Four short tales.
Creative Staff:
Story: Charles Soule
Art: Ramon Rosanas, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Daniele Orlandini, Will Sliney, Phil Noto
Colors: Rachelle Rosenberg, Arif Prianto, Guru-e FX
Letterer: VC’s Clayton Cowles
What They Say:
A Celebration across the Galaxy for STAR WARS’ 25th issue! With stories set from the Prequel to the Sequel eras, experience new tales of OBI-WAN & ANAKIN, DARTH VADER, POE DAMERON and KYLO REN. Join Charles Soule, along with his previous artistic collaborators, for this era-spanning celebration!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With this issue serving as the 100th comic story that Charles Soule has written/had printed, it’s done as four short stories that brings him to work with the artists he’s dealt with and made friends with over the years in creating those projects. It’s not a vanity project but one that lets us weave into the small areas and just enjoy a little time with the cast and their situations, understanding them just a bit more without any real threat happening for that moment.
Obi-Wan & Anakin: The Lesson – The opening tale gives us a simple encounter between the two as part of Anakin’s training as a padawan and it delivers some standard but well-executed insights into things. Anakin’s all about power and display of it in order to secure his position, which one can understand coming from being a slave and under the control of others with power. He talks about wanting to fashion more weapons out of the kyber crystals as well which has Obi-Wan talking about the way the Jedi attempt to be perceived and that they have designed similar weapons in the past. It’s an interesting discussion that you can map out larger depending on whether you feel the Jedi are/should be a police force, which is in a state of flux amid the Clone Wars and leading up to it, but what we get here is more solidification of the early positions of these characters that will define their lives.
Darth Vader: The Lesson – This one is a flip to things as it cements the offhand remark of Obi-Wan about the Sith and lightsabers. Focusing on Vader being trained by the Emperor in an industrial section of Coruscant, he makes it clear that the lightsaber is just a symbol that they use to exploit the Jedi and cause fear and distraction. The true weapon is the Dark Side itself that is in everything to be manipulated. It’s an interesting sliver of a look at the view of the Force from this side and is used to humble and humiliate Vader into further subservience toward his Master and all that he knows and can do. It’s also a fun contrast from the first story while also reminding that Vader is, once again, just the student and not learning the right lessons.
Kylo Ren: See You Around – I’m less than enamored with the storytelling for the sequel era comics and novels as the whole foundation of the period doesn’t feel well defined. Here, the focus is on Kylo Ren as he revisits multiple locations looking for Luke Skywalker so that he can deal with him after the events of The Last Jedi – presumably. There’s a touch on history a bit at times in a very light way but mostly it just, to me, reinforces the petulant child aspect of Kylo enough that I don’t want to read anything about him and what he’s doing. I do like the nods to the locations but there’s nothing much here to draw on other than boy seeking revenge.
Poe Dameron: A Eulogy for Snap – I’ve only seen Rise of Skywalker once so the death of Snap Wexley didn’t really register with me long-term as I found that film incredibly frustrating. Snap, however, is a character I really grew to love based on the Aftermath trilogy and getting to know him as a kid so seeing the end run of his life getting a eulogy here isn’t the best thing. It’s well-done and it fits in with how we’ve seen this play out in various Star Wars books when it comes to squadrons and the rituals for lost pilots and it does help to provide a bit more material for the backgrounds of a few of them. But for me, it mostly reinforces the minimal amount of expansion that the sequel era has gotten and the frustration that stems from it.
In Summary:
With this being a kind of commemorative issue for writer Charles Soule, I’m glad a little indulgence was given as doing some short one-off tales is something that I wish Star Wars did more. I enjoy the big arcs and everything but at the same time, the advantage to these kinds of media projects is to do the smaller things and focus on character and connect us more with them. Soule has some fun stuff here and he gets to work once again with some of his favorite artists who have turned in strong stuff over the years working on this overall property, making this an easy and fun read.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 9+
Released By: Marvel Comics via | ComiXology | Kindle
Release Date: January 12th, 2021
MSRP: $3.99
