The opening arc closes as weirdly as it began.
Creative Staff:
Story: Charles Soule
Art: Phil Noto
Letters: VC’s Joe Caramagna
What They Say:
The First Order has caught up with Poe’s X-wing squadron! Agent Terrex has them boxed into a corner! Then…the egg starts to hatch.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
While I had cautious optimism about the Poe Dameron series ahead of its debut, I was mostly looking forward to fleshing out some of what’s going on in that time period – especially with Charles Soule writing. He did some great stuff in Lando and showed in Obi-wan & Anakin that he can do the big picture stuff outside the usual in a good way. Here, it still feels like everything hasn’t congealed, like there isn’t a clear picture of what the politics and power structures of the period are and how they formed. That makes me feel like I’m walking on quicksand with trying to grasp the bigger picture. I also doesn’t help that the book is simply unappealing visually as I continue to find Phil Noto, an artist I like, the wrong fit for the series and the Star Wars universe in general.
With two arcs moving through the book that doesn’t service either of them well, Noto’s artwork comes across the best with Snap and the rest of Black Squadron if only because it feels like the Clone Wars TV series as the group deals with the TIE fighters above where Poe is deeper below the surface. It has some nice color design to it and Noto’s artwork makes it look otherworldly and the approach to the vehicles is solid, though not my favorite. It’s fun to watch the action flow here as the layouts work, but mostly in terms of story it’s just a holding action until things get settled with what Poe is going through. We don’t get much in the way of character here, it being action, though there’s apparently a little romance between a couple of the pilots that might make for some background material in the future.
The main plot involves Poe and his facing off against Agent Terrex and his group of Stormtroopers. I really despised him as a poorly conceptualized caricature of a character the last time around and he’s even worse here, chewing scenery like a hammy 40’s screen villain to the point where Poe just wants him to shut up like we do. This story doesn’t really go anywhere since the egg ends up hatching and the savior is actually a destroyer, though a different savior arrives, and it turns into a Creature Double Feature moment that just left me rolling my eyes. There are mysteries to work with when it comes to a property that can go as big as this one can, but it felt like Soule was rooting around for something in the prequel movie era, like Phantom Menace level, in order to just be weird. It’s not something that works and in the end all we have is a new clue for Poe to find Lor Sen Tekka while Terrex is given a free pass to cause problems in the future. And sadly, I doubt they’ll just shoot him outright the next time they see him like they should.
In Summary:
At this stage of the book I’m really getting the feeling that this book isn’t for me. It’s far too reminiscent of the same issues I had on the Chewbacca series in terms of story and what they view the intended audience as combined with artwork that just doesn’t click for it. The three issue story is one that didn’t answer anything, didn’t really expand on the characters or clarify or detail anything useful about this time period and its design. It’s a simple action space opera piece with the weakest of space opera elements. I’ll be sticking around more because, yes, I am that kind of Star Wars sucker, but I’m in that rare mode where I’m hoping for a wholesale creative change.
Grade: C-
Age Rating: 9+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: June 8th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
