The end comes for the series with one of the more engaging pieces.
Creative Staff:
Story: Greg Weisman
Art: Andrea Broccardo
Colors: David Curiel
What They Say:
The rebels’ adventures on Kaller come to an end! But when a friend from Kanan’s past needs help, he stays behind. The look into the past of the former Jedi concludes here!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The final issue of the Kanan series has arrived and once again I find myself frustrated with it because the book continues to have a lot of potential. There has been a lot of fun in establishing connections throughout the twelve issues that we had in the past with the Clone Wars and some nice tie-ins to the show itself that timed out beautifully in a way that was just so much fun if you were reading and watching at the right time. This installment finishes out the Firstblood storyline but provides a great hook into something much further down the line that the unrealized potential, at least for now, is grating and exciting at the same time. Even worse is that I have no idea when I’ll get to have more Weisman Star Wars comic material to enjoy.
As an epilogue, the book is certainly a bit rushed in some ways as its focus is on getting Kanan and Ezra to rescue his friend Morfizo after getting a call for help on Kaller. This leads to a kind of all over the map journey to reconnect with Morfizo’s wife and discover that he’s been taken by the Empire as he was trying to join a Rebel cell of all things and has now landed in an Imperial cell. That throws the pair off to Lahn to break him out, making for some fun with the way Kanan and Ezra play off of each other, both of them having become quite relaxed around the other, and figuring out how to work the rescue. Ezra’s shunted to the side but he has a really nice little nod with what his subplot presents in tying things back to the very beginning for Kanan. Star Wars has regularly worked the echoes aspect and this was a welcome one.
Where this book really sells me, and I’m coming at it kind of odd, is that the rescue has Kanan going up against an Imperial officer known as Vice Admiral Sloane. While the book references the New Dawn novel as where to get more about her, I know her from the post-ROTJ novel Aftermath – a book I hated. But I liked her character, so going back about ten years or so prior to see her – and to get a good visual look at her to flesh her out in my mind – was really fun. That she’s connected to Kanan just adds more to her with the various links and connections that exist. Naturally, the book doesn’t do anything radical here with any of these characters since it’s just filling in the gaps, but it adds to the overall richness of the stories with what it presents here and has me hopeful for Sloane to show up in the TV series.
In Summary:
The Kanan series is one that delivered overall for me since it played in an area that wasn’t being explored elsewhere when it first came out and it gave us some additional material for the Rebels series. While this last issue doesn’t work for me too well when it comes to the art as Pepe Larraz really defined the style for me, and I’m not exactly a big fan of it working actual Rebels material, what it does here is provide for some great closure to the series and tie into some other material that expands this period and beyond in a really great way. Hopefully this isn’t the last we’ll see of this period and these characters in comic form and hopefully we’ll see Weisman return to the Star Wars fold as well as I find his writing on it to have the right kind of briskness and ease of character that makes it fun and engaging in the right kind of all ages sense. This is a series that will make for a fantastic full collection down the line that will introduce more fans to comics.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: March 16th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
