Darth Maul #1

Darth Maul #1

One of my favourite characters from the prequel trilogy is coming to the comic medium in the pages of Marvel’s Darth Maul series! Written by Cullen Bunn (Deadpool, Magneto, Sinestro) and drawn by Luke Ross, this title will probably examine the time before Episode 1 where Darth Maul and Darth Sidious are plotting against the Jedi.

One of my long-living memories of seeing Maul in The Phantom Menace is his snarling face when facing Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui Gon Jinn on Naboo, incidentally this face is the subject of one of the variant covers coming out with the first issue along with a few other variant covers.

Maul has had a lot more exposure recently as well through the hit show Star Wars Rebels in which it is revealed that his fate at the end of Episode 1 may not have been so final after all. He is a sinister, evil character that feeds on hatred and through seeing him along with Palpatine in Episode 1 I often wondered about that got the two of them to that peak where they could finally reveal themselves to the Jedi.

Darth Maul #1 is out February 1st.

Star Wars #26

Star Wars #26

*cue theme music*

This Star Wars book has been Marvel’s primary offering since getting the licence to publish Star Wars again for the first time since 1986! The series started with plenty of fan fare but actually overshadowed Dark Horse’s final run on it which was also brilliant and well-worth picking up retrospectively, apart from the fact that all of Dark Horse’s work is now non-canon….

“sorry-not-sorry, Dark Horse”

- Marvel

The current Star Wars story follows the Rebels after the destruction of the first Death Star and focuses on a few different characters even doing some issues from the Imperial point of view (say hello to Scar Squadron). Along with this we have a series of Obi Wan Kenobi issues done in the style of diary entries of when he was protecting young Luke on Tatooine. Throw in a host of excellent variant covers and Marvel have put an appreciable amount of effort into what is essentially a side-show for them.

This issue happens to be one of the Obi-Wan stories but this is the first time that the Obi-Wan diaries are interspersed with the ongoing story-line.

In the ongoing story our mighty heroes have restored HOPE to the Galaxy. I capitalized the word hope because apparently hope is super important as shown in the recent documentary Rogue One.

Rebels have captured an Imperial Star Destroyer not unlike previous Star Wars story arcs (Wedge Antilles shows up in the captured Lusankya in Crimson Empire) and the main characters have escaped the clutches of the evil Darth Vader. All except one of them... C-3PO who now faces interrogation at the hands of Scar Squadron.

Much like Action or Detective Comics you can jump into Star Wars at any issue number and enjoy it. Even better this issue kicks off a new story arc: Yoda’s Secret War. Get on it!

Review: Lando Mini-Series

This is a review of the mini-series 'Lando' by Marvel. As such it contains spoilers of the series.

The short version: Lando sucks.

The long version: Lando sucks a lot.

The slightly longer version:

We start in bed with a woman. Marvel feel the need to point out how suave and better with women than I am Lando is in every series apparently (see Shattered Empire which I helpfully reviewed here... you're welcome.).

We are told that the woman is in fact some big governor of an Imperial world and Lando (that old dog) is trying to steal some artifact from her. She doesn't appreciate this. Why don't you just use your smooth moves on her Lando?

That's exactly what he does. She pulls a gun and he's all like "Netflix and chill, bae."

Next up, after stealing all her nice stuff, we meet Lobot, the rather silent type from The Empire Strikes Back who helps Lando run Cloud City on Bespin. It's actually nice to see a bit more of this character and the series is as much about him as it is about Lando.

Lando gets cornered by [insert generic crime boss] and is told he owes him money but, as luck would have it, the crime boss has one lined up nice and easy like. By easy I mean go and rewatch Firefly to see how the easy jobs usually end up. On an unrelated by more pleasant note, I'm currently taking part in an awesome Firefly RPG run by my good friend Dave, see the first write up here.

At the end of the issue they successfully acquire the ship and we pan out to see that it belongs to none other than Emperor Palpatine himself. Oh what a wonderful twist which no one was expecting. But wait, there's more! Issue two to be precise, the cover of which looks like Lando is scratching Lobot's belly...

Here the Emperor takes some action to get his ship back and that's about it up until the last page where Lobot opens one of the doors in the ship and gets stabbed by the Emperor's Royal Guard. If you're unfamiliar with the Emperor's Royal Guard then you can see glimpses of them in Return of the Jedi or catch them in their pinnacle series: Crimson Empire. 

We're on to issue #3. They kill the Royal Guards.

We're on to issue #4. The Sith artifacts on the ship drive everyone a little insane and the Emperor's Bounty Hunter catches up to Lando and the ship. Lo and behold, it's a woman who Lando knows...

Issue #5 moves with sluggish predictability. The only actual gap that was plugged by Marvel in this story is how Lobot ends up not being able to speak or be human any more. His implants have taken over his mind since he wasn't able to fend them off since he was stabbed. 

That's it.

Don't you wish you'd read the short version now?

Star Wars Shattered Empire #2

Issue #2 Variant Cover I picked up on release day

What a blast that issue was to read. A-Wings, Y-Wings, Imperial AT-ATs attacking a civilian city and Leia visiting a familiar place, this issue had a lot of bang for your buck and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

So before I talk about the story there is one little tidbit I spotted in this issue which could be something or could be nothing.

Lieutenant Shara Bey has been flying non-stop since the Battle for Endor and her commanding officer is concerned. At one point he asks her:

"When did you last hear from Kes? Or your boy?"

"I talked to my father and Poe last week but...Kes [ ]"

So hold on, her son's name is Poe? And the new character just released for the X-Wing Miniatures Game is Poe also? Something tells me it's not an overly common name in that far-far-away galaxy. 

The Poe Dameron card for the X-Wing Miniatures Game

We're reading the story about Poe Dameron's parents!

In fact I should have spotted it in the first issue when Green Four addresses her lover as Sargent Dameron!

The story itself revolves around the fact that Green Four has been flying too many combat missions since Endor so she gets assigned transport duties for Princess Leie to visit Naboo. While on Naboo the eerily familiar event of planet-wide communications blackout occurs, only this time it's not a droid army in orbit, it's the Imperial Navy!

Issue #2 was a blast. It's an impressive book so far, looking forward to the rest of it.

PS: Keep an eye on how they deal with the AT-AT problem...

Darth Vader

I discuss Marvel's Darth Vader run.


I've been reading Marvel's Darth Vader since it first came out as part of Marvel's onslaught on the Star Wars Universe, culminating recently in the latest series, Shattered Empire, on final approach to Abrams Airport in December.

As has been their purview this year Marvel's plan is apparently to fill in every gap ever left in the original trilogy (keep an eye out for my Lando review coming soon, Star Wars and Shattered Empire). Vader does this but with some decent writing on the part of Kieron Gillen (The Wicked + The Divine and the upcoming Invincible Iron-Man title) and grim, dusty colouring art (Adi Granov).

Love this Variant cover for issue #1 by Mike Del Mundo.

For me Gillen doesn't capture Vader properly though. Inevitably when Vader speaks I have his voice in my head (no not Dave Prowse's voice thank the maker...) and some of the lines just don't suit what I feel Vader would actually say. In some cases he even talks too much whereas I see Vader as a 'doer' not a 'talker'. The only extended talking he does in the original trilogy before taking on Skywalker in RotJ is on Bespin when he's telling his son that he was his real father! Almost every other line is an order barked at every poor soul he meets or an argument defending his place in the ruthless Galactic Empire.

This is how I picture Vader as a key player in the Galactic Civil War: Decisive, Ruthless, Aggressive and Authoritative. He displays all of those characteristics in the Darth Vader comics but sometimes sparingly and rarely cohesively.

On to the story itself. We're coming up on issue #10 now and it has progressed nicely. A force-sensitive pilot (some jerk called Luke Starkiller or something) has blown up the Death Star orbiting Yavin 4. The Emperor is less than happy about this and blames Vader for everything (literally everything, he even left the immersion on apparently) and expects attonement. Vader takes this as a hint to do whatever the hell he wants including going behind the Emperor's back and hiring all kinds of very untrustworthy types in his quest for the Rebel pilot.

There are some absolutely brilliant bits of imagery and writing in the series, including colouring that is well-suited to lightsaber battles and that classic Vader ruthlessness I mentioned. At one point he skips the force choke and just actually chokes someone, scaring the living piss out of them.

I'll continue reading the series but how far past issue #10 I go depends on the direction the story starts to take I'm afraid. While I am a huge Star Wars fan there are just too many good titles out there right now to spend too long holding your breath for a book to come good if it's not doing it for you already.

What will I move on to? The millions of new Marvel titles coming out this October/November as part of the All-New, All-Different Marvel event starting: Invincible Iron-Man, Spider-Man 2099 (my personal favourite), Silk, Chewbacca, Extraordinary X-Men, Spider-Woman, and the rest.

Star Wars Shattered Empire/We Stand on Guard

The new Star Wars Shattered Empire Force Awakens series and the latest offering of We Stand on Guard.

In general my opinion of 'filling-in-the-gaps' and 'flashback' story arcs, let alone a series where that aspect is the entire premise, has been quite low. Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens might just be the exception. 

The story starts in the maelstrom of battle that takes place over the forest moon in Return of the Jedi. We follow Green Squadron and an A-Wing pilot named Shara (Green Four) as they try and survive Emperor Palpatine's well-laid trap: a fully armed and operational battle station (if you just said that in Ian McDiarmid's voice have an internet cookie).

The abrupt 'ending' in Return of the Jedi was obviously necessary for the cinematic experience but in the context of the Galactic Civil War the destruction of the second Death Star was to Star Wars what Normandy was to World War II; yes it was a huge tide turning event but it was the beginning of the end, not the end itself and all of the real work now had to be done. There was a huge amount of fighting to do after this and that is the path that this series starts down.

The drawing is detailed, muted and epic all in one go and well-suited to space combat. For the recent wave of gamers getting serious about X-Wing Miniatures Game from Fantasy Flight Games this first issue is worth your coinage for sure.

It also includes something that I always played out in the back of my mind: what happened after Luke loaded his dying dad onto that shuttle in the Death Star II hangar bay. Snippet below, full scene in the comic.

We Stand on Guard is a series I spoke of previously. It is written by Brian K. Vaughan (of Lost and Saga fame). My local comic guru in Dublin warned me that the last issue was a bit graphic and he wasn't underselling it either, this issue (#3) is hard to read at times as the writer and artist go into some detail about the true horrors of what it's like to get interrogated in wartime and how much easier it is to break the rules of prisoner treatment than it is to have them enforced.

After reading it, the cover image becomes haunting and iconic for the characters in the series so far.

Both well-written and outside the main-stream, if you haven't tried it yet and you're looking for something to distract you from the impending Marvel revamp, look no further.

Star Wars/Amazing Spider-Man

I discuss the special Obi-Wan Kenobi throwback issue from Star Wars #7 and picking up a sweet variant of Amazing Spider-Man #3.

Star Wars #7

My friendly-local-comic-book-store kindly obliged me in putting aside a variant cover of Star Wars #7. After issue #6's bombshell that Han was married and had a wife issue #7 departs completely from the normal story arc and instead reveals an excerpt from Obi-Wan Kenobi's diary (I wonder if he means old Ben Kenobi...).

Simone Bianchi steps in as the artist to work on this issue with Jason Aaron continuing the writing. Bianchi's signature is all over this issue, using dark shadows to accentuate his character's expressions. Aaron shows glimpses of Luke's life on Tatooine with iconic images from the movies like Luke staring out at the horizon with the two settings suns approaching turned into young Luke sitting on the roof of the old stone building in the same cinematic shot but looking up to the sky dreaming.

Another scene has Luke captured by *insert generic Tatooine gang-member* and has resonance with his father's childhood on the same planet when Luke says he's scared. The same conflict of emotion was evident in young Anakin Skywalker when he runs back to his mother's arms as he's leaving but later when he's asked "Are you afraid?" by Padme he just says he's cold. The parallels between the two young Skywalkers and their lives on Tatooine before leaving the planet behind are revealing and well-portrayed, if only briefly in this issue. Maybe a sign of more young Luke stories in the future of the title? Here's hoping.

Amazing Spider-Man #3 Variant

I also did some impulse shopping in Dublin over the weekend and, while rooting through a big back-collections of comics, found a variant cover I absolutely love. It's the Tim Sale variant cover (1:25) of Amazing Spider-Man #3. For me it really rolls back the years to older Spider-Man covers but with really nice, muted tones and pastel colouring. I think I'll be selling this one rather than keeping it but until then I'll be looking at it and drooling all over the plastic.

-J