A trip to a far more interesting time.
Creative Staff:
Story: Jason Aaron
Art: Salvador Larroca
Colors: Edgar Delgado
Letters: Chris Eliopoulos
What They Say:
With one of our rebel crew captured and imprisoned…we turn once more to the journals of Ben Kenobi…and a legendary adventure of Jedi Master…Yoda!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Similar to how Darth Vader feels at one point early on in this issue, I’m not all that impressed with SCAR squadron. They had some decent moves at times during the star destroyer heist arc that just finished but they certainly fell short of being an effective unit against our familiar leads, which is no surprise. While I imagine that you could some interesting stories with them that make them far better by avoiding going up against our lead characters, well, that’s not a series that’s going to get the green light anytime soon. With this issue we get something that’s definitely full of possibilities here as it kicks off a new length arc that’s set in the fairly distant past, all things considered.
The fallout from the star destroyer heist is given its due at the start here as we see how Threepio has been captured and the interrogation didn’t even get underway before he just prattles on about everything that he’s been involved in, making it so that he was the pivotal figure. Watching how the SCAR guys are frustrated by him is comical while trying to figure out how to use him to their advantage. This plays out against Luke and the others talking about how they can’t go up against the whole of the Empire for one droid, though obviously Luke wants to do something because of what Threepio means to him. It’s definitely fun to see how it’s Artoo that steals an X-Wing, disables Luke’s, and heads into the depths of space to help rescue his longtime companion. That leaves a stranded Luke in space with nothing to do but read one of the journals that he found at Obi-wan’s.
And it’s here that I’m intrigued since it’s not a proper Obi-wan story like we had before. Instead, it’s going back to when he was a padawan along the lines of the Phantom Menace (but before by some degree) as we see Yoda going to a slave trader world to bring a youngling capable of utilizing the Force to Coruscant. It’s a simple little bit of showing the power that Yoda has and how he’s underestimated, which is always fun when executed as well as Larroca does it here. What’s also nice is that he hands the child off to Qui-Gon and Obi-wan before heading off on his true mission which is a Force Calling that’s unlike any other. This is a bit of a minor journey piece to a potential world of children, but the material with Yoda and the other Jedi and just playing around in this period is very, very, tantalizing.
In Summary:
Having enjoyed a lot of Larroca’s work on other projects in the Star Wars realm, getting some time with him here to work with the classic crew, a beautiful splash page of Rebel Alliance ships, and then to touch back on the “old” crew prior to the Clone Wars just makes it extra special. Aaron has a potentially interesting arc coming up with this, though it should be noted Yoda can be a hard character to work with as a primary figure, and I’m excited to see what’s next and what blending in the present we’ll get to keep that storyline moving forward. There are a lot of moving pieces here but just getting to disconnect from the era of A New Hope for a while and focus on something pre-Clone Wars and pre-Anakin is pretty exciting.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: All Ages
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: December 28th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
