Poe’s gotta find his destiny.
Creative Staff:
Story: Tom Taylor
Art: Ramon Rosanas
Colors: Guru-eFX
Letterer: VC’s Travis Lanham
What They Say:
FIGHT AND FLIGHT! POE DAMERON is the greatest pilot in THE RESISTANCE. But before the Resistance, he commanded another crew. He flew for the NEW REPUBLIC. But was Poe flying for the right cause?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Age of Resistance is an era that I’m really interested in but I’ll admit I’m holding off on a lot of the interest until the third and final film of the trilogy is out. Until the film series is complete, the expanded side is in a holding pattern, unable to tell a lot of stories since they don’t want to reveal things from the films or go against what the films set up. We saw that with the original run from Marvel in the 70s and 80s where so much of what they did was just nuts and had to be ignored. Tom Taylor gives us a solid story for Poe that takes place sometime before The Force Awakens and that’s a helpful area to explore since you know little of Poe’s past is going to make it into the film. Ramon Rosanas has done some good stuff so far with the property and puts in a fun installment here that’s basically all about the space battles.
Putting us with Poe during his time with the New Republic, he’s stationed with the Rapier Squadron on a New Republic space station where he’s waxing poetic about wanting to be out among the stars. He’s not someone that finds appeal on planets with gravity, friction, and things that slow him down. His crewmates give him grief over this but it’s at his core that makes him such a good pilot as he’s bonded to space and how it operates. Which is good as his squadron is called up for a mission, one that involves some real fancy flying. As it turns out, someone was on board the station that has stolen the head of a droid that contains five years of key admiralty conversations. And that has to be stopped from going to hyperspace and escaping.
The book deals with this well by having the Rapier Squadron going after it with the search at first to find and disable it before then trying to bring it back in. I do like how quickly that plays out and that Taylor gives us a reversal of The Last Jedi sequence in terms of communication with Poe from the other ship. What it turns into is a bit of a cat and mouse situation with Poe giving further chase into a dangerous part of local space while the other ship helps to guide them through it. It’s no surprise that it’s not in order to allow themselves to be captured but because they don’t want to actually injure any New Republic people. Taylor’s reveal at the end as to who is orchestrating all of this did leave me chuckling, making it more fun to go back and re-read the dialogue knowing the truth, as it fits with the way George Lucas has always tried to envision the various works with echoes.
In Summary:
I still need to read the Poe Dameron series itself to see how they handled him in a post-TFA period but I’m glad this one went back to his New Republic era and worked out a story there. Tom Taylor gives us a solid interpretation of the character that’s likely a couple of years younger than what we’ve seen and the idealistic streak is welcome. Rosanas’ artwork is spot on with a good handle on the space battle itself and laying out some good panels so that it flows well while keeping the focus on Poe and the other mystery ship itself. It’s a simple but fun story and I like getting a look at the New Republic side and highlighting the way that the organization just isn’t up to speed on the threats that are coming.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 9+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: August 28th, 2019
MSRP: $3.99
