Comic Review: Star Wars Volume 1

After a fairly good new Darth Vader series and a rather lackluster Bounty Hunters series, would a straight-up Star Wars series also set just after Empire Strikes Back work out better or worse than the other two?

Well, this one has Charles Soule writing it, so that’s promising.  Anyway, the new series has a first volume subtitled The Destiny Path.

In the moments after Luke Skywalker learned his true parentage from Darth Vader, his initial reaction is disbelief.  Vader must be lying.  This shattering of his faith actually makes his connection to the Force weaker, so he first needs to reconnect to that.  In the meantime, there’s the Lando situation.  Though Lando is very quick to point out how helpful he was in the end, neither Leia nor Chewy quite trust him yet.  They may not be wrong to do so.

That’s not because Lando is treacherous or anything.  He’s not looking to sell out the Rebellion to the Empire.  It’s more like he is not an idealist and wants to cut his losses and run.  He sees the Rebels in a hopeless situation, and he isn’t entirely wrong as it appears the Empire has cracked the Rebellion’s communications and is using that to wipe out whoever is left.  To earn back trust, Lando will need to find Han and maybe a way to get him back, so anyone wondering how Lando ended up working as one of Jabba the Hutt’s guards…actually, you might be wondering even harder when this is over.

That said, Lando does believe in paying his debts, and he does have one friend he will go out on a limb for in a way that might help him win over his overly cautious new allies.

As for Luke, he sees a vision and needs to go find someone.  I suspect this is all connected to Soule’s own work with a previous Darth Vader series.  I vaguely remember that stuff, and I should probably try to finish that.  What I see here is easily the best of the Star Wars material of these newer series, and the one I am most inclined to continue.

9 out of 10 vengeful Imperial officers.