Star Wars #9

Star Wars #9

Writer: Brian Wood
Artist: Ryan Kelly
Inker: Dan Parsons
Colorist: Gabe Eltaeb
Cover Artist: Hugh Fleming

Star Wars #9 keeps up a fast pace as Leia discovers an Alderaanian with a secret to bear, Han and Chewie continue to evade bounty hunters, and Luke and Wedge try to pull off their their mission inside an enemy controlled Star Destroyer. Meanwhile Vader learns that there is a Skywalker within his grasp as he orders his new minion, Birra, to apprehend him. There’s a lot packed into this issue.

Ryan Kelly pencilling Chewie for ‘Star Wars #9’.

Geralyn: This issue starts out with Leia having a long talk with her fellow Alderaanian survivor, Tag Rogaren. Besides having a lot of Alderaan memorabilia, he was also the chief weapons system engineer on the Death Star. Tag is also carrying around a huge load of guilt. I don’t know if Tag is going to be of any help on down the road to the Rebels, but it’s interesting to speculate about it. It’d be nice if the Bothans didn’t get all the credit.

Skuldren: Personally, I liked the avenues Tag’s character opened up. We’ve caught glimpses of Leia mourning for Alderaan, and here she is talking with a survivor. Yet that survivor turns out to be an ex-Imperial and one of the people responsible for the Death Star’s construction. His character gives Leia a target for her hatred, a catalyst that forces her to deal with her pent up emotions. Yet Tag is more than a simple evil character. The complexity that is revealed creates a more interesting situation. Will Leia kill Tag? Will she forgive him? And more importantly, how will that help her with her own regrets and anger? Regardless of where the story leads, I like the fact that this issue brought those questions up.

Penciled art of Darth Vader for ‘Star Wars #9’, by Ryan Kelly.

Geralyn: Over on the Devastator, Wedge and Luke are making their way pretty darn easily…and they’re suspicious about that. Not to worry, a squad of Stormies shows up, and Luke gets to demonstrate that he’s got some lightsaber chops. He also gets some guidance from Ben’s voice. I like the infrequent moments when Ben’s disembodied voice makes an appearance. There’s also a quick little A New Hope gag before the Luke-Stormie actions starts: mouse droid encounters Luke and Wedge, squeal of alarm and rapid about-face. Vader’s agent Birra Seah has located and identified Wedge and reports that to Vader. Naturally Vader is all about capturing Luke alive “…at any and all costs”. I guess he really wants that father-son reunion. Or union since they’ve never actually met. We get a cryptic Vader monologue about “fools something something battle stations something something Emperor something something THE ULTIMATE POWER IN THE UNIVERSE LIES ELSEWHERE!” You get the picture. Something tells me Darth Vader and Son aren’t going to get that meetup just yet.

Skuldren: One thing I did not like about Vader’s dialog is when he says the Emperor is overestimating the power of the Death Star and doesn’t fully appreciate the power of the Force. To me, that seemed off. Either Vader is genuinely ignorant enough to think that he has more knowledge of the power of the Force, or he’s deluded himself into thinking that. Either way, it just didn’t seem to fit the character and what we know about Star Wars. Vader can go on all he wants about non-Force users like Motti not giving the Force it’s due, but the Emperor is one person who certainly knows the power of the dark side.

Aside from Vader, Leia, Luke and Wedge, there’s some nice Han and Chewie scenes in this issue.

Penciled art of Boba Fett for ‘Star Wars #9’, by Ryan Kelly.

Geralyn: Han, oh Han. The more things change, the more they stay the same. While he’s still trying to evade bounty hunters, the Falcon and Chewie show up to help, they succeed, wait…no, they don’t. Hard to tell since Boba Fett is hanging on for dear life to the Falcon. Since Boba doesn’t fall into the Sarlacc for another two movies, the odds are 100% that he’s not going to die here in this comic. I’d still kinda like to see Chewie flip the Falcon and dump Boba on his head.

Skuldren: As a Fett fan, I like seeing his persistence. He goes extravehicular to take on Han, and even with they give him the slip, he manages to hang on to their tail, figuratively speaking.

Geralyn: And we close out this issue with Prithi nobly determined to hang around the Devastator even though her air supply is running out. Also the really subtle last line in this issue is, NEXT: TO THE LAST BREATH.

Honestly, this was a fun issue with tons of action, a bit of story advancement, and lots of OT vibe to it. If I could improve on one thing, it would be the pace of the story. At the rate this is going I think it may have taken George Lucas less time to make the original trilogy than to tell this story.

Skuldren: Visually this issue was pretty solid. Leia may look a little off in her representation in some panels, but there’s some great shots of Boba Fett blasting through space with his rocket pack and a very cool close up of Vader near the end. The colors are bright and colorful with an excellent use of lighting. All in all the artwork goes well with the story and presents a fun combination.

Geralyn: We give this issue a solid 4/5 metal bikinis.