Bento Review: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

I realize a lot of Comic Bento’s stuff is stuff different publishers send out to grab a potential reader’s attention and maybe get them to buy more books by that same publisher.  Hey, it worked for me with Valiant!

But Marvel’s stuff seems to be more obvious about it, as many Marvel books often tie in with something else coming out about the same time.  Like how this month’s box, with that whole “Legacies” theme, sent out the comic adaptation of last year’s Rogue One which is not at all suspicious what with a new Star Wars movie being out right now.

So, here’s the thing…since I’ve already seen the movie, it’s not like this book was packed full of surprises, aside from a special story at the end, a bonus that showed how Captain Cassian met and reprogrammed the Imperial droid K-2SO.  The artwork does a good job of looking like the different actors from the movie, but the story itself felt very…compressed.

Let’s put it this way:  if you remember any scene at all from Rogue One, it’s that awesome moment when Darth Vader goes through those Rebel fighters without breaking a sweat.  That whole scene is reduced to less than a single page in this book.  Everything else feels rushed.  I don’t feel like I know the characters any better than I did before, and it wouldn’t make me want to go see the movie if I hadn’t already.  I had a graphic novel version of Return of the Jedi when I was a kid, and I paged through that thing like crazy, and while it wasn’t as good as seeing the movie, it ddin’t feel rushed like this did.  Granted, I haven’t read that book in over thirty years or so, but you get the idea.

Point is, I didn’t like this one much.  Four out of ten rushed scenes.

NEXT BOOK:  Up next we have a thick one called Tumor from Oni.  Let’s hope it’s as awesome as it looks.