“The Healing Force”
Creative Staff:
Story: Charles Soule
Art: Steve Cummings, Wayne Faucher, Jethro Morales
Colors: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: VC’s Clayton Cowles
What They Say:
A SITH IN THE MIND’S EYE! LUKE SKYWALKER is trapped deep behind enemy lines, hunted by a rogue SITH who sees the nascent JEDI KNIGHT as his chance at new ascendancy. How will Luke survive… …and who will he be if he does?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With the first blush material out for the Dark Droids storyline so far, it’s managed to not be as bad as I feared – mostly because some of the stories aren’t hitting it up too hard yet. Charles Soule does a solid job as always but it’s definitely interesting going into this after rewatching 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 Steven Cummings on board for the artwork with Jethro Morales and it’s welcome to have them back on the run as their designs and approach are pretty appealing. His work is well-handled with Wayne Faucher and Jethro Morales inking it as well and giving it some real definition. As we’ve said, there’s usually some solid consistency in the Star Wars artists overall for the “house” style that we get and Cummings gets that easily while still keeping their own particular take on things mixed into it, giving it an appealing look overall. Rachelle Rosenberg’s color work helps to bind that together a bit more as well so that it all feels consistent.
With Luke doing the whole mind-meld thing with the red khyber crystal, we saw the first meeting of him and the mysterious Sith woman inside of it in the previous issue, resulting in her essentially trapping him in it. Which was a possibility from the start to be sure as Luke was warned by both Fee and Gretta. What he ends up doing is trying to reach out to her in order to help her change and heal but she’s wholly resistant. Of course, it can’t be left to just that and he finds within the cage of the mind of this story that there’s a baby there as well, which is the Sith woman as a child. What it leads to is interesting in the abstract as it essentially has Luke walking through parts of her life that beat her down and tries to help her get through it. But it comes across more as an after-school special about childhood bullying more than anything else and doesn’t resonate all that much, even as it does help with the mystery woman.
What’s more interesting is that as he tries to heal her pain, she comes back with the idea that he can’t escape without healing himself as well, which makes some sort of sense. That has Luke reliving parts of his past from the last few years, such as the loss of his aunt and uncle, losing Ben, and so forth, and his confrontation with Vader being pivotal. This leans on the whole idea of forgiveness and trying to find the good from within people that have gone bad and since he was just doing it with the Sith woman he has to see this in Vader as well. I do like that he’s clear in not knowing anything about his father beyond the few lines Ben told him years ago but his desire to believe is what will lead him to turning him around in the future. Getting that here as he departs from within the crystal and we see the crystal turn green helps to bring part of that story to a close.
In Summary:
I do like Luke’s surprised moment in the khyber world about gaining a green lightsaber since we know that’s what he’ll get but it comes with him having such a limited understanding of the Jedi and lightsabers in general since he’s really only had his and Ben’s and facing off against Vader. The general idea for all of this is fine but something in the execution just didn’t work as well for me as I had hoped. The afterschool special element in particular didn’t click as it was an opportunity to dig into something from the past that would stand out. I did like the larger framing with the help Luke was getting and that a green crystal comes from being a healed crystal as I can imagine that getting more attention in the past. It’s not a bad storyline overall but it didn’t live up to what it could have been.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 9+
Released By: Marvel Comics
Release Date: February 21st, 2024
MSRP: $4.99
