“Escape From No-Space”
Creative Staff:
Story: Charles Soule
Art: Madibek Musabekov
Colors: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: VC’s Clayton Cowles
What They Say:
Luke Skywalker’s connection to the Force has been disrupted; one of his most powerful tools in his journey to become a Jedi is gone. He must undertake an epic quest to find what he has lost…or he, and the galaxy, will fall to darkness.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
We’ve had some good stories in this run lately and the previous issue took us to a pretty fun place with a character I really like, bringing in Holdo for more use – even if we’re basically getting a side quest story. With the expectation of big changes going through this year for the comics side of this franchise, we’re inching ever closer to the events of Return of the Jedi. Once again, Charles Soule does a solid job as always but it’s definitely interesting going into this after watching the first half of Andor and wanting to feel more of that kind of property than the kind of lighter touch here. This issue has Madibek Musabekov on board for the artwork again, and his presence overall works well with it. There’s usually some solid consistency in the Star Wars artists overall for the “house” style that we get and.Genolet gets that easily while still keeping their own particular take on things mixed into it, giving it an appealing look overall.
The No-Space storyline thankfully comes to a close here but it helps to nudge a few other things along the way. The main thing that happens is that Lando and Holdo get to see that Luke has some real power. While he’s being overpowered by the droid at the Great Hall, he ends up instinctively using the force and tosses all of them into space. It takes a lot out of him – and he loses his prosthetic hand along the way – but it ties into how he’s connected to the Force and that more things are going on. Does this connect wit the Hidden Empire events? Possibly. Either way, it helps to solidify in his mind that he has to prepare for what’s to come and understand his abilities more while also getting going on building a new lightsaber as even R2 couldn’t do the repair work on Luke’s damaged one.
The success of the mission means a chance out of No-Space and it’s a pretty solid bit where we get some honesty from both Leia and especially Lando about the state of the galaxy and just who they all are. A good chunk of people are going back but a lot are staying as well now that there’s more space and this place has become home over the centuries. What delights me the most, however, is just getting time to see Holdo and Lando talk about what they want – to a degree – and that there may be more there than they realize. I’m hopeful that it gets explored more or that we just get more of Holdo in her own miniseries as she really shines in this storyline and for me became the main draw amid a lot of other noise that didn’t work well. And she and Lando definitely click well together in a way that I did not expect at all. More Holdo is what I’m saying.
In Summary:
The No-Space story itself didn’t do much for me and as an event, it just felt pretty bland and forgettable. The concept isn’t bad but parts of it simply didn’t click for me even though I liked the nods to the past. The stuff with Luke was okay at best and seeing Leia and Lando manage expectations and leadership here was a lot of fun. The Lando and Holdo material was the best for me and it looked pretty great with the artwork, which is a given considering the team at hand. It ran about as long as I expected and did what it set out to do but it felt like there were other areas to explore and work with here that would have been more interesting.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 9+
Released By: Marvel Comics
Release Date: April 5th, 2023
MSRP: $3.99
