“Those With Power Never Run.”
Creative Staff:
Story: Greg Pak
Art: Phil Noto
Letters: VC’s Clayton Cowles
What They Say:
FINAL ISSUE! IT’S A TRAP! The epic REBELS AND ROGUES storyline reaches its explosive end! Can THREEPIO save the rock people of K43? Is WARBA the master or the student? Which Champion falls? And how much of LUKE’S desperate plan has DARTH VADER foreseen from the beginning? The search for a new rebel base continues!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With several years and 75 issues under its belt for the main run, the Star Wars series draws to a close until it starts up at a first issue next year. Normally, I’d prefer not to do this but it makes sense here as we’re going to be telling stories that take place after The Empire Strikes Back. I’d almost wish that they’d show the discovery and setup of Hoth instead of post-ESB stories right away but hopefully there’ll be a surprise or two. This current storyline closes out at eight chapters with this issue, which has extra pages, rounds out Greg Pak and Phil Noto’s run as well. I liked a lot of what Pak has done in general but there was a sense of uncertainty as to how to wrap things up as this arc went on too long and it just doesn’t feel like the right closure for what it represents. Phil Noto was someone I wasn’t sure was going to be right on this book after his Chewie miniseries but the approach was different here and it definitely worked out very well with a lot of great pages and designs.
The bulk of this issue takes place with everyone at the rock world and throws pretty much everything that it can at it. The rock creatures are ones that I don’t exactly care for as I’ve mentioned with each issue that they’ve been in and they get a bit more ridiculous here. Events go so big so as to destroy the planet but the reality is that the planet is its own rock creature, the “grandmother” as they refer to it, and that she’ll curl back up into a ball later and they’ll all just settle back down at that point, so there’s no real issue or threat to be had here. It’s goofy and I absolutely hate having a giant rock creature crush a star destroyer within its hand. Too much, too much. But the smaller moments work decently, particularly in the kind of bond that they’ve formed with Threepio and honor him for his ability to spend so much time with flesh beings. These work nicely but don’t hold up against the problematic material.
There’s a lot of chaos on-world and off once it ends up transforming, especially with Vader attacking and getting close to Luke, the bombs being set off, and having Champion standing up to Vader with a blaster, aligning himself with Leia and being close to her in a way that frustrates Han a whole. There’s basically a lot of chaos as everyone tries to survive the seeming explosion of the planet and then the forces being thrown at them. It’s just… there’s nothing meaningful there. Yeah, there’s a nod to Carpo being involved and taken out so as to free up other things but nothing with Champion resonated in general. There are close calls and some callbacks – such as Vader riding the rock over the seeming lava – but even these just feel perfunctory.
In Summary:
With most storylines wrapping up in six issues, this one did it in eight and it most definitely overstayed its welcome. Frankly, if this had been the last issue to be made then it would have been a sign of lack of creativity in working in this universe of stories. It’s just mediocre at best in what it does and it was done in a really drawn out and expanded way that didn’t add much of anything new at all. I have hopes with the next series and a renewed sense about it because it’s easy to understand why as a series draws down you end up with some creative roadblocks. The result is this storyline that felt padded to reach seventy-five and that didn’t have a whole lot to say. I’ve really enjoyed this run overall and am glad to have been along for the ride.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: All Ages
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: November 20th, 2019
MSRP: $3.99
