The deal doesn’t go as planned.
Creative Staff:
Story: Charles Soule
Art: Jay Bazaldua
Colors: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: VC’s Clayton Cowles
What They Say:
“OPERATION STARLIGHT, PART 2 (OF 3)” – REELING FROM THE LOSS OF ONE OF THEIR OWN, THE REBELS FINALLY SEE A PATH FORWARD! THE REBELS attempt to create a new communications code that THE EMPIRE will never be able to crack, in hopes that they might be able to safely reunite their scattered fleet and rejoin the fight. However, the code has a cost, one that LANDO CALRISSIAN is not willing to pay! Meanwhile, STARLIGHT SQUADRON, the group of elite pilots tasked with finding the scattered divisions of the fleet, heads out on its first deadly mission.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
One of the things that I really like that Charles Soule brings to the Star Wars books he writes is that it’s filled with complications. Small things but “human” things in how the people that inhabit this galaxy are looking out for themselves. Especially since this period focuses largely on the outer rim area of things. With a solid start of the storyline in the previous issue, it carries through here and once more Jay Bazaldua definitely succeeds in putting together a great-looking book. I like the way the cast comes across, though Lobot is the weakest of the designs, and we get some great stuff toward the end with the ships and scale of events going on in space. Balancing that isn’t always easy but Bazaldua definitely has it down here.
Threepio’s work on the older droid, a Mark II type, doesn’t go well early on here and the Rebels may have their hopes dashed for a new communications method that would be hard to break. Surprisingly, it’s Lobot that’s able to make the bridging connection to getting it back on track as the two form a kind of symbiotic relationship as Lobot is able to help the droid reorganize its systems. That’s the only reason it agrees to work with the Rebels as it has a vested self-interest in staying operational after being junked for so long. I do like that it’s not like other modern era droids and the complications it causes because it feels like it has more sentience about it. But we also see something else nobody else does in that it can reorganize back with Lobot a bit, to the point where for a moment it proves it can “fix” Lobot back into the normal person he was before his sacrifice to save Lando lead him to being rebuilt like this.
The other chunk of the book focuses on the teams being sent out to the various fallback positions in order to bring them the new codes, hoping to re-establish contact between the fleet. I do like that we get a bit more time with the relationship between Shara and Kes as focusing beyond the core group of characters is what the franchise needs to do more of as time goes on, while still including them to various degrees. Soule gives our main cast here some limited roles but key ones while the supporting cast carries things out. Shara and Kes are definitely enjoyable to watch and with Shara’s mission going as bad as it does, the larger impact is definitely going to make an impact as well. These relationships are also good to see played off the core characters as Leia, who has suffered loss over the years before even knowing Han, can easily understand what the two of them need.
In Summary:
The second part of a three-part storyline, this one does a lot of really interesting work with the cast. I was wondering if we’d see a flavor of the murderbots that we had from the Vader series but the relic here is definitely interesting in his own right and fits into the type a number of other droids have occupied over the years (see: Star Wars Rebels). The concept at work is good, the pacing is solid, and Soule is playing to both the main cast and the supporting cast that’s spread across different eras in really engaging ways. I’m definitely curious to see what else he has up his sleeve in this series as it has the right kind of tone and flow to it that helps to expand on the details in ways that fans like myself love.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 9+
Released By: Marvel Comics via | ComiXology | Kindle
Release Date: January 6th, 2021
MSRP: $3.99
