on and the issue is better because of that. Each mission is varied and feels very personal to the team on it, each with their own stakes. Splitting a comic into three stories really shouldn’t work given page space, but it works incredibly well here.
Easily, the best part of the issue is how well Pak captures the voices of each individual character. Whether it’s C-3P0 or Luke, every line sounds like something the character would’ve said had George Lucas or Lawrence Kasdan written it. It’s incredible. It’s extremely easy to read each character in their respective actor’s voice, especially Harrison Ford as Han Solo. That’s really the best feeling when reading comics like this. There’s a similar feeling to reading Batman in Kevin Conroy’s voice.
Phil Noto’s artwork is outstanding as well. His art during the “Death of Daredevil” storyline last year had been my personal favorite of his, but it really seems that will soon no longer be the case. Every character that we’ve seen in the films look incredibly similar to the actors that portrayed them, while not straying away from the style that Noto is known for. How an artist does that is beyond me, but Noto manages to do it in this issue.
The new elements that Noto adds to the Star Wars universe in this issue are incredible as well, namely the cyberpunk-like world. This world looks heavily influenced by Blade Runner and Batman Beyond, which normally would work in the Star Wars universe, but Noto makes it look natural in this issue.
His coloring is absolutely magnificent as well. Everything single setting looks drastically different just based on its color and each one is gorgeous especially Luke’s desert setting. Much of it looks reminiscent to the cinematography in the original Star Wars film which is very fitting.
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