Creative Staff:
Story: Greg Rucka
Art: Marco Checchetto
Colors: Andres Mossa
What They Say:
Concluding the first new-canon comic tale set between episodes VI and VII! As the Empire Shatters around them, Rebel heroes fight for a better tomorrow!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The final installment of the Shattered Empire series is one that, in a sense, finally gets to some of the point. The book has been pretty strong in general with an enjoyable arc as we get to know Shara and Kes following the events of the Battle of Endor and some of the more immediate fallout from the death of the Emperor. It’s certainly had some good moments and I’ve quickly grown to like Shara as she plays a small but increasingly important role in orbit around our main characters. This provides a launching point to be sure, but the more we get of her the more well rounded and interesting she is on her own. Granted, it’s hard to say exactly what her future is based on where this book ends up, but one really does hope that it’s not the end of her story.
While I would have liked to have seen more time devoted to Operation Cinder and the other worlds mentioned here going through their various events, I’m simply believing that those are stories to be told elsewhere. Where the book wants to go is in bringing Shara into Luke’s orbit now, after spending time with Leia. It’s an intriguing moment from the start as R2 brings her to Luke at the Imperial Shuttle in order to have her help with a mission that requires an additional pilot. Since she’s kind of being nudged out of service herself after serving for so long, she’s really uncertain about that aspect of what’s going on. But Luke takes that in a really neat way where he views her being with him on this as a kind of sign to be appraised and understood. And it has even more interesting implications depending on how you game it out with The Force Awakens if you really want to put the connections together with Shara via Poe that we might see in the film.
That said, the book doesn’t linger on it in a big way but rather plans the seed. The focus here is on Luke needing her to take on the role of an Imperial named Beck in order to get into a heavily guarded secret lab. The journey is interesting enough in itself and watching the two of them work the Imperials there to get to their destination is great fun, especially with Checchetto’s artwork giving us such a solid look at Luke. What they’re after is something that again feels like it’s seeding things, tying back to the prequels and setting an item for the new trilogy, but it’s all wrapped up in some great action and overall a strong character arc for Shara. While we don’t get her backstory to a great degree here, we understand her in the greater context and the guardianship path that Luke ends up setting her on. She’s an intriguing character that really leaves me wanting more.
In Summary:
The final installment here works to really narrow down its focus and it does in a strong way by pairing Shara with Luke and hinting at elements that could make for some interesting ideas within the films themselves that I suspect will be exploited. If this is a foundational piece then it’s well played. If not, then we still get a great story accompanied by some really fantastic artwork that has me wanting to soak up everything that Checchetto’s done. He and Rucka have put together a really strong miniseries overall that gives us our first taste in comic form of what’s to come after the original trilogy that also has the prequels to mine from. I’m excited to see where Marvel’s able to go and hope for a lot more from this pair in the future.
Grade: A-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: October 21st, 2015
MSRP: $3.99